vent, discourse, bird poop
I am so fucking tired of watching people win arguments because they don't understand how arguments work and don't care. There comes a point where every proverbial chessboard has got a proverbial pigeon crapping on it, and what the hell do you do except for scream at them to go away?
I just can't accept that the solution is to let the pigeons overrun the park. Ignoring them doesn't change a damn thing except ensure there's no more space for chess.
I don't like that most of my Twitter and Reddit activity ends up as snark. I would rather have real debates, with real give and take. But I look and look for them and never get them. I want to be nice. I really do.
But here I am with a pellet gun full of salt, shooting at pigeons like an asshole. And the next person who complains about me doing it is just going to get told, "I'M TRYING TO PLAY CHESS HERE, FUCK OFF."
=(^)_(^);=
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
I guess it just feels... unfair. When I realized I had argued myself into a corner with my religious beliefs, I just let it all fall apart and found something else to believe in. And sometimes it feels like I'm the only fucking one.
It's like the Trump movement has just become one big exercise in how to maintain a belief system even when the counterfacts are right in front of you. And it's like the entire right's been training for this with fundamentalist Christianity for most of a century.
And there's just nothing to do with it. There's no foothold. You point out clear evidence they're wrong, and they change the subject. You demand evidence, and they give you something that's irrelevant in such a perfectly subtle way, it would take you hours to explain why it's Not Even Wrong.
It's like arguing with a reality glitch. What they do should not work. Weaponized stupidity should not be a skill. The best I can do is stoop to their own level of absurdity. Because I can't just do nothing, and I'm not convinced it helps to leave them alone.
I'm so tired. I just wish 1984 didn't have such a downer ending—that Orwell had told us what to DO with these quackspeaking motherfuckers. There's got to be something better than force, there's just go to.
I guess I just keep cranking out the comics and hope we can convert their kids. The best revenge is making the next generation COMPLETELY ALIEN to these impermeable pricks. I can't fucking wait.
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@001zlnv Yeah, honestly, these days my main hope is that I can embarrass them enough that the infection is contained—or at least, I can rally the uninfected troops and boost their morale.
Cognitive dissonance is a mighty thing, and it's so innate to human mentality, it just makes me want to cheer for nature to wipe us out and start over. But there HAS to be a fix, there just has to...
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@001zlnv There was that one guy who had so much success deprogramming militant white supremacists even though he was black, but... I think he had a rare talent and I don't know how we could possibly scale something like that.
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
honestly there is hope in something like that. That breaking the faith is contagious. when cults lose enough key members, the whole thing unzips.
admittedly it can lead to a splintering that seeds other new cults that you need to keep whack-a-moleing.
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
well... either that or I'd be lucifer tempting eve to eat the apple. which I guess may be a strategy... drop hints that there's a secret truth that you yourself are hiding from them, and then force them to take it from you.
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@001zlnv I tried that with postfurry and all I got was this lousy remnant. ;D That's definitely another one that takes a rare skill to pull off, a charisma that you gotta either have or not. (It REALLY weirds me out that Trump has it, thus proving it's got NOTHING to do with whether the thing you're selling is any good, or even whether it's demonstrably bullshit...)
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
that reminds me, have you listened to the last two weeks of "worst year ever"?
it's all about furries vs nazis
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@001zlnv I've heard about it, but I'm always a little scared to listen to any editorial coverage of furries whatsoever—including and especially by furries. :)
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
that's the funny part none of the 3 hosts are furries. they were just kind of trying to chase down a story about milo and the proud boys being assholes at an event they were banned from, which lead to them finding out about the mff chlorine thing and a really interesting 2 part report by outsiders for outsiders.
Well done and interesting
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@001zlnv OK, you win—I'm like three minutes into it and it's already sweet and charming as fuck how positive they are! They like furries better than I do! (A low standard, to be sure, but... :> )
re: vent, discourse, bird poop
@zebratron2084
it's arguing with a cult.
you can't.
all you can do is try and reintroduce baseline reality to them and guide them back when they finally see that their prophet is fraud.
and if I knew how to do this on a society wide basis I'd probably be getting a nobel prize now.