Communication Breakdowns

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Thank you for having the patience to explain all of this to me. I am really sorry for taking so long to get the message that you were telling me. I was totally blind to what was going on, and my blindness made those “kerfluffles” look like something that they weren’t. And I have been working under the wrong assumptions about those kerfluffles for a long time. And I am sorry.

I don’t use the word “blindness” to excuse myself; it is no excuse. I just want you to know that my eyes are now more open than they were before, and I will respond to these kerfluffles very differently moving forward.

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I hope you don’t mind me replying to you because at this point it’s probably intimidating again. Upthread perhaps you read that I had a bad impression from what limited interaction I had in the thread you were in.

I appreciate you being willing to speak up for yourself here though. I respect that effort.

That impression I had of you, the reality is that it is fed though by a lot of experiences I have had here that don’t involve you, and a lot of my own confusion about what the “right” thing to do is when everything I do feels like ends up being ultimately kind of wrong.

Basically people here have already been getting frustrated, extremely so, and a lot of people have competing theories about whose fault it is, and literally I have been some one who reached out often to people but now I feel like that is often a cause of derails and more problems and I don’t want to do that either? Like unbeknownst to you I just had this terrible epiphany due to another thing that happened on this board where I realized that things I thought were friendly, helpful, trying to connect to other people’s humanity were ultimately backfiring. So that’s why I feel the way I feel about this new situation on the increasingly hostile internet.

So for me it was like this:

I tried to tell you something that I perceived as trying to warn you about wherever you got your information and whether you should trust it and to push back on what I saw as a potentially destructive piece of “fake news.” It’s ok if you don’t agree with me, I don’t really need you to agree with me on that kwim?

I felt resistance. And so I immediately abandoned the thread. Because the easiest way not to make a mistake online is to be absent from the entire thing.

I got flagged too I think, now it’s becoming a puree in my brain, and that also upset me because I swear I definitely was engaging you in good faith and also I felt like my post
(and these are my feelings ok, not saying this is reality)

I had the feeling I was flagged because of who and how I am rather than because I violated a rule or attacked you. How can anyone push back on destructive rumors if we literally aren’t allowed to point out how and why they may be destructive!? This is where I’m lost. I can’t figure it out. I give up! I just… I give up.

I came back and found whatever I found, at which point probably some things had been deleted and other things hadn’t been written yet. I have no idea how fair or unfair any of that is to or for you but I’m telling you just one person’s perception from what probably sounds like a chorus.

And yeah I can see just how unpleasant that probably was. This weekend has brought out a lot of unpleasant feelings that people have here.

The thing is from my perception a lot of this ultimately has nothing to do with you specifically and that is why some people are so upset on your behalf. But it’s also why some one like me is so upset about the whole thing when really you and I specifically had very little interaction.

In the past i used to try to talk to people more openly and draw them out, sometimes because i just literally failed to pick up on what was wrong about them. I can be shockingly naive at times in a way that often leaves people wondering how I function as an adult. Then sometimes I overcompensate but just being afraid of everything and everyone.

I legit have my own problems for which no one here is responsible after all.

I honestly think looking to you to modify your behavior and expect to get better results is unfair to you though.

As far as neurodivergence here… I’m definitely a couple of kinds of that and this place is hard for me to navigate sometimes. It really requires specialized skillsets.

I’ve been doing better than I might have thought I would at some points in my past but I’m not doing that great really because I dunno if I can find the “right” way to exist here either and in that we probably feel the same.

Best of luck but I agree that if you, for whatever reason struggle with places where most of the people are definitely trying to make it easier for you then realistically… this place here is the wild west.

I do not mean to be dismissive or hurtful in saying this to anyone but I think it is the case. I agree with Cheem that this is just freaking expert level social grinding for people who love a challenge.

Not your fault at all but just to give the context for myself here, what particularly upsets me is that this is still one of the least bad places I know of and one of the only places I still am active at all online.

So… I dunno. Peace.

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I’ve been reading and commenting on BB since before Maggie Koerth-Baker, but I’ve been feeling less and less welcome here the past few years.

Because despite all the talk about diversity and inclusion, the BBS right now reflects a specific liberal worldview that is nowhere near as open minded and inclusive as it thinks it is. The fact that I agree with 98% of that worldview doesn’t mean I can’t recognize an echo chamber when I’m in one.

Too many people who are dominating the conversation here seem to have lost the ability to entertain an idea they don’t believe, to acknowledge that cultures besides their own might have different values or language, to actually discuss differences with people they differ from. There’s no sense of proportionality or context.

That’s not what I consider liberal, or intellectually honest, or tolerant.

All of which is incredibly frustrating because I’m used to dealing with that shit from Trumpers and evangelicals and “libertarians”. I expect better from the people I generally agree with, because talking to those kinds of people is exactly what convinced me that liberal values are better- But honestly, being on this board the past couple years has made me feel like those values are a lost cause.

