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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33391 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 17, 2023

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can you demonstrate how one would communicate the same idea in a less heated manner?

Sure thing.

If he is doing this, do you think it sounds like "Excuse me sir, I am expecting to be at address X and...?" Or do you think it is more likely that he was making demands in a loud, plausibly aggressive tone of voice that could easily be misinterpreted before he's even properly reached the door? I've seen people do this.

In my experience, there are cultures of people who communicate anything they want in a direct, loud, demanding, and repetitive fashion, even when they have no ill intentions, and can make others uneasy even during actually fairly neutral interactions with them, much less an 84 year old man.

I've had plenty of interactions with people who have wrongfully assumed that they needed/wanted something from me or vice versa based on various mistakes of fact, and while many of these have ended in a non-threatening "Oh, my bad" (though sometimes they also just like to immediately disengage and walk away without comment, almost like weird primitive AI agents, once they realize you're not the droid they're looking for), getting there is usually still an uneasy process as they just do not seem to practice the habits of clearly confirming and socially negotiating their presence and intent nearly as much as I am used to.

This of course is not malicious behavior in their book. They have no problems yelling at each other repetitively until one side's shouting wins. But if you aren't used to it I can see why it might seem hostile.

I did not write a loquacious ban message because it seemed unnecessary to do so, but the rule requiring posts to be about specific rather than general groups, to the extent possible, absolutely applies here. @WhiningCoil's response, which I am tempted to moderate as well, illustrates the problem. I have met many black people. I have met some who behaved in the ways described above; I have met many who did not. I have also had entirely too many encounters, in my life, with white people who behaved in the ways described above.

This is--obviously--a high-heat discussion topic. That is not an excuse; it is a reason to work even harder to live up to the rules.

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