Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

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> Yes, some people will think you are an asshole, but the little bit of friction and occasional loss of a connection does not compare to relief and peace of just not caring what they think

I have found deep joy in un-filtering myself. Not worrying about every syllable that comes out of my mouth for fear of retaliation, cancellation, et. al. My social circle had to shrink a bit, but the trade-off is that I am no longer suffering from a constant stream of cognitive dissonance. I stopped forcing myself to believe in ridiculous pop-culture/tech bullshit just to fit in with others. It was taking too much out of me to fake it for arbitrary social credits.

The crazy thing is that I still have high quality social relationships despite my unfiltered expression. I'd rather have a few people I can actually trust with controversial ideas rather than an army of sycophants I have to pander to constantly.

> I stopped forcing myself to believe in ridiculous pop-culture/tech bullshit

Curious what this means?

OP probably doesn’t want to answer this question for the exact reason he posted his comment. Your inquiry may be in good faith but it is 99% of how the cancel warfare begins: “Here let me ask a really introspective question to see exactly how badly I’m going to throw my code words at you in my response.”

Perhaps, but unfortunately there is not enough information to get even a toehold on an idea. Do people really go online to present a fake persona? Most embellish, and I bet some do, but does anyone else care enough to pay attention? For most folks I'd say no.

If GP said, "politics" then I'd get the drift.

> Perhaps, but unfortunately there is not enough information to get even a toehold on an idea.

Imagine some position you personally find to be controversial/wrong/stupid but that everyone else around you agrees with (or vice versa).

In my view, understanding what my position is on some arbitrary matter does not further this conversation in any meaningful way.

The real question is probably, why were you "forcing yourself" to believe in things? Whole situation sounds contrived or perhaps not explained well.

Perhaps you’re surrounded by open minded people who you can gracefully decline to agree with on every subject. Many of us live in areas where not holding status quo opinions is enough to lose your job. So I can see where folks would try to believe something despite cognitive dissonance with it.

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