Political Memes

Sigh. Yeah, my recent comments have been fairly zero-tolerance (I wonder what has prompted that) for some of the fashier positions you find on here. It's something I'm working on, but if you check the context for most of those it's usually some pretty heinous shit that I'm replying to. (tho like, several of my most recent comments are an exchange with a user just a few comments up that I was a dick to initially, and whom I do intend to apologize to as soon as I can find the right words to express it. What they said was quite profound, and even if I do think it's misguided it does give me some hope that people can still hold to those ideals in the face of gestures broadly at everything)

Listen, I checked through your post history yesterday and took another dive just now, and a bunch stood out. Partly there's the fact that you've got just as many aggro comments calling out centrists and other bullshit political positions as I've got (so maybe don't throw too many stones here because we're both living in the same big glass house and it's really cold outside right now). Mainly though, there's a whole lot more in there to *like. *

For example:

You play tombstone, a game I love. Your line, "You can’t change where or how you’re born, but you can change what instance you’re on with almost no impact to yourself." made me genuinely laugh out loud when I read it two months ago, and I've gone on to paraphrase it at people since then. You're comfortable with neo-pronouns, something that is extremely important to me (even if I do have one hell of a time remembering them). You're passionate about the topics you're aware of, and do not shy away from negative backlash for presenting correct but unpopular opinions, especially when you feel you're morally correct. With complete sincerity, I'm quite sure we'd get along very well under just about any other circumstance, and it's a shame you're not more active because you add a great deal to the community already.

And with all that said, and with my complete understanding of why you feel this way, you should really let go of the drive to hold casual comments to high logical standards. This is not the Forum Magnum, I am not wearing a toga (and I'm willing to bet you aren't either, but I fully accept I could be wrong and no judgement if you are), and appeals to pathos or ethos rarely hold to the standards of reasoned debate. It will add very little to a venting comment to point these things out, and if the context in which you present a point like that isn't the same for all participants, you'll just be getting frustrated as other people point out they don't really care, or that you're assuming the context to be something other than it is (like happened here).

(Also, it's really just not a good look to attack someone with an appeal to accomplishment, especially as more and more educators pivot to presenting material via youtube. Most of my students agree that they wouldn't be able pass my program if it weren't for Indian CS instructors on youtube, for example. Interestingly, an informal internal survey we did found that CS students had the least difficulty parsing thick accents of any student grouping. I can't prove the two things are related, but man is it a juicy correlation...)

~~I only just now realize I've misread Outer Wilds as Outer Worlds. Both amazing games, but very different in scope and tone.~~