I ll start : I have been following a pretty known tech/Linux journalist, and always found he is a fun dude to listen to, with interesting tech takes
The fact that he is also very openly “american conservative” (aka, religious & weapon nut, anti abortion, etc) annoys me, but i keep those things separate. And he does keep it separate too (politics channel vs tech channel), which is a great decision.
I’m a large, unpleasant looking man living in a red state who has a pickup truck, and a harley. I’m married to a methodist lay speaker. I have a few firearms.
So naturally I must be the biggest trump supporting, red-hat wearing, religious conservative twatwaffle in existence, there is no other option.
As a result, the actual redhat cockwombles I work with think I’m going to be OK with their racist comments, and are shocked when I’m not. The thing that helps me with these guys is the fact that they are having to work from prints that have my initials on them so they can whine about the LiBuRl all they want, and I’ll still be helping them get their jobs done.
The traits they are assuming make me One of Them™ are just incidental things. I have a battered old truck because my wife and I have either a large garden or a small farm, depending on how you look at it. A Honda Civic won’t carry the stuff I need. (Neither will a van) I have a harley because the local motorcycle dealers are pretty terrible tp deal with, but the harley dealer is nice, helpful, and act like they want to sell a bike. I’m large and unpleasant because of genetics. And I have firearms because for most of my adult life I have lived somewhere that has an hour’s response time for law enforcement, and I’ve had to defend myself in the past. None of these things made me hate any particular group of people.
“Methodist lay speaker”?
deleted by creator
How big is your garden/farm?
Pretty big. Or pretty small, depends on how you look at it. /s
If only we had measurements.
He’s American tho. We don’t use those here.
1 megaparsec^2 / α*137 rounded to the nearest farm.
I’m unwillingly associated with mankind.
Not me. I divorced humanity many years ago.
I’m a man, which means I am part of “men.”
Lots of men are predatory, objectify women and scoff at feminism. Being a man, people just inherently assume I’m like that too.
I deal with it by engaging only with people who demonstrate the ability to listen and withhold judgment.
That is as sexist as it gets from whatever dumb people think about literally 50% of the world’s population as a monolith
He said ‘lots of men’ not all.
Indeed. Oftentimes they kinda resolve their cognitive dissonance by saying ‘Ah, you got a fiance, you have to say that wink’. As if there is no other logical explanation.
None. I have self-respect. For example. My own MAGA worshipping Trump-humping father demanded that I apologize for telling him that America sucks (in regards to healthcare). I was told to either apologize or to never talk again.
I said we’d never talk again. And we haven’t.
Neckbeards, because I fit some of the stereotypes.
I’m interested in roleplaying and videogames, so people assume I’m one of those gatekeeping basement dwellers that mock “girl gamers” and play WoW and weird hentai games 23 hours a day. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what other players have in their pants or which games they like as long as everyone is having fun.
I own two swords, so people assume I’m one of those “leave the multibillion dollar company alone” fedora-wearing m’lady incels who pose with their katanas for sh*tty profile pics and think they look like ninjas or something. The thing is, me and two buddies did show fights for medieval faires for a couple of years, so the weapons aren’t just decoration / dumb tokens to make myself feel cool. Granted, the “fights” were more or less scripted, but it still had to look convincing enough to entertain the masses.
It’s especially annoying when actual neckbeards think I’m “one of them” and are then surprised that I don’t share any of their cringey, prejudice-laden, condescending world views.
I have questions about terminology. Things I never understood. I mean no offense, just curious.
“Neckbeard”. Hair naturally grows on the neck. So we are okay with beards, but if you don’t shave the neck, you’re judged negatively? Not just for your appearance, but for your moral character? I don’t understand. Isn’t this like judging a woman for not shaving her armpits, or judging a man for not being circumcised? What difference does it make if a man has an unshaven beard? And why in the world would you use a natural thing as an insult?
“Incel”. I think this means “involuntary celibate”, right? Someone who isn’t good at socializing and hasn’t been able to get someone to have sex with them. Why in the world would you judge someone based off this? Doesn’t it seem needlessly cruel and illogical? There could be any number of reasons why a person has never had sex. They might not all be bad. But now we’re trying to build a culture where you’re a loser if you haven’t had sex? I don’t understand. I don’t understand how liberals have these weird derogatory categories to put people in.
I can understand being opposed to bad belief systems. I feel pretty strongly about that myself. But it seems like you need to attack the beliefs themselves if you want to get anywhere.
Assuming you’re asking in good faith from curiosity…
“Neckbeard”. Hair naturally grows on the neck. So we are okay with beards, but if you don’t shave the neck, you’re judged negatively?
