Right now, the number one post on my personal Reddit feed is this: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9bryj8/straight_guys_of_reddit_whats_the_most_intimate/

Reading through this made me feel quite a few different emotions, but I would say that my biggest takeaway is disappointment.

I'm pretty young, being in my late twenties, but I know that the largest Reddit demographic is younger than me. And it terrifies me to see that people who are probably less than 15 years younger than me appear to be far more stricken by toxic masculinity than I was when I was their age. Right now the top response is a story about someone scratching his friend's back during a military deployment. He later mentions that his comrades gave him a hard time for it. Is the idea of machismo so fragile that we cannot take simple actions - even to provide relief to a friend?

I'll be the first to admit that a single AskReddit thread is not going to be an accurate representation of the levels of intimacy men actually give each other. But the simple fact that it's full of jokes, to me, makes it appear that they are using humor as a defense mechanism.

The fact that young men have so many barriers preventing them from building bonds with other men in a society often partitioned by gender deeply concerns me. I worry that this is the beginning of a societal issue in the same vein as racism was for our parents and grandparents and will only cause more problems as we age and gain political sway.

I'm bringing this up here because I would like some perspective on this. I've always been very sympathetic to other people, and my views as a gay man are obviously going to be different from straight men. Where is this toxicity coming from? Is there a way we can stop it, or is it already ingrained in the collective psyche?

be it coffee
be it kratom
be it moscato
be it meth
be it canna
be it coca

we've had a lot of more serious or intentful posts about drug use, usually with a focus on depression or addiction, but we've never had a ~talk.casual type conversation about it.

what drugs do you do? why do you like em? do you like em?

what do you want to try?

i can see how this post could push on a border of "acceptable" content, so my bad if i'm breaking any rules.

I've been trying to simplify my life for a few years now, from an environmental and mental health angle. One small change I found made a surprisingly significant difference is wearing an outfit for four days at a time.

Why four days? The original news article that inspired me, had a woman wear the same dress for 1 whole year! That was too much for me. My work has casual Fridays, so this sort just covers me switching to jeans on Friday. At least that was my reasoning when I started. Now, I wear everything for four days at a time regardless.

Obvious exceptions for if any item is dirty, clothing is not sufficient for weather or if I have to change an outfit for an event. I'm also not super hard on myself, so if I woke up feeling like a different shirt, I will just switch.

How this helped me? I don't spend any time in the morning thinking about what to wear anymore. Also don't wonder which clothes are clean, and don't accumulate as large a pile of "not clean enough to go back in the drawer" and "not dirty enough to wash" clothes in my bathroom/bedroom. I do laundry noticeably less, as I'm not just dumping my previously mentioned pile into my basket all the time. Clothes I do wash, all fit on my laundry line now, so I just air dry them. Previously, I machine dried anything that didn't fit.

Surprisingly, no one's really noticed me doing this, and definitely no one's said anything. I did tell a few people a few months in, including some coworkers and family I see everyday. They were shocked, lol.

This is also a bit of an anti-consumption thing for me. I currently have more than enough clothes, but thought if I reduced the amount I needed day-to-day, what I already own can last longer and I would be more aware of what I actually need to replace when it comes up.

So, thoughts on this or other things you may have tried to simplify your life?

One of my favorite topics in Psychology is personality and there happens to be a very good Five Factor test that is free to the public domain with all 3,000+ items available for download. Some notes about the IPIP NEO-PI:

Purpose of this On-Line Inventory

• The primary purpose of this on line inventory is to educate the public about the five factor model of personality.
• More specifically, the report explains the likely consequences of one's standing on five broad personality domains.
• These broad domains cover normal differences in personality that should be obvious to people who know you well.
• Secondarily, this inventory estimates your standing on the 5 broad domains and 30 subdomains of personality.
• The inventory does not reveal hidden, secret information about you nor does it assess serious psychological disorders.
• The report is designed to be objective, not pleasing or flattering.
• Measurement error, misunderstandings, carelessness, and mischievous responding can invalidate the report.
• If knowledgeable acquaintances disagree with the test results, then the results are wrong.

Link to the questionnaire:
https://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/

More about the International Personality Item Pool:

https://ipip.ori.org/

They don't have to be significant in any way; just threads you personally enjoyed.

The ones that immediately come to mind for me are:

Chasing the American dream has got me jaded - started by @dodger.

https://tildes.net/~talk/29a/chasing_the_american_dream_has_got_me_jaded

and

grab some tea baby, it's midnight. this is today's slam thread. - led by the fantastic @earlgreytea.

https://tildes.net/~creative/3gt/grab_some_tea_baby_its_midnight_this_is_todays_slam_thread

Neither of them had hundreds of comments, and neither of them were particularly active; I just find myself particularly fond of them for whatever reason.

When I was in high school I went to China through an education program. On the plane there I was seated next to an elderly Chinese woman on my left and a mother and daughter to my right.

While talking with the daughter and mother at some point the elderly woman became involved. She spoke cantonese and my mandarin was limited so the mother helped to translate.

The elderly woman took out paper and pen from her bag and began to have me write me characters. Some time after, she put her hands on my face and began to massage it in circular motions. It was strange but pleasant because clearly her intentions were good. I looked over to the man who was leading my fellow students, and got a thumbs up as he mouthed "just go with it".

I'd never experienced such caring from a complete stranger. It was a lovely introduction into their culture and genuine happiness to share it.

A Short Summary and Introduction Before the Actual Content of This Post:

A site—especially a small one, like Tildes—is going to have growing pains. That's natural. It's also natural, and to some extent, necessary, for users to raise issue with remedies for these growing pains. However, there's a spectrum of correct ways to do this, and a way to not do this. If you aren't interested in—or think you already have a firm grasp on the subject of—this post, you might want to skip it.

