Becoming more right wing as you age

[Ferris]

Oh, and /r/castiron as a long-time scratch cook and cast iron pan enthusiast.

[Blue Jam]

I forgot: r/WhatsWrongWithYourDog

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

r/MeHearties

[Dex Sawash]

r/justpretendingiknowwhatthehellthisisdabout

[Twed]

Oh, and /r/castiron as a long-time scratch cook and cast iron pan enthusiast.

Fuck, it's a small world. You'll be telling me you're a regular of /r/XChangePill next.

[Ferris]

I forgot: r/WhatsWrongWithYourDog

I'm on there and all. Plus /r/bordercollies

Like I say - very tightly regulated reddit account.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Babyelephantgifs and owls when I'm 'ere.

[chveik]

anyone on /r/shitforcunts ?

[Cuellar]

Oh, and /r/castiron as a long-time scratch cook and cast iron pan enthusiast.

Read as r/castration

R/popping is all I go in for (DO NOT OPEN AT WORK DO NOT)

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

A while ago a former housemate was showing me a vitriolic diatribe she'd received on Facebook from a legitimately-mentally-ill acquaintance of ours, saying she (the housemate) couldn't call herself a feminist because she ate fish.

I suggested that if she (the acquaintance) felt the welfare of fish was a feminist issue, then maybe she should open a refuge for battered haddock.

I was quite pleased with that one, but the response was a blank expression and "what do you mean?" Tough crowd.

Battered haddock

Nice

[Johnny Yesno]

r/MeHearties

r/jimlad

[Johnny Yesno]

r/graham

[Paul Calf]

...and of course, r/cilla

[touchingcloth]

We can only speak for ourselves but being called a TERF would only disturb me if I thought that something I'd said or done had been interpreted as the behaviour of a TERF.  If I knew, as I'm sure you did, that that was not the case, then it's just a misunderstanding (at best) or aimed at offence (but how can it offend if there's palpably no truth in it?).

I have experienced something similar to what Blue Jam mentioned. Whilst I was away from this place I was also away from most places on the internet where discussions happen, and my first toe backnin the water was joining twitter for the first time. I joined exclusively as a lurker and not a poster, and followed only people posting about Brexit and feminism. And Limmy. One day I got a random PM from someone calling me out for being a TERF and saying I was blocked (and calling me a cunt for good measure), and a couple more came my way seemingly at random before I decided it wasn't really the medium for me. As I understand it there are plugins designed to identify and block known TERFs, but part of the way they work is based on who you follow rather than what you post, which was almost certainly the reason in my case given that I had never posted.

That said, I think one of the first things I did on joining was to PM Jeremy Corbyn to call him an allotment jam wanker or similar, so I can't really complain.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

r/sonpatisabitniftywithabat

[Buelligan]

I have experienced something similar to what Blue Jam mentioned. Whilst I was away from this place I was also away from most places on the internet where discussions happen, and my first toe backnin the water was joining twitter for the first time. I joined exclusively as a lurker and not a poster, and followed only people posting about Brexit and feminism. And Limmy. One day I got a random PM from someone calling me out for being a TERF and saying I was blocked (and calling me a cunt for good measure), and a couple more came my way seemingly at random before I decided it wasn't really the medium for me. As I understand it there are plugins designed to identify and block known TERFs, but part of the way they work is based on who you follow rather than what you post, which was almost certainly the reason in my case given that I had never posted.

That said, I think one of the first things I did on joining was to PM Jeremy Corbyn to call him an allotment jam wanker or similar, so I can't really complain.

Did it offend you that someone you don't know and presumably never will and who has no knowledge of you at all called you a TERF?  Isn't it a bit like having a rude word shouted at you from a passing car?  Or hearing a stranger fart?  Just a meaningless noise that reflects far more on its source than its target, mildly amusing perhaps.

Also, serves you fucking right for going on twitter, twitter's for cunts.

[touchingcloth]

It didn't offend me, but I can see how someone posting more than me (read: at all) could easily decide to fuck the whole enterprise off if my experience was in any way representative. I don't really have a point of comparison like being shouted at from a passing car because, being a white man, this has happened to me maybe four times in my whole life.

Not so much a stranger farting in my presence, but coming to my house and guffing through my letterbox because they'd confused me with the similarly named AstroTurf salesman down the street. A meaningless, temporary annoyance more meh than annoying.

Twitter truly is for cunts, though. I had the impression that it was mainly Guardianistas who hung out there, who are type of cunt unto themselves, but my word it was like a YouTube thread piped through 4Chan and squared by Milverton, all vying to be heard amongst the genuinely interesting posters. Like this place, basically, but with the ratios all wrong.

[Cloud]

With apologies if anyone is disappointed or offended by following content. Still constantly trying to figure out what's right in this crazy new identity politically charged world.

