The Unit of Caring

ozymandias271:

nostalgebraist:
wordcubed:
On the one hand, it was rude of me to pop up on someone’s personal post about their struggle to define an identity for themselves just so I could insult them. On the other hand, that identity was literally “Bay Area techno-libertarian.”
Yes, I could’ve spent multiple paragraphs explaining why (1) libertarianism is bad, (2) technology-centric solutions to complicated human problems are bad, and (3) the Bay Area (here used, as the original poster did, as a metonym for a geopolitical identity held exclusively by IT professionals) is the nexus for old bad ideas given a fresh coat of paint and new, impressively innovative, bad ideas.
But I wasn’t in the mood to piss away my time writing a 10-page essay that won’t change anyone’s mind anways. “You deserve to be punched in the face” is shorter and still honestly represents my opinion.
But it still wouldn’t be any less rude to pop up on someone’s personal post with a 10-page essay explaining why you don’t like them, instead of a brief insult.

Personal reflections are not posted on tumblr with the expectation of this kind of feedback and this kind of feedback is rude while, as you note, not likely to change anyone’s mind.
the thought process that leads one to go “I know! I’m going to tell a neurodivergent person who struggles with the idea that having an identity means they’re evil that having this particular identity means they’re evil! socialing the justice!”
like come on

“On the one hand, I am capable of understanding how abominably rude my behavior was. On the other hand, the person had a political opinion I disagree with” is such a revealing post. The poster sincerely considers “I disagree with them about politics” a legitimate counterweight to the observation “popping up on someone’s personal post to tell them they deserve to be punched in the face is rude”. That only makes sense if you think human decency is only for people who earn it by having all of the correct opinions.

Hey, OP, by any reasonable definition I think I’m a Bay Area technolibertarian. I live in the Bay Area and it’s been a huge improvement for me over Hometown, because it’s safe to be gay and people don’t threaten me over political disagreements and there are more options for work environments that suit my needs. I think artificial meat alternatives are going to solve one of the biggest moral problems of our time, and I’m passionate about expanding access to assistive tech and I get crazy excited about every wild edit-their-genes/giant-lasers/better-nets/better-insecticides mosquito eradication proposal I hear, which is totally ‘thinking technology can solve problems’. And I want a smaller government that doesn’t start foreign wars or arm its police like a military or deport undocumented immigrants or throw people in jail for drugs or sex work! There you go, the enemy is before you. And I’m asking for an argument, so you’re not even being rude. Care to explain which of these beliefs mean I deserve to be punched in the face?

(Source: oldwordcubed, via bpd-dylan-hall-deactivated20190)

18 December 2015