Tildes has reached its first major streak of growing pains, as I'm sure everyone active or lurking's noticed. We've also reached our first few incorrect methods of handling these. There are a few obvious things you shouldn't do, and everyone knows that—tantrums, slurs, personal attacks, etcetera—I'm going to be discussing a less realised one, and ways you could handle it instead.

Now, onto the good stuff.

Repeatedly, when handling issues, Tildes has seen a recurring circumstance. User makes post, upset. User namedrops and or subposts a user (the most apt description I could think of for a term lifted off of Twitter—subtweet—for example, "I'm not saying it's Garfield I'm talking about, but there was a suspiciously large orange cat with a mild food addiction with a fondness for lasagne who really pushed my buttons!" and etcetera). User hits "send." The targets of it feel offended, and the poster gets yelled at by the community for hurting people. No one wins.

The trick to fixing this: stop going out of your way to call out users, directly or indirectly. If you have issue with something someone said, either take it to an administrator, or directly message the user in question (politely, of course.) There's no reason to air dirty laundry in public, and there's no reason to bring personal grievances into the public eye for minor things.

If you notice an issue, do the above, and nothing changes, wait a short while before making a post on it. There's a fair chance it will resolve itself. If you end up feeling the need to make a post, do not mention individual conversations. Do not give examples from actual conversations; make an analogous example and put it into quote blocks. Never name a name or names, don't allow hate to be directed at anyone.

We're all (presumably) adults (or close enough,) here. If you have any desire for Tildes to flourish, act like an adult. Passive aggression isn't the behaviour of one. Aim to have better behaviour than the docs recommend; you might slip up sometimes, but you'll never fall too far if you keep that in mind.

Anyway, if you ended up reading this; thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it. I've spent a lot of time handling large forums, and in comparison to most of you, fairly small, incredibly high-volatility subreddits with immeasurably close communities. If you can't get a community to do the above, or something close to it, it's more or less going to be a death warrant for it. We'd all prefer not to have that happen to Tildes, so I—and presumably, most of us—would really appreciate if people made an effort to stop that from occurring.

Hate to copy reddit's slogan, but really:

Remember the Human.

Thanks again,

Eva.

Let's debate religion. I don't think I've seen this topic on Tildes yet and it might be interesting.

My country has practically no visible religion - about 10-15% of our population is religious (mostly seniors) - and just a fraction of them does those religious thing like going to church. Religion basically doesn't exist here. We have a lot of nice churches, but they mostly aren't used.

The thing that I think caused this big amount of atheists (agnostics, ...) is that almost noone is raised to believe in God - in our culture, we don't teach religion at all. Kids are taught that religions exist, but they are not pressed to believe in it such as in other parts of world. They choose what to believe. And God isn't the thing people choose for most of the time.

Whenever I see anything about USA (discussion, film, serial), I frequently see religion there. When I saw it for the first time when I was young, I thought something like "They still have religion there? I thought USA is developed country". I don't think it anymore, I understand better why are people religious, but still - I'd like to know more about more religious cultures and what effect religion have in other countries.

I recall recently seeing an article posted that was related to euthanasia, and I started thinking about the subject. I see both potential pros and potential cons associated with it. For example, there's the concern about family members or authority pressuring an ill person to opt for doctor-assisted suicide to ease financial burdens, for instance. There's also the benefit, on the other hand, of allowing someone who is terminally ill or guaranteed to live the rest of their life in excruciating pain the option to go out on their own terms. With proper oversight and ethical considerations, it generally seems to be an all-around ideal to provide an "opt-out" for those who would only continue to suffer and would rather not prolong it, as a merciful alternative to forcing them to live it out.

But then there are some trickier questions.

As a disclaimer, I spent nearly a couple of decades struggling through depression and have been surrounded (and still am surrounded) by people who struggle with their own mental illnesses. Because of this, I'm perfectly aware of the stigma and subpar treatment of mental illness in general. With that in mind, I completely recognize that there are certain conditions which are, at this time, completely untreatable and result in peoples' quality of life deteriorating to the point that they become perpetually miserable, particularly with certain neurodegenerative diseases.

Thus, the question occurred to me: wouldn't such a condition be the mental health equivalent of a terminal illness? Would it not be unethical to force someone to continue living under conditions in which their quality of life will only diminish? Shouldn't someone who has such a condition, and is either of sound enough mind or with a written statement of their wishes from a time when they were of sound enough mind, be able to make the same decision about whether or not to opt to go out on their own terms?

And yet, as reasonable as it sounds, for some reason the thought of it feels wrong.

Is there something fundamentally more wrong about euthanasia for mental health vs. euthanasia for physical health? Is it just a culturally-learned ideal?

More importantly, what makes euthanasia acceptable in some cases and not others? Which cases do you think exemplify the divide? Is there something more fundamental that we can latch onto? Is there a clear line we can draw? Is psychology itself just too young a field for us to be drawing that ethical line?

I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about this subject. I would be interested in hearing some other thoughts on the subject. The questions above don't necessarily have to be answered, but I thought they could be good priming points.

I considered sending this only as a PM to Deimos, but since it actually involves the community and Deimos has no real control over it, I think it's better suited as a public post.

Users are always quick to point to the "paradox of tolerance" clause in the Tildes vision:

Tildes will not be a victim of the paradox of tolerance; my philosophy is closer to "if your website's full of assholes, it's your fault".

But I believe there's an even more important clause, right in the actual Tildes Docs:

If people treat each other in good faith and apply charitable interpretations, everyone's experience improves. (emphasis mine)

A lot of users here, including some well-known power users, are quick to call "Hate!" where there is no actual hate. Controversial statements are quickly interpreted to their most extreme. Yes, there have been some hateful incidents here and I won't deny that, but a lot of well-meaning discussions are lumped into the mix and shut down because they might lead to hate or because they are associated with hate.

Honest discussions, political or otherwise, can't be had in a climate like this. Echo chamber, hivemind, circlejerk... call it whatever, but that's where things are heading.