Yet another tangent but related, I'm not sure how to feel after catching up with what's been going on in open source.  The simple (but shit spouted by cunts) headline "SJWs keep taking over projects".  To be clear, getting more women and minorities involved would be fantastic, programming is a bit of a sausage fest.  Apparently others have thought that too and thought it's a good idea to bring in stuff like this https://www.freebsd.org/internal/code-of-conduct.html and entire committees dedicated to investigations and tellings-off for indiscretions like getting a bit mad and swearing at someone in a conference.  Linus Torvalds of the Linux project seems to have taken the "don't be such a dick" thing in their CoC constructively, taken time out, bettered himself and returned... so it's worked there... but some of it (not so much the rules themselves but how they can be abused by people on a witch hunt) seem a bit worrying to me.  It comes back to that preference of not really knowing or caring about IRL identity and just working together to produce good code.  But I kid you not, there are actual arguments against meritocracy in the open source world now and that's not just bullshit made up by right wingers.

I think there's a tricky line to be walked between letting kids know that they're free to experiment but without leaving them with the impression that the clothes they like to wear and the toys they like to play with are things they should base their gender identity around.

Confusing as heck isn't it, and exactly as played out in that contra video there's a bit of a conflict between letting anyone dress how they like vs. it being somewhat helpful for a binary transperson to be accepted as their preferred gender if there are gendered clothes (but on the flip side, they shouldn't have to)

As for kids, maybe that's where I'm a little right wing or at least sceptical when you see these parents showing off "my 5 year old trans kid".   I have heard from a few transpeople that they knew from an early age etc but I'm not quite so sure that it applies to all of them and I think that's very young to be letting someone make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives.  Even just sexual matters are generally at 16 and rightfully so.   Let them experiment yes, and don't shout at them and tell them their gender absolutely.  But "we can reclassify you as a girl if you like sweetie" as a pre-teen, ehhhhhh

As my friend noted at the time, these misogynistic "trans activists" are extreme and a vocal minority, but that's not to say that they don't exist. Personally, I find transphobia unacceptable and abhorrent, I have no problem with using a person's choice of personal pronouns and I really don't care what toilet a person uses, but I have also had some experience of a few people getting involved with trans rights campaigning with less than good intentions.

True, like anything else there are extreme arseholes in every movement.  I dare say this is the same witch hunting bigot type that has infiltrated open source projects as mentioned earlier in this comment.  The discussion about the situation on YouTube of course involves the terribly unhelpful pejorative "SJW".  But yeah - insults and labels aren't all that helpful, I therefore accept that if TERF is considered a pejorative then it might as well be consigned to the bin - there's nothing good to be had from name calling.

(I'm still not convinced that cisgender is a slur though!)

On the childfree stuff - and I'm strongly on the side of "you should not be made to feel bad not to have kids, it's a valid life", I think those who are nasty incel-like people about it are probably just that way because of their own insecurities, with a bit of misanthropy thrown in.  It makes them feel better to argue that happy parents and continuing the human race are a bad thing.  Same thing you see with omnivores  whinging on and on about vegans, and I say that as an omnivore.
Totally agree with your comment that it should be about reassuring people that it's okay not to be on the uni-house-marriage-kids railroad.


Basically, anything that tries to tear down other happy or successful people is shit.  To make a Tory-ish qualification: even the rich.  Tax the fuck out of them? yes.  Tear them down to below where we are and stand on them? no.

[chveik]

twitter's for cunts.

[touchingcloth]

On the kids point above, I'm deeply, deeply suspicious of anyone ascribing decisions that can only really be made as a mature person to their kids. "My son is a good Christian boy". Like fuck is he.

[chveik]

they're all good christian boys by the time..

ooops, wrong forum

[Buelligan]

r/soulsingers

[Zetetic]

but some of it (not so much the rules themselves but how they can be abused by people on a witch hunt) seem a bit worrying to me.

Not having the rules doesn't prevent any such witch hunts, of course.

Having codes of conduct provide (relatively) clear and inspectable standards of behaviour for hundreds of people to collaborate. Not having them makes the standards of behaviour much more a matter of guesswork.

(At the same time, these things should come with clarity about process. Debian seems to struggling to deal well right now with what appears, to me, to have been an issue born out of practical ignorance more than anything.)

But I kid you not, there are actual arguments against meritocracy in the open source world now and that's not just bullshit made up by right wingers.

Are there?

Do you mean things like this?

When people criticise meritocracy, they're not criticising the concept of treating contributions based on their merit. They're criticising the idea that humans are sufficiently self-aware that they will be able to identify and reject every subconscious prejudice that will affect their treatment of others. It's not a criticism of a desirable goal, it's a criticism of a flawed implementation. There's evidence that organisations that claim to embody meritocratic principles are more likely to reward men than women even when everything else is equal. The "cult of meritocracy" isn't the belief that meritocracy is a good thing, it's the belief that a project founded on meritocracy will automatically be free of bias.

https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/38746.html

I obviously find 'open source' highly offensive as a Free software advocate, but I'll last that pass for now. (This is a joke.) (Your post has been reported.)

I should be honest that my main experience of this is sort of stuff is having to forward-port fixes in this, that or the other because the author of the original patch in question got fucked-off dealing with some sort of arsery from project maintainers. (Which is far from limited to pushing women or black people away of course. And sometimes is about poor documentation of coding standards as much anything else.)

