MystikIncarnate

I work in IT support, which is basically the next pond over from development. Because the job is so mentally intensive, if I'm working on complex tasks for more than 4-5 hours, my brain is catatonic by the time I hit the end of my shift.

Mental effort, is still effort. Most of the time you can't see that someone is mentally tired, but it is just as debilitating as being physically exhausted.

I can not do my job while mentally exhausted. One screw up from me, and I have the ability to, entirely by accident, take out an entire organizations ability to do useful work.

Some of my clients, I've seen log into the system at 8AM or earlier, and still be online after midnight. I don't understand how they're getting anything useful done by that time.

Sounds like you ended up in the Bible belt.

There's lots. A pretty easy example:

Person 1: I like my truck Person 2: I prefer my EV, trucks consume too much fuel.

P1: trucks have to consume so much fuel because that's what makes them powerful P2: but most people don't need that much power, trucks are unnecessary.

P1 (feeling attacked, goes into a defensive mentality): I need a truck and lots of other people do too. (Continued rationalizations of why trucks are necessary) P2 (unmoved in their opinion): I still don't think they're necessary for the average person.

P1: (further rationalizations as to the everyday benefits of a truck) P2 (still unmoved in their opinion)

P1 successfully convinced themselves of the benefits of owning a truck.

This is will known to marketing too. Most vehicle advertising is not to get you to buy a (insert vehicle here), but instead, get those with (insert vehicle here) to be so proud of how great their car is, that they convince you to buy (insert vehicle here).

This concept has a name. Cool, thanks, TIL.

This is actually a very interesting psychological phenomenon. I'm no psychologist, but stretching what I learned from "how to win friends and influence people" to the extreme, directly opposing someone's viewpoint generally forces them to defend it. By defending it, they rationalize the reasons why they adhere to the idea, and thus end up convincing themselves of their belief.

Your opposition literally only serves to force them to rationalize their belief, and deepen their belief in that thing.

It's fascinating, but stupid. In my experience, the most intelligent people I've ever spoken to will always take opposition seriously, even if with a grain of salt. When struck with an opposing viewpoint, they usually inquire about it, asking the speaker to justify their position so they can understand why they came to this conclusion. The mildly intelligent will then use that justification to tear down the person's belief in that system. The highly intelligent will then ask questions that cause the speaker to question their own beliefs.

But doing nothing more than asking specific and pointed questions about someone's beliefs, I have seen very intelligent and clever people, get others to convince themselves that they're wrong in what they believe.

Long story short, your neighbor isn't wrong, but they're also not exactly correct. The character of a person, IMO, is not in what they believe in, but how they react to adversity. Whether that adversity is political, intellectual, physical, or emotional; how you deal with difficulty is the content of your character.

If making people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and women, equal, by granting them the same rights and freedoms as everyone else (including bodily autonomy, and the ability to live, vote, and marry who they wish), causes you to start to lean towards fascism, what do you think that says about your character?

As a white person, I'd like to ask that you don't lump me in with them in any way, shape, or form.

Thanks!

All I'm going to say, as a Canadian, is that if someone were to plan a protest where we all "went dark" for a day to protest something... I would participate.

She's having a glass of wine, not getting shit faced. What the fuck is this tweet?

I'm not American, and I can't vote in US elections. Bernie Sanders is one of few US political figures that I respect the opinions of.

I don't know what Pelosi is smoking, but it has to be some good shit.

And many learned lessons from that, in the form of dead loved ones.

If I can quote the late George Carlin: "They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

I would argue that George was right and the American dream doesn't exist, and never existed. You cannot destroy that which does not exist..

I hear that. It's insidious how it whispers back at you when shit hits the fan, even if you haven't thought about it in months.