For the record, I absolutely agree with this part of the Tildes vision, as written by Deimos:

I believe that it's possible to support the ability to freely discuss important and controversial topics without also being obligated to allow threats, harassment, and hate speech.

Threats, harassment, and hate speech have no place anywhere. But sadly, instead of supporting controversial topics as written, it seems certain topics will have no place here because they are controversial. Tildes right now is not the Tildes we were promised, and seems to be veering further away by the day.

If this is the Tildes everyone wants, that's fine of course. But to me, it's no better than Reddit.

(EDIT: Those in the comments have asked me to remove specific names. I have replaced names with emoji that I like.)

We recently had:

• a thread whose OP defended a confederate statue erected by white supremacists on purely apolitical grounds
• a thread whose OP defended scientific racism on purely apolitical grounds

I'm really annoyed. If you really want to defend something that looks to everyone else like white supremacy, please avoid:

• Claiming to be apolitical while disagreeing with someone's politics. If you're telling someone else "your political stance is wrong," you're having a political opinion. "You're being too political" is a political opinion the same way "there is no God" is a religious opinion. This happened like a kajillion times in both threads.

• Granting benefit of the doubt to white supremacists or sources only used by white supremacists. Example: In the confederate statue thread, 🦇 effectively said "OK, so the builders of the statue hired a white supremacist speaker to commemorate it -- but they're not white supremacists and neither is the statue." Seriously, come on. And stop citing the spokespeople of white supremacist groups to prove they're not white supremacists -- they intentionally tone down that shit for the media, which is why you look super tone deaf when people post actual accounts of things they did, like holding town hall meetings about how great lynchings are when they thought no one was looking.

• Claiming you'd agree with whoever's arguing with you, except for one inconsequential fact you never mentioned any other time. Example: In the confederate statue thread, 🦈 said that he wouldn't mind if the statue had been taken down legally -- but every other time it came up he said it was wrong to take down the statue at all, because that was whitewashing history.

• Calling leftists "childish" and "easily-offended." Words like this do have a place in politics, but you've been misusing them. I read both threads front to back -- one or two people ended their arguments with "I'm offended" but basically everyone also said "here's why your view of the world is wrong" or "here's why this is bad and it hurts people." When you start your post by saying "oh, how childish!" and then just repeat the thing you said in the first place, you're basically saying "I'm not listening."

• Accusing leftists of being unwilling to grapple with the facts. Again, this is allowed and fine when it's true, but you've been abusing it. For instance, in a thread by 🦐 on The Bell Curve the original poster claimed The Bell Curve was state-of-the-art, and leftists were ignoring it. That's not true: there was a huge leftist response immediately after it was published, from academics and popsci guys too. Several people linked leftist articles and takedown videos, which he ignored. Maybe the leftists are wrong, but it's not that they ignored it.

Here are some of the ways you were possibly tricked into believing white supremacists:

• They told you their sources were good, and instead of checking, you believed it.
• They told you left-wing sources were shrill and unresearched, and instead of checking, you believed it.
• They told you there was a conspiracy against their viewpoint and that's why the criticism isn't credible. (For The Bell Curve, it's the political correctness conspiracy -- for statues, it's the easily-offended liberal masses.)
• They told you there was more nuance to the situation than it looked like and made an emotional appeal. Intelligent people like to imagine there's no way things could be as simple as they look -- "not everyone would be smart enough to uncover that this apparent act of white supremacy was, in fact, politically neutral!" -- so you believed them.
• You are probably a little bit racist. (Or even a lot racist.) You might not be racist enough to hate black people, but you might be racist enough to find white supremacists more credible than their victims, even though you know the historical facts say their victims were telling the truth.

Here are some preemptive comments:

• I don't want to censor anybody. This thread is not censorship.
• I do want to shout bad opinions down with better opinions. People who support free speech, which I think is most of the people on this website, also want this. This is an example of me trying to do that.
• Yes, leftists can do all the things I listed. (And yes I'm a leftist.) When I go to a site like Twitter or Tumblr I see left-wingers saying all kinds of horrible, unsupported shit they heard from their idiot hippie friends. It's frustrating and sickening and it's a giant part of the reason I don't go on those sites very often. But on this site I only saw right-wingers doing this stuff, not left-wingers. That kinda surprised me because usually it's the side with the biggest groupthink bubble that says really stupid stuff and keeps on trucking.

Thank you and sorry for the long, mean post.

Increasingly over time, I've been seeing reddit less and less like the cool startup I used to think it was and more like a business. Not a day goes by where I don't see a post breaking the site wide rules, but Reddit does nothing. And that's on top of other hate subreddits like r/The_Donald that break the rules every day. Occasionally you'll hear about subreddit mods getting PMed by admins asking them to control their users in the same way Winrar tells you your free trial is about to run out. The worst are when the admins are clearly only banning to appease their user base, like banning r/incels just for it to come back as r/braincels and the admins once again ignore it.

They say downvotes don't mean anything. But I disagree. To me, it feels like a stranger coming up to you on the street, slapping you in the face and walking off. All the while you don't even know why and just stare in confusion.

Like, I'd get it if the person was being rude, or impolite, or aggressive, or insulting, or racist, or misogynistic... Hell, even a very bad joke. But simple, innocent comments just casually sharing an opinion or a personal experience just get so aggressively downvoted. Why?

The particular sub that inspired me to make this post is r/android. Very simple comments without presenting judgement or making claims... just sharing their personal experience on a smaller topic about a certain phone will get a downvote. Why? As if to tell this person that their experience is wrong? That this didn't happen? I don't get it.

And this extends to the whole community, or at least most of it. It's just so toxic, immature and petty. Like, if you hate what someone said so much, why not at least tell them, so maybe they won't do it again or at least so they know why they're getting spat on the face.

But the lack of explanation and the mere booing from a faceless crowd is just so hearbreaking. Like, this is how crowds behave. That's why lynchings and mass rapes in war times are a thing. And it's just such a shameful aspect of the human character.

