Hacker News Reader

Comment by PaulHoule | Hacker News Reader

It's a good place for me for posting photos and links but I have an absolute policy against following anyone who says anything about politics, gender, chronic diseases, disability, or anything negative in their profile. I'd be doing engagement farming and probably have 15k followers now if it didn't raise my blood pressure to look at random profiles.

I feel Mastodon is a nicer place these days because the worst tranche of Mastodonsters seemed to have migrated to Bluesky.

View on HN

Politics I can understand, but what's wrong with, say, a deaf or blind user putting that in their bio?

It is one thing to be disabled, it is another thing to be "diss abled" and be continuously angry about it. Same thing about people who have fibromyalgia, chronic lyme, etc. I mean, my wife has a good friend who has fibro and she is cool but the people I find online who first and foremost want to talk about their health challenges seem to build an identity and find meaning around it.

For instance you find a lot of people on Mastodon who complain that people don't put ALT text on images but I work really hard to write good ALT text for my photos and people aren't thankful for that.

I don't see the mentioned categories of inherently offensive but on platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon I see them as associated with emotional negativity.

>the people I find online who first and foremost want to talk about their health challenges seem to build an identity and find meaning around it.

Don't see anything wrong with that. The squeaky grease gets the wheel, after all. So people like that lead to more accessibility options, or awareness to fund initiatives to hell solve those issues for future generations.

>you find a lot of people on Mastodon who complain that people don't put ALT text on images but I work really hard to write good ALT text for my photos and people aren't thankful for that.

Well that's just our society. We don't get thanked for what is "expected" of us. Only punished for our shortcomings. Media reflects reality in that case.

Well if that’s your attitude it is no wonder you feel hated and marginalized and not getting what you want. In successful relationships you show gratitude much more often than you complain.

On Mastodon I find a lot of people who do the work of running servers are pretty steamed about all the hateful and demanding people on that platform. They don’t usually talk about it because they don’t want to get dogpiled, but it comes up often when I get into conversations with those people.

Maybe the thing you're missing is that, for many of those people, the "relationship" does not feel very successful.

Wow Paul. That's a pretty mean spirited viewpoint.

I will think of this when I see your name, and think differently of you. You are quite active, and I'm sad to have seen such a base mena character. You have the right to pick your filters, even if I think that's crass & ridiculous to say "no politics" no advocacy. It's unclear and really shitty IMO to cast such nasty vague aspertions as "worst tranche of Mastodonsters" though. Just saying incredibly nasty things that mean nothing clear & that just cast the worst most ungenerous light. Dude!

Right now I am sure there are millions of posts about whatever happened in Venezeula last night. None of these people have any actual information, it doesn't have any value as "news" -- I'll get more out of reading about it in The Economist next week if not other papers. Sure it is a signification that other people are angry and I can't blame them for being angry but if I get angry it doesn't accomplish anything. It's like you're in an airplane at 40k feet that just sprung a leak and you need to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can take care of the people around you.

I'm going to argue that those feelings of anger are self-destructive and don't lead to effective activism or positive change in the world. Emotions are contagious

People can post all the politics they like and some of it is going to get in my feed but there are a lot of people who post 20 angry things about Trump a day and nothing good is going to come out of following people like that. I am interested in activism on the issues of: (1) Gen Z's social disconnectedness, (2) an "othering" style of activism on the left that helps the right win, (3) subverting the "trauma theory" that encourages people to build identities around marginalization (e.g. "diss abled" people), (4) recognition of the common (5-10%) condition of schizotypy which is now misdiagnosed as ADHD, autism and other fashionable conditions, and (5) getting our economy and technology aligned with our environment.

Getting mad doesn't help with any of these.

Fwiw you come across as angry (tho not mean) in this stack. I am aligned with you on each and every enum. but maybe I'm too exotic (+ not in the thick of it)

(1) It's hard not to think about angry people for me and not get angry because I am involved in humanity and emotions are contagious. It's why I have to limit my exposure to angry people.

(2) I've had phases of my life where activism has been 30-100% of my activity so I've had a lot of experience talking to people door to door, tabling, giving speeches, convincing people to run for public office, going to meetings of different groups to build bridges, etc. (... with that emotional sensitivity!)

I've given many talks where the crowd was excited and other times been showed the door early and got harsh corrections. I know how people respond to messages when I deliver them and when others deliver them. For that matter I work in the social sciences department with survey data and I'm well read in political science even if I have to defer to the experts at work about it.

So I know if you're going to talk about "white privilege" you might as well mortgage all your future earnings and give them straight to the Ku Klux Klan. I'm deeply offended when "woke" people act as if teaching elementary school students the difference between "equity" and "equality" is going to do anything about a difficult problem such as racism. And I think strident transgenderism has made expressing your gender in any unconventional way more and not less dangerous in the last 20 years.

I'm angry about left-wing slacktivism precisely because I care about the things that they say they care for.

Fair points-- I have to reflect.

I'm just as terrified of going around in circles as you are -- I'm guessing that's where some of the anger comes from-- but I've no relevant expertise/experience to stay grounded.

>I am involved in humanity

This may or may not help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sum,_humani_nihil_a_me_al...

(It's taken very seriously now, was Marx's personal maxim, but it started off as a joke)

Also--

>racism

Prioritisation is hard. Easier to solve tech-> economics-> racism (in that order, but smh folks mix it up, because racism feels __DEAREST[0]__ -- thanks but no thanks globalsocial media-- and the others not so much?)

[0]So different than opiate in action yet so similar in effect

Ps: if aeb is listening-- Buxton!!

I lifted that line from this poem!

https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2118

sounds to me like most of these problems stem from having only two parties?

>I'm going to argue that those feelings of anger are self-destructive and don't lead to effective activism or positive change in the world.

I challenge you to find one societal feat in history that was achieved without any violence nor abuse whatsoever. You're arguing for an ideal humanity hasn't achieved yet,and may never achieve at this rate.

And you know I hate fascists but boy they have great footwear.

I literally can't tell if this is sarcasm.

Sadly, no. These are the kinds of people that an article like "bluesky is not a good place" appeals to. Aka the ones who are not the ones seeking Bluesky to get away from such close minded folk.

(1) I think X is much worse and haven't had an account there since 2016

(2) The unhealthy culture started on X

(3) I don't complain about the unhealthy culture on Bluesky on Bluesky and I don't participate in it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com