OccultIconoclast

Driving a car is a sin, and the gods will punish all of us for your hubris. They'll send droughts, famines, floods, fires, and hurricanes to smite us all because you drove a car.

Well it's mostly about the empathy guideline.

Another user in this thread was pointing more empathy my way than I was comfortable with. She didn't know much about me, so she was mistaking my intentions, and that made me feel uncomfortable. I wish she hadn't tried to use so much cognitive empathy on me, she didn't have enough context to use it right. The guidelines say you should have a lot of empathy for other people, but I disagree. Sometimes we just shouldn't guess at other people's motivations, because we're going to misunderstand them. We should control our empathy.

Like when you banned Dragon Rider. I read what both of you had to say about the leaked messages, and drag was saying drag's intention wasn't what you thought it was and apologizing. It seemed like you jumped to conclusions because you used too much empathy. Yeah, we're a social species who evolved a limited ability to read minds, but we shouldn't use it all the time. Especially not for important stuff. Sometimes we should just ask other people what they're thinking instead.

When I first started using Lemmy, I wouldn't have thought about empathy that way, but I had to adjust my mental model of empathy to be more like how Blahaj uses it, after seeing that whole situation, so I could understand what happened. And if empathy means guessing at other people's motivations without asking them, I think empathy should require a bit more caution and consent. Reading minds isn't always nice.

As for PugJesus, that guy uses far too little empathy. He never bothers to think about why other people are doing what they do. But I think there's got to be a happy medium in between treating others like black boxes, and assuming you know everything about them. I don't think more empathy is always good.

I think the idea you're working off of, that people are capable of accepting ambiguity, is flawed. Some people, sure. But a lot of people will never accept ambiguous guidelines, because the human brain isn't designed to see things that way. The autistic human brain often especially not. These people will always want certainty, and they'll psychoanalyse you to get it.

I've tried to psychoanalyse you too, because I'm the kind of autistic that craves structure. Haven't started arguments over it, but I have seen some weird decisions I didn't understand and struggled to get my head around them. Because if your mind is unpredictable to me, then the way Blahaj is moderated is unpredictable too. And people like me want to feel like we understand the rules, even if it's an illusion of safety. An illusion of safety can be very important to a person's wellbeing.

An environment where the rules are unclear and I don't feel like I understand them, well that reminds me of elementary school, personally. Personally, due to my own trauma, I don't feel like I'm capable of accepting that kind of environment without falling into despair. When I was a kid who didn't understand the rules, I acted out. I didn't see the point in trying to follow rules I didn't understand, so I didn't bother trying not to misbehave. I've matured quite a bit since then, but to be completely honest, using Blahaj makes me feel like that confused little kid again, on an emotional level.

A lot of people say growing up is hard, but for me, every year I got older made things easier. The rules became clearer. When I entered university and the workplace I got shown codes of conduct and ethics guidelines. Loved it. Way better than the chaos of childhood. It feels safe. You're saying clear rules aren't actually safe, and I agree, but I still like being able to lie to myself and say I'm safe. I breathe easier. I relax.

Oh great, we've got an internet truther here.

Mate, the internet exists. It's part of reality. It's not a fantasy otherworld.

This is a bad idea

Nobody owes you politeness when you walk around spreading diseases. You've chosen to make your existence into a threat to others.

Yeah, I got that, but the only coding I'm aware of on Blahaj is the cutesy voice thing. Which I didn't think was enforced until right now. I figured you thought I must be a cis man because I don't talk cute, and you were pointing out I didn't sound trans which makes me sound like the outsider you think I am. Did I misunderstand your reading?

Tbh I think the social pressure to talk in a cutesy voice in queer spaces comes from societal misogyny. Places like Blahaj are dominated by transfemmes, who are traumatized by masculinity and fearful of being misgendered. While all my cool trans friends are accepting of gender nonconformity, I think a lot of people don't manage to get fully to that place even if they're trans, because it's a fucking lot of work. So certain trans spaces, and I don't know if this is the majority of people on Blahaj or just you, they pressure people to act in line with traditional femininity due to their trauma and fear, reproducing the conditions of the patriarchy like a child who was beaten becoming a violent parent.

I'm butch and I'm not going to stop being butch just because I'm in thigh highs and plushies land.

I hope you told her that consensus reality is a social construct and the real world doesn't exist outside of being an agreement by society to promote certain values and interpretations.

I want her to start running right now. Fascism is here, we can't afford to wait.

Complaining here is a waste of effort for accomplishing what you supposedly want.

Making Blahaj a safer place for trans people with less drama? I can't do that on Blahaj?

I read most of the other comments and didn't reply because I don't want to start a ton of arguments, but your comment stood out to me as making a lot of assumptions about what I want that I don't understand.

This is actually a great example of why I'm not a huge fan of Blahaj's guidelines. You're trying to use your sense of cognitive empathy to figure out how I think. And the guidelines say empathy is good. But I don't like it. You're making mistakes, and I'd rather you didn't try to psychoanalyse me. I want you to empathize with me less, please. You haven't read enough of what I have to say to make accurate guesses at the level you're trying to. It's too early for the amount of empathy you're pointing at me.

One of the reasons I created this post is because I assume Ada doesn't like being psychoanalysed by internet people either. This post is a warning that the current system leads to lots of amateur psychoanalysis. It's unpleasant for me, I'd assume it would be unpleasant for her too.

Social interaction is magic. You have an organ for creating special waves that transmit your thoughts into other people's heads? That's just telepathy. Language is a superpower. And it only works because everyone believes a bunch of vibrating air molecules can have meaning, which is some spiritual woo-woo.