On Tildes, if you don't agree with someone, you cannot just downvote them to shut them up and hide their comment for others to see. No, rather, you have to tell them how it is you think they're wrong. And, while this has the potential of leading to nasty arguments, it also has the potential of leading to productive discussions.

How many of those comments that you often see downvoted are just innocent remarks that were completely misinterpreted by a first person and then the Hivemind just took it from there?

I mean, even if someone is saying something that is downright not true, but their tone doesn't come off as aggressive or rude, why downvote them instead of telling them? A downvote won't send them a notification. So they're likely to move on with life without knowing that that thing they think is true isn't. If you tell them, however, you can help this person learn something and combat misinformation.

By replying to this person, you're giving them a chance to better explain themselves. It's a lot less hostile, while being more productive and positive.

Plus, if upsetting and trolling people is what they want (like those few “professional reddit trolls” who just try to amass downvotes instead of upvotes) then they're out of luck in here. If their comment is obvious trolling, they'll just get ignored. Or well, maybe they do upset someone and get a heated discussion, but without the fishing for downvotes.

People cannot just downvote you to prove you wrong and go about their day feeling all superior and righteous. They have to tell you how they think you're wrong (or how they think your comment is irrelevant or how they don't like it) and in doing so expose their views up for external judgement.

The lack is probably the main reason that attracted me to Tildes.

By the way, I'm mostly referring to discussions way down in the thread between two people. I mean, how petty and aggressive do you have to be to downvote someone on an inactive thread just two minutes after they added their comment and just before you reply to them? I mean that way you're making it clear that it was you who downvoted them. So you're intentionally setting up a hostile atmosphere before the discussion even starts. That's just so toxic and emotionally draining.

How do you feel about downvotes on Reddit and their lack on Tildes?

According to Graphtreon, there are some crazy popular Patreon campaigns. The top creator has over 37,000 patrons and the runner-up creator has over 23,000 patrons. They're making over $100k per month from crowdfunding alone. Insane!

So I'm curious: Do you guys support any Patreons yourself? Which ones and why?

This post will be discussing the nature of political correctness and its ramifications on our culture, intended to analyze current trends and provide a basis for discussion on a very relevant issue in our society. This is a long post, so buckle up.

DISCLAIMERS

Before I begin, I will begin a series of disclaimers, as I’ll be making a lot of claims in this piece, so sorry for the length. For the sake of this post, I will be assuming the role of a neutral character, with no intended leanings towards any political or cultural ideology. Any reference that I make towards a specific side of the spectrum of politics or to social cultures does not reflect my personal opinion on them nor show a bias/prejudice towards that side. I would also like to note that, while I’m trying to make this a quality read about politically correct culture, this isn’t a lecture, a thesis, a Pulitzer article, or even a simple college essay, and is simply very informal essay. A lot of what I say goes off of either whatever comes off the top of my head or things that I find out from a quick search on Google. Some things may or may not be correct, and if they are, please feel free to call me out for it in the comments.

With that said, let’s get into it: Political correctness. Defined by a Google search as “the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.”, has become a powerful influence in the media that people consume as more and more creators, fans, and everything in between try to avoid language or dialect that would offend audiences. Our society progressively has become more and more PC (politically correct) due to an increasing attempt to remove toxic or otherwise harmful material, generally rhetoric like slurs or playing upon stereotypes, from media in an attempt to create a safer, more friendly environment and community, especially for those who often feel targeted by such harsh rhetoric. PC culture is inherently good-willed with an unquestionably noble goal fueling it. However, in the act of making more and more things PC, the media that is affected changes, for better or for worse. In the viewpoint of many, PC culture has become increasingly threatening to the quality of the media they consume, as the element of vulgarity that media possesses sometimes is attributed to their success or favorability. An increase in avoiding content that is in any way threatening to a certain culture has upset many because it dampens the reality of the content, affects its strength, or births new weaknesses. In short, people believe that making things more PC is making them less good.

The big question of this post is why PC culture matters to the opinions of those who digest media affected by it. It is a question with a myriad of answers, as its influence has been taken in many directions. As iterated before, some claim that it strips away the reality of the content and provides a false reality or delusional perspective; some claim that it softens content too much and dampens the quality; and others think that it is simply stupid to try to be so friendly with what content they make or consume. The element of vulgarity that political incorrectness adds to content makes things more interesting than what they actually are, ironically because they highlight or exaggerate the reality of what they offer, and taking that away from people or reducing it takes away that precious component by avoiding any sort of offensive material. Take SNL, for instance; their skits like Black Jeopardy plays upon Black culture/stereotypes and is widely acclaimed for the hilarity of their vulgarity, but were it to face a demand for more PCness, it would lose a lot of the charm it had because of the necessary avoidance of content that would offend Black culture. The problem with this is that offensive material is not always a great sin that must be purged away. Material that PC culture can see as offensive encompasses a great deal of things, from simple slurs to stereotypes of cultures and societies. While it is good, even preferable, that things such as slurs or directly offensive comments are censored or dismissed, other forms of content seen as offensive are necessary to provide an ounce of harsh reality to the content that is provided. A specific example of such a case would be how the news handled the increase of refugee crimes in Germany and Sweden since those countries took in more Syrian immigrants. PC culture would try to dissolve the correlation as one being the product of another, but non-PC content would assume that the increase in refugees led to that increase. While it is very offensive to assume that the large intake of Syrians has led to that increase, being too PC by dancing around the issue and saying that refugees from other countries relatively contribute the same amount to the violence would be feigning ignorance to a clear and very possible causality, ultimately affecting the quality of the news piece. The same could be said for many other things, like TV shows, blog posts, etc.; When concerning or including potentially controversial content, avoiding the elements that make them controversial or ignoring them takes away from the media’s effectiveness. In other words, being too PC and removing the gritty elements of something can remove the punch that it has and make it seem fake, uninteresting, or any other dissatisfying adjective.