[Neville Chamberlain]

I used to see this a lot in feminist groups, like there's a contest to see who's the most woke. I was once told I wasn't a true feminist because I'm not vegan, and "as a feminist it's your duty to fight oppression wherever you see it, and that includes speciesist oppression".

Regarding the commercialisation of animal's bodies, the females of the species generally draw the short straw - especially in the dairy industry. I think there's a valid point to be made about extending one's feminism to non-human females, especially ones who are exploited for the whims of humans.

[Buelligan]

I agree, in essence, once you realise that you pity yourself, you should be able to transfer those feelings of compassion on to other beings (if you're not a moron or a complete narcissist - if you are, I'm sorry for your trouble). 

However, we are all, if living, hopefully, growing.  And you have to be at a bit of a shitty point on the growth-curve if you are unable to understand that other people may not be at the same place you are (and it isn't your job to punish them).

I'm more of a carrot-woman.  Pat their darling little fluffy heads every step of the way. 


(Not really, I love being a bossy cunt but I enjoyed saying this).

[Neville Chamberlain]

However, we are all, if living, hopefully, growing.  And you have to be at a bit of a shitty point on the growth-curve if you are unable to understand that other people may not be at the same place you are (and it isn't your job to punish them).

Yes, I agree! Just to clarify: To use accusatory language against someone about not being a "true feminist" if they're not vegan is counterproductive and serves only to create more division and tension. That said, as I stated above, I do believe it's a valid point that should at least give pause for thought.

For the sake of full disclosure, it's an area I've only studied very superficially, but the parallels are, I think, clear.

[Buelligan]

I love you Nev.  I knew you wouldn't be unkind to these monsters.

[Cloud]

Not having the rules doesn't prevent any such witch hunts, of course.

Having codes of conduct provide (relatively) clear and inspectable standards of behaviour for hundreds of people to collaborate. Not having them makes the standards of behaviour much more a matter of guesswork.

True, true.  I guess it's just how it opens up things like "sorry to hear that *hugs*" being construed as harassment, and on the other side of things, someone doing something not on the list and using "it's not on that extensive list you have there" as an excuse

Are there?

Yup
https://postmeritocracy.org/
But I think the key is, I disagree with the definition of meritocracy as "this person is valuable insofar as they are like me".  That describes an abuse of meritocracy and I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater!

Hire on talent I think, and make sure you fairly assess talent without any prejudice based on gender, ethnic origin, etc, rather than hiring for quotas.  I actually think it can be a little insulting to women and minorities (according to those who've said so) to imply they don't have the talent and need to be hired on that basis.

I do agree though that it's more constructive not to be a dick when someone makes the effort of providing a patch instead of just complaining.  That should be encouraged, hopefully Linus has reflected on that...

[Blue Jam]

I agree, in essence, once you realise that you pity yourself, you should be able to transfer those feelings of compassion on to other beings (if you're not a moron or a complete narcissist - if you are, I'm sorry for your trouble). 

However, we are all, if living, hopefully, growing.  And you have to be at a bit of a shitty point on the growth-curve if you are unable to understand that other people may not be at the same place you are (and it isn't your job to punish them).

I had a vegan Facebook friend who was mostly alright and posted some interesting stuff, but I was increasingly finding the pro-vegan hectoring a bit much. The final straw which made me unfriend him was him posting that PeTA video "What if serial killers talked the same way as meat-eaters?" I won't link to it because fuck PeTA, but it started with a woman tied to a chair and looking terrified as a man approached her with a knife, and then told her "It's alright- I don't kill people on Mondays!"

This was an obvious reference to people who do "Meat-Free Monday", and I just thought that it was a bit of a dick move to attack and belittle people who are at least trying to cut down on their meat consumption. What is that supposed to achieve, apart from making vegetarians, vegans, and other people who are more meat-free than thou feel smug? It's not a contest, and treating people like they're the losers isn't going to motivate them- in fact it might be counterproductive and get them reaching for the steak as a "fuck you".

I think people often assume that everyone else thinks the same way they do and has the same motivations. It might be easy to forget that for every person who became vegan overnight after a traumatic school trip to a farm, there are many others for whom it has been a more gradual process, and motivated by health or environmental concerns. I don't think it's a good or useful thing to attack people who aren't quite at God Tier yet, even if they have some way to go and are still eating some meat.

[Buelligan]

Although, being honest, you know I work in a restaurant, well... when I see those lovely ladies in their special frocks and perfume and those smiling civilised men suited and booted, tucking into a corpse and grinning, it really does creep me out.  When I open the fridges and see the blood.  The chest freezer that looks like a prop from American Psycho.  The little legs and hands and faces in the bin.  Sometimes whole bodies, lives, wasted.  I know for a certainty, if I wasn't so desperate, I wouldn't take the money, not for any money.  It's disgusting once you see it and I wish I didn't every day.

For me, it has absolutely nothing at all to do with scoring one against the meat-eaters, maybe it does for others, for me it's just stomach-turning and very dark.

And I hate the smell of it on my clothes and in my hair.