The “neck beard” as a facial hair style is associated with hair only on the neck, not as part of a full beard. It’s often associated with a cluelessness about personal hygiene or style, because it’s not something that actually looks good on anyone. Because of this, it’s usually a product of ignorance, neglect or depression. The stereotype includes a certain lack of awareness of personal grooming.
“Incel”. I think this means “involuntary celibate”, right?
Correct
Why in the world would you judge someone based off this?
Normally you wouldn’t, in fact the originator of the term intended it to be neutral and without judgement, however the term has morphed. It’s been adopted by a subset of extremely toxic individuals online, who blame others (society, more successful men, but especially women) for their romantic inexperience. The spaces they inhabit online are full of a nearly cult-like mentality, and the worst of them support such abhorrent ideas as human trafficking, sexual slavery and rape as natural and justified.
I don’t understand how liberals have these weird derogatory categories to put people in.
No idea where you got the impression this was a “liberal” thing. That seems like a very strange assumption to make. It’s a very widely known internet subculture/stereotype that’s been around for at least 20 years and has been generally apolitical. The only line you could draw between the stereotype and politics would be perhaps the rampant misogyny, in which case if that makes you immediately think only liberals could be against that maybe you should do some self reflection about the “side” you’re on.
I’m frequently accused of being a white person by people who are looking directly at me and seeing my tan skin and my shoulder blade length dark brown hair.
And I don’t really know what to say. Like, thank you for letting me enjoy the white privilege card, but it doesn’t really do me any favors because in most areas the native American privilege card outweighs the white privilege card.
On the other hand, I am occasionally accused of being a Mexican even though I’m 6 ft 1 and speak very fluent English without a identifiable accent.
And old people have handed me things written in Spanish and asked me to translate it for them because it’s my native language and it’s fucking not, but then, since I can usually figure out what written Spanish means I still tell them the answer but I feel weird about it and I don’t want to be made to feel that way.
Went to my regular Mexican place the other day and the waiter starts rattling off Spanish to my wife. My wife is Pilipino.
She didn’t know what was going on and replied with the handful of words she knows. I was LMAO internally.
I find the simarities between the Phillipines and Mexico pretty interesting. I guess being fucked by the Spaniards will do that to cultures.
without an identifiable accent
so… like Borat?
Yez, iz very nice
I also get accused of it and my skin is tan. I was born in a Latin American country, I can speak Spanish, I can cook Hispanic dishes. Idk what to tell you.
Im like 94% percent mexican, but im 5’10” and speak fluent english with arguably the most neutral english accent, and speak next to no spanish (just a bit i learned in highschool)
People always assuming i speak spanish…
I watch a ton of anime, and I hate weebs so damn much
I’ve been called a tanky, neolib, fascist, radfem, misogynist, racist, “woke”, republican, Democrat, religious nutjob, and militant athiest over my time on Reddit and I wouldn’t really agree with any of those descriptors lol. People just assume that if you have an even remotely nuanced opinion on a topic then you must belong to the “other side”. I don’t really care most of the time. I know what I believe and I don’t let it be defined by tribalism.
That’s a wide spectrum of associations. Have you ever considered you may be bad at articulating your views?
More like interactions would play out thusly:
Them: All X is Y
Me: hmm, it may not be helpful to paint with such a broad brush. Sometimes X isn’t Y. (Gives example)
Them: wow, sounds like something a (insert opposing tribe here) would say.
Basically, this
Using that as an example, if you spend a lot of most of your time let’s say defending little details about bad people it can come off as someone muddying the waters on purpose to downplay the awful things they do.
Or maybe your just on some shitty subs full of dumb people 🤷♂️
You’re assuming I spend my time defending bad people, which I don’t do. I just use critical thinking and point out logical fallacies. I believe fallacies are always bad, even if they support a position I agree with.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. If a lot of your comments are pointing out logical fallacies against bad people then it looks like you’re muddying the waters. For example pointing out logic fallacies in arguments against conservatives but not doing the same against liberals wouldn’t make you wrong outright, but you’d be wrong by omission.
I bet you even try to “just ask questions” too… disgusting.
I feel for you here. I think of myself as left of center but it is funny how much one side or the other treats the center like the hardest core of the other end. Its funny because I way back when I had started at a catholic college where I seemed waaayyy left but then transfered to the state school where I seemed centerist or at best kinda left and if you compared me to the school population then right of center. I did find the liberal state school seemed to have more of self awareness that the environment was skewed left whereas the catholic institution viewed itself as more center.
Transmeds. Trans folk who gatekeep other trans folk, and think they can say who is “really trans” and who isn’t.
I do think it would be helpful to have more clarity on the definitions of terms for different states of transitioning/non-transitioning but unfortunately that’s outweighed by the privacy concerns and the infighting and effort it would cause
Why? What language are we lacking that would help if added, that wouldn’t just lead to more gatekeeping?
