Fading Echoes

In my recent post “Frankly” I think I left some important things unsaid.

Now that the discussion has died down I hope I can risk stating my own points of view without triggering more unpleasantness.

The only new posts on the “thread” have been from textmonger and I’m also replying partly to those.

I’ll try to be brief.

Things I Care About

My personal moral philosophy is based on “there but for the grace of #deity go I”; the idea that every consciousness is interchangeable. You didn’t choose who you are, I didn’t choose who I am; I should act as if we could be instantaneously swapped at any time.

As far as how to treat mistreated groups, this makes things easy: I support everyone, because I support all individuals. You do you, I’ll do me, we’ll work out anything that turns out to be hard.

Things I’m Ignorant About

The topic that kicked this off was gay rights; and trans rights also came up. I’ve worked with openly gay and trans colleagues for a long time, so it’s something I’m slightly aware of, but that’s all.

Since I’m ignorant I don’t think I would be helping anyone by forming or publishing opinions about what gay or trans people “should” be doing. So, that’s all I have to say on the topic.

Thank you to everyone who has posted their experiences to Gemini, I look forward to reading more and hopefully learning a little.

Things I Don’t Like

I don’t agree with “just toughen up; if you get offended, it’s your problem”, which I’ve heard a few times on Gemini now.

When you write and post you can, of course, do so without considering any possible negative effect on your audience.

But it isn’t polite.

If all you want to do is to say something offensive to prove that you can—well, nobody can stop you. Some people will stop listening to you—which is fine, no loss. But others might decide to go elsewhere instead, and that I find not fine at all; this is why we have politeness in the first place, so that not only the most aggressive voices get heard.

If, on the other hand, you want to make an actual point about some topic that you know is controversial, why not put in a little more effort to make it gently and carefully—to communicate more clearly? If you are writing from a position of lived experience and/or hard-won knowledge then I think any position can be explained in an acceptable way. Put in the work, if you choose to, and we are all better off for it.

From a position of ignorance—such as mine on trans rights issues—it might be impossible to weigh in on a difficult topic without causing offense. But then, little is lost if you simply say nothing, or wait for a better time to speak.

Things I Like

I like politeness.

It does in fact seem very common that people posting on Gemini are polite—actively considerate of their audience.

Which is great. It’s a big part of why I like to post here.

I appreciate the effort put in—thank you.

Wrapup

I think that covers what I wanted to say; with that out of the way I shall return to posting about unimportant but hopefully occasionally interesting things.

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So far today, 2024-05-13, feedback has been received 4 times. Of these, 0 were likely from bots, and 4 might have been from real people. Thank you, maybe-real people!