That’s not to say that offensive material must be in abundance, however; one must never have too much of something, as it may upset the balance of acceptable and unacceptable content. But certain material like social commentary, often in the form of societal stereotypes or portrayals of a culture, is a necessary element to add truth or interest in whatever is being made, albeit it being handled with an utmost delicacy and respect. Saying that the increase in refugee crimes means that all Syrians are criminals, scum of the earth, and a true representation of how shit the Middle East/Islam is would be greatly offensive and also detract from the quality/esteem that that news piece may have. Having the PC to refer to them less offensively, as well as discussing the issue in a manner that doesn’t clearly perpetuate Syrians as the devil, allows for the controversial content to be taken more seriously, basically adding civility to otherwise provoking content. On a gentler note, Black Jeopardy often plays upon the tropes of black culture on relatable, universal grounds, like home culture or the more meaningful discrimination from white people. It doesn’t say that all black people act without genteel to one another or that all white people are evil/stupid, but plays upon familiar stereotypes and experiences shared by many people of both races and enhances their hilarity with their trademark controlled crudity. While this example reflects how PC culture can mitigate offensiveness, it can also bridge gaps between people by portraying them as equals, not separated the nature of their age, sex, race, sexuality, or disabilities. Diversity within a space, such as a profession, a community, or group, is PC culture at its best, for it highlights inclusiveness and unity that political incorrectness would draw borders with. It allows people of any background to pursue the same career choices or interests without discrimination or other forms of inequality, putting forward the message that despite the differences those people may have, they are still human beings, one alike to another, all part of one human society.

Now that we’ve gone over the merits of both PC and non-PC culture, it’s time to evaluate the consequences that they each have on society. I say consequences because the developments both cultures set precedents for how media controls the amounts of PC put into their content as more and more new media juggles the amounts of friendly content they put in and the vulgar content they take out; and of course, vice versa. Political correctness has shown a powerful trendsetting effect in that once an action is called out for not being PC, it creates a rippling effect where all other forms of media avoid that un-PC element. If you take the Me Too Movement, once sexual harassment claims have been made against one big Hollywood figure, a million more followed in its wake, and now many Hollywood big wigs and US politicians reel in the fear of getting “Me Too’d” and losing their job/getting indicted. While it’s not a real presentation of PC culture at work, the Me Too movement’s rippling effect demonstrates how severe PC culture has influencing society, as now the sexually harassed don’t feel the need to cower behind the fear of denial and claims of insanity that would have been used against them pre-Me Too. And while it’s excellent that sexual harassers are getting what’s coming to them, the crossfire catches many unfortunate victims in the rise of Me Too and its anti-sexual harassment waves. James Gunn is a very relevant example of this, as his history of highly distasteful vulgar Tweets caught up to him and led to his expulsion due to Disney’s attempts to be PC. But Gunn’s expulsion has caused a big issue since he’s not actually a rapist or someone who has harassed his actors, but simply someone who made a couple of extremely stupid jokes, jokes which he had already apologized for 6 years ago. Despite apologizing twice, Gunn is still seen as too much of an un-PC person to work under Disney. This presents the problem of PC culture having too high of a sensitivity for things that they think are absolutely wrong and criminal. Gunn’s actions reflect the rising issue of where any hint of vulgarity in the publicity of an individual can be used against them to tarnish their image, something that has been in prudent effect by the Me Too movement. And while social justice demands that individuals like these who have a history of offenses must be reprimanded, the work that they have created shall suffer in quality after losing an essential component of what made them great. This is not to say that all individuals who have been accused and punished don’t deserve their fate, but merely a claim of consequence.

Sensitivity is the name of the game in today’s culture. People are becoming increasingly sensitive over things that present even a hint of harm towards an individual or group, attacking that thing like vultures in order to dispel the negativity whatever comment or element that object has to enforce a positive atmosphere. This particular trend is something associated with social justice warriors, or SJWs for short, which has become something of an internet slur because of the reputation that they carry of being agents of anti-vulgarity. They have become such an issue to many people because they are being claimed to attack the right to free speech that individuals carry, becoming a nuisance to many who now have to watch what they say with extreme delicacy, lest they become swarmed by attacks by those who denounce them for their profane statements. But their actions aren’t inherently bad, they’re just people trying to create a safer environment for people who frequently find themselves harassed by the world around them. It’s simply that they exaggerate their efforts to such a point that their actions carry a negative connotation with them. They even fight fire with fire, attacking individuals and harassing them to get them to stop their offensive comments through brute force. But when you fight fire with fire, it just spreads, and those who are attacked by SJWs and see them as a threat to their experiences will double their anti-PC nature to combat these SJWs, creating a loop of toxicity as both sides wage a war to maintain their ideal community. This is unfortunately the great conundrum of PC vs anti-PC: Two sides fighting for absolutes that can never be achieved. SJWs and advocates for absolute PC environments will never achieve it because there will always be people who want to speak their mind about people and things that others will find offensive, and anyone can get offended by anything. A truly PC environment would have to restrict all forms of communication, otherwise someone will eventually get offended and upset the “harmony” the absolute PC achieves. On the other side of the spectrum, an environment without any form of PC will find itself quarreling with each other all the time as people will lack the restraint to say offensive things and therefore find themselves at ends with whatever group their speech or actions offend. An environment without PC is an environment without rules, and an absence of rules will result in chaos.