We already have the language to talk about various elements of social and medical transition.
It’s less about having the language and more about agreeing on the specifics of what language we do have. That’s not gatekeeping, just categorization. Mildly useful but people calling it “gatekeeping” is exactly why it wouldn’t be helpful to try to define it in practice (don’t mean to attack you, just taking an example).
As I said though, what language are we lacking that we don’t already have?
Well, the easiest example is that some people use “trans” to mean anyone who has physicslly started to transition, others consider someone to be trans when they decide to broadcast their new gender identity, and others consider them to have always been trans. The opinion on which one is correct is often quite strong.
You could define it as “anyone who says they’re trans is trans” and avoid this entire issue, which is largely what the relevant laws do (unless they’re weirdly invasive), but that opens up the system for abuse by bad actors looking to false flag the trans community.
Well, the easiest example is that some people use “trans” to mean anyone who has physicslly started to transition, others consider someone to be trans when they decide to broadcast their new gender identity, and others consider them to have always been trans. The opinion on which one is correct is often quite strong.
Yep. People have strong feelings about their own journeys and identities. They’re welcome to do that. But when they start having strong feelings about other people’s journeys and identities, when they feel like that get to decide who isn’t and isn’t trans based on whatever criteria they particularly feel to be important, then they’re gatekeeping.
Those are the truscum and transmeds I want nothing to do with.
but that opens up the system for abuse by bad actors looking to false flag the trans community.
No it doesn’t. That’s just an excuse people use to post hoc validate their gatekeeping.
Gatekeeping as I’m using it in this context is the act of unnecessarily excluding someone from a community or diminishing their attempts to participate*. That’s why I think the best definition of most personal identity terms is a permissive one, eg. “anyone who decides to transition is trans”. But opening up that definition means we need another way to refer to people who are physically transitioning, because there are meaningful differences in their experiences and needs. (“Physically transitioning” honestly suits this purpose fine IMO.)
But there’s nothing wrong with choosing a narrower definition if you don’t use that to discriminate or exclude non-physically-transitioning trans people from spaces that could apply to them. It’s not a good idea because that message is easily able to be twisted to be exclusionary, but there’s nothing inherently gatekeeping about it; the term that would be common use would likely just become the one that refers to all types of trans people. Defining “trans” to be narrower than the wider definition is only wrong because we’re attached to the current definition. Which is a very good reason to keep that word defined as the broader group, but again someone who isn’t familiar with this would rightly see it as a valid definition.
- note that the precise definition matters here, as I believe it does with a great many things
someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth
I haven’t seen any gatekeeping to exclude those that haven’t gone through physical transition, but I guess there are assholes everywhere.
I haven’t seen any gatekeeping to exclude those that haven’t gone through physical transition
There’s a whole branch of trans gatekeepers called transmed/truscum that do exactly that!
am asked if i was russian bot once
блять
Робот так не поступит.
._.
Were you pushing Russian talking points? If so, what’s the difference?
no
am ukraine supporter [._.]
You guys were asked? I was asserted!
I find myself agreeing with the libertarian socialist school of thought, which means in debates I get accused of a lot of opinions I don’t agree with, because I disagree with things using socialist language or libertarian points.
US political parties.
Because I live in and enjoy living in Chicago, am socially liberal, an ardent feminist, an aspiring antiracist, people assume I’m a Democrat. Honestly, even the first alone is usually enough to trigger this assumption.
Because I’m politically conservative, respect religious freedom, respect the second amendment, and oppose stacking the Supreme Court, people assume I’m a Republican; even though the GOP hasn’t respected religious freedom or been politically conservative in general in decades.
And when I tell people that I’m not registered with a party, won’t vote along party lines, and won’t vote the lesser evil, I’m assumed to be politically inactive, apathetic, or ignorant. Whereas I’m very active, always vote, usually campaign for favored candidates and against corrupt incumbents.
The “team sport” mentality of FPTP political systems is absolutely terrible, honestly.
Im curious what you are politically conservative on? I don’t see religious freedom as being conservative nowadays. Like respecting tst stuff. maybe the second amendment but like bernie is pretty good with that. honestly the supreme court stacking I only hear from an extreme side. EDITED - see if Im fast enough to sneak this in. How the heck does one even register for a party in chicago? I mean im not going to but is that even a thing?
Illinois has open primaries and you don’t need to register a party when you register to vote; but you can still register with the parties themselves. I also grew up in South Dakota, which has closed primaries, and you do fill out an party (or not) when you register to vote there, or at least when I turned 18 you did.