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This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

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Do you have specific examples? I have a feeling that digging into these cases may find very good reasons for this “intellectual dishonesty” as you say.

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This topic was automatically opened after 4 hours.

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Calling people “Intellectually dishonest” colors any discussion from the start. And does not seem to assume good faith.

But yes, specific examples help move a discussion forward.

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I’m tempted to say something snarky, but I guess that would be less than helpful. I appreciate the general tone of sincerity in this thread.

Yes, the consensus here is liberal (as the US perceives that term), and often further left. I think the main reason we don’t hear many voices from the right here is because those who hold such views quickly perceive that liberal consensus, and then either leave or keep their views quiet.

I think another reason they leave or keep quiet is because if they DO express say, mildly conservative views, others then express disagreement with them. And such opinions are NOT, crucially, “shut down” or “censored.” They’re disagreed with.

Of course, if further/far right views get expressed, those do get shut down, deleted, etc.

Because saying something like “gay and trans people are groomers” or “neurodivergent people should be eliminated from the gene pool” is hurtful to others, and fascistic, and already debated and proven wrong, and harmful and disgusting, and so on.

So, if not wanting to hear the opinions of Nazis makes this place an echo chamber, then i guess to that extent it is one. But if we’re going to discuss whether bbs is too unwilling to consider the validity of other non-liberal views, I hope we can keep on the table the common conflation on the right of disagreement with censorship.

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Good lord, closed by flags again? I don’t know who is throwing them, but i have not seen a flaggable comment here. I have seen comments i disagree with, but that is the whole point of the discussion Disageements are not flaggable! We are often told by our esteemed moderator that if we cannot take pushback, we should not post. Because no matter how correct you think you are, someone will probably have a different POV. That’s how conversations work. And yes, i am one who invokes the Nazi Bar analogy a lot, but unless i missed them, and i have followed this thread fairly fairly closely, there haven’t been any posts where that is applicable. IMHO, this is a conversation worth having and probably way overdue. But it can’t be a conversation if it becomes a flag-fest.

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You know, I’m sorry I expressed myself in terms of my dissatisfactions here. My meditation teacher once advised me “Say what you want, not what you don’t want”, and I now realize that I didn’t follow that excellent advice! To my chagrin.

I do find it harder to put my positive hopes into words, and I think plenty of others do too. What exactly do I hope for here? And can I express it in positive language? I’ll make an attempt at it. It’s tough. In some ways, I find that I don’t want to be overly specific, because that seems limiting…

I hope for a place where my half-formed and stumbling ideas can be put out there, tossed around in friendly discussion, added to by others, rough edges polished off by others, and collectively come up with something better than what I started with.

I hope for a place where people who seem a little “odd” or “different” will be tolerated and even drawn into the conversation (if they care to be).

???

What do others here hope for? Can you help me out by sharing some of your positive hopes for the forum?

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I want to see a place where people like Liz who have defended themselves and others as neurodivergent people for years and tried to exist here safely representing multiple intersections of marginalization in a kind and helpful way… i want them to be perceived and treated as such. Does no one think processing this intense situation might also be hard FOR HER? I want to see them not get scapegoated, flagged to hell, and chased off the boards by what might just turn out to be resentful angry people who want to WIN and get EVEN.

But I do not trust you now. And I do not trust this place.

And so… it cannot be.

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Odd or different in what sense, or terms?

I mean, this is a place full of people who revel in being a community of “happy mutants.” Those would be “odd” people, no?

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You know, I’m not sure. I think I may be referring to neorodivergent people, but I’m not sure about that. It’s just that I see good people who struggle to express themselves, or seem kind of oddball, not survive here.

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Do you remember any examples? Since they’re gone, I think it’s fine to name them.

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After this discussion there will likely be at least two less diverse women on this board.

That is the fruit of this labor so far.

Odd different? I truly believe now that there is at least one member with clout or leadership level privileges who just actually hates me and I can not feel ok here anymore.

Like it’s over. How can I be expected to recover from that?

I can’t. Even if some one reasonably could be expected to… I don’t think I can. They win. You win. Whether it’s real or a fiction of my own mental illness it doesn’t even matter actually.

I will grieve my sense of community and that will make this place a happier place, a safer place, a place were more people are free… that is the lesson I have taken from this experience.

I do not see a way to recover from that? I don’t think there is one.

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Well, I don’t know if they’re gone. Maybe just gone quiet?

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I hope for a place where it’s okay that I don’t know everything yet when I make a comment. I hope to learn.

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When it comes to discussing marginalized communities, as we are doing here; this sounds to me like asking them to do work for you. While you post random, unformed thoughts about them.

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I’m sorry.

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Learn this then please? Look at how this went? Minorities are pitted against each other, they suffer losses, the community is fractured… and the next post is about how maybe this place should be more right wing.

I just saw that.

I just saw that be the order in which those things happened in space and time.

If you want what you say you want then this is not the place for it from what I can tell.

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