Now the question to this is: Where’s the sweet spot? If too much PC and too little are both bad, is the medium the best? In truth, I don’t really think any balance of PC and anti-PC will ever be truly perfect. There will always be advocates for both sides fighting to increase the influence of whatever they fight for, and the balance will always tip to one side or the other. Fortunately for the human race, we have the ability to exercise a lack of care. The reality of this feud is that there will always be something you don’t like, and nothing you or people like you can do will change that fact. You can call out as many sexual predators, societal offenders, and all other forms of anti-PC individuals all you want, but you won’t stop people from doing it. You can label SJWs as thin-skinned and juvenile all you want, but you’ll only be feeding the fire. The only happy solution to this issue is to simply accept the reality that you can’t create a perfect world for yourself by changing everyone else. You can keep fighting the battles and win as many as you’d like, but you’ll never win the war. If you’re someone who wants the absolutes, you’ll never get it. The only semblance of peace you’ll get is accepting there will always be bad.

PC and anti-PC cultures both possess a merit to them valuable to our society: PC culture imposes civility and friendliness to all people, especially those who are frequently discriminated or treated unfairly, ensuring they feel safe, happy, and equal to their fellows; anti-PC culture, however, advocates for the freedom to say what needs to be said, and while it is vulgar, it is real, and reality must be embraced. People may always fight with each other for each side as they get increasingly sensitive, and sometimes even do something that turns the tides for them, but they will never truly defeat one or the other. The balance between them is always shifting and will never really settle, but the beauty of this war is that it teaches us about people, about their experiences and their beliefs, and help us come to terms with reality. Whether we want to change that reality for the better or champion its present merits, it is, and always will be, up to us.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to discuss, criticize, compliment, etc. in the comments.

Since the moderator community here is quite large, I figure we would have quite alot of interesting perspectives over here in Tildes. Feel free to chip in even if you're not a moderator, or god forbid, moderate such subs as T_D. Having a range of perspectives is, as always, the most valuable aspect of any discussion.

Here are some baseline questions to get you started:-

• Did your subreddit take strict measures to maintain quality ala r/AskHistorians, or was it a karmic free-for-all like r/aww?

• Do you think the model was an appropriate fit for your sub? Was it successful?

• What were the challenges faced in trying to maintain a certain quality standard (or not maintaining one at all)?

• Will any of the lessons learnt on Reddit be applicable here in Tildes?

For example, 500 people working long hours in dangerous conditions for terrible pay, but they make it possible for 5000 others to live in a utopian society. What about 50 workers and 50,000 benefactors? I think everyone can agree that it's wrong for there to be less benefactors than workers, but what about 50/50? What if it's 500 blue skinned people and a million red skinned?

I usually find myself internally preferring the species level ethical decisions, but I've never been brave enough to admit to it out loud because I know it makes me sound like a socio/psychopath.

Edit: Typo in Topic. Read it as "How many..." or "Do ~many of~ you..."

A Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables you to optimize the flow of your work. Source

I am using the NextCloud's Deck app to manage my Kanban board, just got started. Other Digital boards: Cryptpad (has kanban board) and Taiga. I know only these implementation and all of these work well.

Update: I am no longer using it.

There was a discussion yesterday about if adding "Trigger warnings" was something we should do on Tildes. One of the things that I noted is that we don't have a general consensus on what actually constitutes a trigger. I thought it might be a good idea to have some discussions on what triggers are, so that we can have an effective discussion on the matter.

I'm attempting to refrain from editorializing, and I'm open to revising how this is presented to meet that goal. I will editorialize in the comments, though.

Accepted Psychological Definition. From Psychcentral.com, a generally accepted psychological definition of a trigger. The article I linked is a quick read, and I recommend you check it out, but if it's too lengthy:

A trigger is something that sets off a memory tape or flashback transporting the person back to the event of her/his original trauma.

Tumblr Definition. Some people are using a softer version of what a "trigger" is, and the definition is something more like this one, from mashable, discussing Tumblr

... a trigger is defined as content that could make someone upset, uncomfortable, or forced to remember or relive a past trauma.

Another definition direct from Trigger Warning Guide on Tumblr:

trigger or content warning, or TW and CW for short, is used to warn people of content that might illicit a strong or potentially harmful emotional response.

Meme Definition. Other people didn't even understand that "trigger" actually has a real, psychology definition; they seemed to be more in line with an Urban Dictionary-esque definition (this is unpleasant, but important):

A word used often by idiots on Tumblr to justify their bitchy attitudes, most of whom don't know what a real traumatic experience is.

Example:
I enjoy eating a bowl of cereal after everybody goes to sleep.
(English to Albanian. Albanian to Chinese. Chinese to English.)
“After all, I like to eat a bowl of cereal after going to sleep”

(I stole this from /r/threadgames, by the way. Apologies for my lack of creativity.)

Under the right inputs opinions and worldviews can be changed relatively easily, but what about the more subtle stuff underneath? Can a workaholic with a strong drive later in life become lethargic? Can an innately introverted person later in life become innately extroverted?

Those aren't the best examples, but that said my intuition would be that these tendencies are too deep rooted to be significantly altered and can only be superficially mitigated against one way or another.

If this is to a degree incorrect I'd love to hear some anecdotes.

I have been an advocate for privacy for a long time, but recently I don't even know why I am doing this anymore. I do most of my browsing through TOR, and that has made me give up a lot of conveniences. And that's what I miss. I miss not having to think about privacy. I also miss not feeling like I am being spied on. Now I am torn. I don't like companies like Google mining my data, but I also think I am being paranoid (the people in my life have shared this sentiment). I don't want to leave a permanent cache of my mind. But I also feel like doing so won't really affect me. Not to mention that I despise the predatory nature of advertisers, and I hate giving them even more info about me.

What do I do, Tildes? Have any of you felt this way? How do you balance running from Google while still staying sane?

I live somewhere with relatively little light pollution, so on every clear night all the stars come out. I'm not a very good astronomer though, the big dipper is the only constellation I know. I don't usually go out at night, so seeing it is still a pretty neat thing for me. I also saw the north star by following the tail(?) of the spoon, it's a bit dim and hard to see.

Any amateur or professional astronomers here? What do you like to look for at night?