I’m conservative in the sense of opposing change, especially to our political system. Not all change, but my default stance is “don’t fuck with it”.
Ah. An actual conservative like from the pre 80’s. I keep telling folks that conservatives used to be quite different.
Would you mind elaborating on “change…to our political system” perhaps with some examples and your stance on them? I’m exhausted and struggling to understand and find any examples aside from stacking the courts.
If not no worries, I’ll be chewing on this for a while. I appreciate your perspective and your willingness to share it.
For example: eliminating the Electoral college, term-limiting senators, declaring an official language, limiting jus soli citizenship, granting senatorial representation to the federal district… there are others that don’t come up as often that I can’t remember now.
I do have things I think should be changed or reformed, of course, as everyone does, but I’m very much against change for the sake of change. Society can be dynamic, the government should be stable.
I’m confused. Is this a bit? You’re essentially describing the Democratic Party and all the things progressives complaining about the party “really being conservative” compared to the rest of the world.
The Democrats have a big problem with “solutions” that either don’t address the problem or create worse problems in doing so. And maybe I’m biased by dealing with the Chicago Machine, but there’s too much corruption as well. And don’t even get me started on the corporatism.
The DNC is pretty left socially on a global scale, which I approve of, but just all over the place in terms of economic policy, and I think that axis is where they get labelled as centrist or even right-leaning globally. Though, yes, Secretary Clinton in 2016 was the most conservative candidate with any real support, partly because she was the most experienced in actual governance.
The alternative is a party only focused on making the rich richer and staying in power even if they have to kill democracy to do it. I’d take partial solutions or failed attempts at doing the right thing every time over that. We don’t have other realistic options. From time to time we get populists who are mostly talk.
The word corruption gets thrown out far too much too. Those that break the law should be punished, but simply adding something to a bill to benefit your constituency is literally the job, and far too often I hear people say that’s corruption. It’s compromise.
What do you mean “politically conservative”?
Edit: more to the point, political conservatism is characterized by the opposition to social transformation, yet you also say of yourself that you’re an ardent feminist and aspiring antiracist. Which seems like a contradiction to me.
I’m also confused by this very narrow definition of conservative. The poster went on to say they are against “changes…to our political system” which honestly makes it even more confusing, as if the difference between liberalism and conservatism has no social facet.
Liberal here. I don’t care how it changes, but it’d better be changing. No change = boring 🥱🥱🥱
/s
I live in Singapore, and because of that, I’m associated with Singaporeans.
I hate it because they’re generally spoilt af, complaining all the time. They also tend to make fools of themselves overseas by being noisy and difficult. We’re probably like this because Singapore is run in a really great way, and when compared to other countries, things may be slower or just done differently.
I try my best not to be like that and I will actively avoid Singaporeans if I see them overseas (you can tell by their accent and loud voices).
And how much they say “La” in a passive aggressive way. Man, I’m tolerant to it because I don’t know the culture that well, but it still annoys the shit out of me.
To be fair, we use lah in almost every context, not just passive aggressiveness. But yeah singaporeans tend to be passive aggressive af, now that you mention it.
Yeah someone tried to explain le, lah, leh to me one time but I didn’t understand the nuance. They all sound kinda whiny to me tbh. Not trying to sound like an asshole, I don’t look negatively on people who use it, but for some reason it bothers me. I guess I just don’t get it lol
Nah don’t blame yourself for not understanding. You pretty much have to live here your whole life to really “get” it naturally.
Fun fact, Malaysians do the lah leh lor too. But their meaning and intonation is just slightly different.
Yes I’ve noticed it from Indonesians as well, but less so. Anyways I just chalk it up to me being an ignorant foreigner. It rubs me the wrong way for whatever reason, but I’m sure it’s just because I don’t understand it. I don’t let it affect my judgement of people. Thanks for your candid responses
Gun ownership.
I really enjoy the sport of shooting. I don’t hunt. I don’t have a problem with people hunting so long as they eat what they shoot, hunt responsibly, and trophy hunters can get fucked. I like guns. I also think that people should have access to them.
That immediately seems to lump me in with the psychotic idiocy popularized by gun owners today. I despise those people. I have incredibly strong opinions about who should have access to guns, how guns should be stored, and how gun ownership should be licensed, insured, and actually monitored. The way the second amendment has been so woefully and foolishly written as to be vague and completely anachronistic by today’s standards it is doing far more damage than good, and the people that claim it’s to protect themselves from government are the very authoritarians trying to overthrow it.
So yeah, it sucks to want to participate in a sport full of asinine wingnuts or be associated with them. So I keep my mouth shut about owning guns.
I’m unwillingly associated with Nazis often when I disagree with people online. I deal with it by going on with my day, since there’s nothing else I can do about it.