I realize that businesses want to draw talent from the largest pool possible, and to do so available positions are often advertised simultaneously across several job market websites with audiences larger than what almost any company could reach on their own. Certainly some steps of the application process must be automated when dealing with, what I can only imagine, is a relatively high number of applicants. Websites like Indeed.com have even automated the phone interview process, having applicants take a robo-call and recording their responses to questions selected by the employer. The result, in my own experience, is an often bleak, one-sided, discouraging and depressing bout of dysfunctional online dating, except the relationship you're looking for is with your future employer.

Are there any HR people on Tildes? If so, I'm curious what this whole process looks like on your side and how it differs from say, twenty years ago. Is the process better? Are the people you hire better? How, on your end, could this process be improved? And most importantly, do you have any advice for getting through this increasingly frustrating first step?

I'm curious to see what the public consensus towards the site is nowadays. They have been controversial since their inception, but no matter what you think of them, there is no denying that the information they've released has sparked massive debate around the world.

The recent thread about Tulpas and their "Wonderlands" made me wonder if there are many people on Tildes that employ the Loci Method (since, as I understand it, they are functionally very similar).

For those that don't know it, the Loci Method is a mnemonic technique in which critical information is stored in a mental construct that is most commonly being visualized as a large building (hence the "Palace"). The process of finding the information within the building functions as a way to recall it, i.e. if you left your shopping list in your mental kitchen, then "going" to the kitchen and picking up the list makes you remember it.

Many people might know of this through the BBC series Sherlock, in which the titular character uses this method.

Personally, I have been using a mind palace for over five years now, when including the time I completely broke my old palace (more a bunker at that time) down to replace it with a new one, after I had become incapable of reliably using the old construct. My current mind palace is set up as a hybrid of the classic mind palace and a "Wonderland", in that it not only stores information within an extensive library, but also contains a number of amenities I can make use of when meditating. It is stylized as a temple carved into a snowy mountainside, think a combination of Paro Taktsang and The Tombs of the Kings.

To those of you who employ their own mind palaces, what are yours like?

Tweetstorm related: https://twitter.com/bioxcession/status/1028322450910732289

Upfront: the basic premise of the book is that Theranos was an exploitative, evil company headed by two exploitative, evil people. It makes an effort to not apologize for Elizabeth, or blame her actions on anyone else. She was sucked into the vortex of literally being a bloodsucker. In fact, the book - at one point - goes so far as to suggest she may be a sociopath.

Now, the book was a good read, and I think the point makes sense - bad company is bad. But it's stirring up a ton of music in my head - especially since it compared Theranos to "vaporware companies" - practices that the Valley has engaged in since forever (promising endlessly and not delivering).

Vaporware: software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed.

Theranos was no different, except it tried selling vaporware in the form of a healthcare device. Insisting that this device worked (it didn't), and insisting that most of their received blood tests were running on it (they weren't).

It's my opinion that Theranos would have been hailed as an enormous success if they had delayed for long enough to make this technology work. I believe that my point is furthered by the fact that Walgreens waited through two years of delays, of and tolerated outright lies. If the tech ever came out, all would have been forgiven.

My argument boils down to this: Elizabeth wasn't a shitty person, she operated correctly in a shitty system.

She took risks, yes - but they were necessary to maintain the illusion that she had a product that amounted to anything. Eventually, she hoped, her team would crack the nut and she'd come out unscathed.

The problem amounts to our system encouraging this type of behavior - she was visited by the vice president, Kissinger, Mattis, had dinners with the Clintons, and was a fellow at Harvard medical school. Nobody thought twice because the tech was so exciting.

Tildes, what can we do to prevent this type of behavior, and am I overlooking something?

In France, we all need two identity documents to vote, a voter's card and a national identity card (or passport). It is not at all controversial, even at the far left of the political spectrum. In America, people say it's voter suppression.

So I just got back from a fireworks show for my city celebrating something or another. The center was blocked of from traffic for the day and lots of police around. Generally a massive event with the fireworks lasting almost an hour - kind of grueling by the end.

It's not like this is a once a year ocation, we had a national day fireworks show not even two weeks ago.

When walking back there was an apartment surrounded by fire trucks - can't imagine how they made in through the streets.

So is it worth it? Are there better ways to mark an ocation? Any fireworks related stories? Eork in pyrotech?

Why?

Quick story: I was in an elevator with a coworker I didn't really know and he told me a story of when he asked a stranger in a restaurant if she were pregnant. She was not! And he said he was so embarrassed that he had to leave.

I didn't get a chance to ask him, so I'm asking you fellow tilderinos - why ask this question at all? Especially to a stranger? What motivates this question? Is it really asking why someone looks fat?

Have you been on the receiving end of this question? (If you're a women older than 25, I'm going to guess yes). What are your stories?

A little tradition I picked up in the German reddit community: The "Montagmorgen Pfosten".

It's a thread someone (just whoever notices that there isn't one yet) posts around 6 to 8 am on Mondays where users talk about and discuss their weekends, what they are going to do in this week, what they had for breakfast etc. (I've coordinated it with CDT instead of CEST, given that most of the user base here is american or Canadian as opposed to r/de on reddit, where nearly everyone is in Germany, Austria or Switzerland; It is 1 pm in Germany right now). I've always liked participating in that thread as an unstressed way to start the week, and thought that we maybe could implement something similar here on ~talk.

I, for one, spent the weekend visiting my parents, and am now looking forward to spending a week working from within the hardly air conditioned glass cube my boss calls "Office" while being slowly roasted by the ungodly heat outside. Also, right about now, I wish Past-Me had taken the time to have some breakfast. Stupid Past-Me.

How are you?

I'm going to be a little bit more broad on my response. It wasn't a matter of just a one-time thing or action, but a philosophy. I have a personal rule of mine to change something major about myself at least once a year, and that could range from a job or to taking up a new hobby.

Since taking up on this idea, this thought, I've felt better as I can see changes happening, and looking back from exactly a year ago to the date there's a lot to be impressed by. By following this new tradition I feel better as I can see constant improvement, and self-motivation to adapt, and evolve as a person.

What was the best change you ever made in your life?

It's been about a month since my last post kicking off some freelancing discussion, I figured it would be a good time to do another if anyone is interested. Chosen topic today: productivity tools.

Let's just start by saying that there are a whole lot of them. Project management tools, accounting tools, time tracking, communication, storage and organization, all sorts of categories. I am pretty sure part of the reason so many of these web-based tools have popped up is simply because web developers are a pretty large contingent of the freelancing world these days, so they end up building tools for themselves and then spin up a product and start-up company out of it.

The first part of the questions I pose is simply: do you think we all spend too much time worrying about and investing ourselves in to productivity tools? Certainly there are some tools that require very minimal onboarding and are helpful at increasing your productive time, but it is also certain that is not the case for all of them. And determining which tools will be beneficial can be a time sink of its own; parsing through the long lists of options, reviewing features and walkthroughs, signing up for free trials (and then unsubscribing from all the marketing email lists), all of that is time spent not focused on your actual work.

I'll drop in a few of my own toolset to give you an idea where I'm coming from: Google Apps, Trello, Freshbooks, Slack. I honestly try to keep it pretty simple, though perhaps I overly rely on spreadsheets and text documents as a result. To be honest, I probably spend more time looking at API documentation for all of these kinds of tools than I look at it from a user perspective, because I end up with tons of clients who want integrations with all of these tools.

So what tools are the most important to you in getting things done and getting yourself back to the work at hand? Do you have any complaints on a particular product, or the overall ecosystem of productivity tools as a whole? Do you think we are too focused on such tools? Or not invested enough in them?

Most of you are probably used to reading short, decisive posts that provide instant gratification--I know I am. Websites like (but not limited to) Facebook, Reddit and Twitter have a focus on making content easily consumable so that they don't lose your attention. A consequence of this is that we sacrifice a lot of details to compress a bigger picture; it's easy to lose the plot when you only see half the story.

Personally, I've recently noticed that I have serious trouble internalizing more involved articles or textbooks and I'm hoping to get out of this academic funk. Reading was a huge passion of mine for years, but after I hit a rough spot in my life medically I stopped entirely. Now I have to make a conscious effort to remember key details. Bought the hard cover of Persepolis and its sequel and I've burned through the first pretty quickly, but picking it back up every day can be a struggle when YouTube is also an option.

Do you have a poor attention span? Do you know why, or have any ideas for fighting it?

Hi all!
I'm new to Tildes and thought it'd be a great idea to get to know the other Tildes users.

Just post something about yourself. Maybe where you're from, what you do for a living, a hobby you have, anything!

This is a tricky personal conundrum of mine. I'll try to articulate it clearly.

I believe in compassion, and I want to live in harmony with compassionate tendencies inside. But at the same time, in the act of extending compassion, there appears to be an in-built power gradient: the "giver" is somehow in an "advantaged" position, and the receiver a more disadvantaged one.

An example. I was once in a fast-food restaurant, waiting to order, and I saw the order-taker was obviously new and very nervous and skittish at her job. So after I placed my order I expressed how much I appreciate her service and that I thought she was doing a good job. It was truly what I wanted to say, and I thought she took this well, like, she looked more relaxed as she beamed.

But then there was a power gradient. I gave her something that she wouldn't/couldn't have given me. She was the more distressed one, and this power gradient emphasized that. I don't mean that bystanders were made more conscious of her distress. I mean, it had the potential to make me more conscious of my privilege and her her lack thereof.

And I'm aversive to power. I can be highly sceptical and critical of power. I don't feel easy to have power over someone else. I have had troubled relations with power figures in my life. I easily confuse the natural, benign activation of power with the reflexive, defensive, "shields-up" reaction that I often find myself in. To explain a bit, the latter is really a form of anxiety, perhaps a trauma from experiences of hypercompetition, isolation, and emotional neglect in the past.

In the end, I thirst after commonality, equality, brothersisterhood, close and meaningful contact with others as they are, as human beings, on level ground, side by side, sharing the common condition in our vulnerabilities... But there's this aspect of my character, i.e. the tendency to get tense and look for a "higher ground" and occupy there, just to be on the safe (more powerful!) side. There's this haughty, difficult-to-approach, high-brow me, that I feel get in the way.

I fee sad and somewhat confused about this. I think I'm partly venting, partly asking about your similar experiences. Please consider this topic fairly open-ended. If you have something to say about it, I'm eager to listen to you.

Thanks!

Hi!

Would you like to talk about something good that happened to you recently, or something you did, or something you witnessed, for which you felt good afterwards?

I'll begin with mine. First of all, I was happy to receive e-mails from friends. We're keeping long-distance friendships alive. I felt thankful to my friends.

Another things was this. Some time back, I tentatively ordered a book online for international shipping to my home address by plain mail. I then lost the hope of receiving it -- silly me, there were no mailboxes in the apartment building! But today I somehow found the mailboxes and I even re-discovered the key to mine, which I'd forgotten and left among my belongings. And I was really delighted to see the book was resting safely in my mailbox. I was happy to be proven wrong. :)

What about you?

So, I am currently attending a big scouting event in Europe and there are people from over 50 different countries. And I have noticed, that quite a lot of them are acting (at least for me) in a very disrespectful manner towards the flag. Starting with the smaller thinngs, most people have flag tied on a rope between their tents (the flag is tied in top left and top right corners). In my opinion, it should only be tied on the left side, while the right is hanging freely. But I can kind of understand that, because the flag is much more visible, it's easier and nicer to do it this way. However, it gets worse. Earlier today, when it started drizzling, I saw some people using their flag as head protection. And, in my opinion the biggest sign of disrespect, when we had the opening ceremony, there were people laying their flag on the ground and sitting on it, not caring who steps on it or anything.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Is this just me overreacting? Or do you think this is a serious problem?