Gormadt

Only $1000 for a hand crafted couch is a steal

We've got a saying at work, "Manglement's gotta mangle."

It's how we refer to management's (who we refer to as manglement) decisions when they can't leave a functioning system alone without getting in there and breaking it.

Evolution in 100 million years:

🦀🦀🦀

Don't feel too bad, it jumps to mind as well

To me it's blue and I'm not seeing purple, but I'm pretty colorblind so I'd say take that with a grain of salt lol

Basically I made this post to highlight how different peoples thinking is on even something as simple as thinking of a random thing that's blue.

Technically correct, the best kind of correct

The unholy union of anarchists and utilities

Not yet unfortunately

In fact (as much as it pains me to say) before the month is out they're effectively getting a promotion from president elect to president before the month is out.

NGL I was really hoping they'd get a promotion to federal prison inmate by this point

I never said that?

Everyone sees the world through different lenses was what I was saying.

I see trying to explain to you that different people process and retain information differently just isn't working. So I'm just going to move on.

I hope you have a Happy New Year.

I'll do what I can (I do proof read my comments and I always seem to miss things) but with how my brain processes info and holds info it's a hurdle for sure.

I don't want to write a novel as reply explaining how my brain processes info here but how little my brain holds gender info or processes it, it's like sand in a collander.

Like I'll be hammering a reply, the info slips out of my brain, and due to using gender neutral / agnostic pronouns for people by default I switch to using them without noticing. And then it slips through the proof reading process as the info is gone at that point.

Like if you've seen that video that went viral like a decade ago where people where the premise is "follow the basketball" and a dude dressed as a gorilla walks through the middle, and no one notices the gorilla when watching the video, it's kinda like that. I focus on the conversation topic and engaging with the other person, and rest of the info falls away.

It's kinda hard to explain (though I did write many novel elsewhere about it)

I hope I don't catch any strays from a mod because that info just doesn't get held in my brain, but given enough time I'll probably catch at least 1.

Edit: I think I came up with an idea on how to voice my thinking but bear with me it's odd. Say there's 3 people, 1 is colorblind (monochromatic), 1 says there's only a handful of colors and the rest are confused, and the third says there's a color spectrum. The monochromatic colorblind person agrees with the person who says there's a spectrum (basically everything is a spectrum, why not color?) but due to not seeing color defaults to refering to things in generic ways. Would you say the colorblind person is an ally to the person saying there's a spectrum or would you say that they're an ally to the person saying there's only a small number of colors and the rest are confused?

I'm basically the monochromatic colorblind person in this scenario. It's Greek to me.

Background but also context

With your comment yesterday saying you "were done here" as a reply to one of mine I figured you didn't want to talk about the topic anymore but I guess I'll bite.

I see we have like a fundamental difference in our relationship to gendered language and gender as a whole. (Likely a difference in our english dialects as well but that's a topic for another time)

It's kinda hard to parse the idea as it's so foreign to my brain but I'll try phrasing it differently. (Bare with me I basically spent half my life not engaging socially with anyone (not to mention learning to speak twice in my life with the last time being about 7 years ago))

Parsing who someone is (in my mind) engages very little with their name or gender. And trying to store that info in my brain is like putting sand in a collander, it might linger for a bit but it's going to sift away pretty quickly. (The amount of people who I've know for years and I still struggle with their names is staggering (I usually refer to them as 'oi [friend/bud/pal/etc] ' (which is usually how they know I forgot again)))

Gender is like a muti-axial spectrum right, so when it comes to refering to people that whole spectrum is wrapped in a big circle of "gender neutral / agnostic" pronouns with some cut outs inside for gender specific ones. And it's not like a form fitting circle it's like a cookie inside a bakery. Like gendered pronouns are like different kinds of cookies but the bakery deals in more than just cookies. The gender neutral / agnostic pronouns are outside of the spectrum but also contain the spectrum.

It's like he/she/they is like snickerdoodle/chocolate chip cookies/baked goods, and not snickerdoodle/chocolate chip cookies/gingersnaps. Like 'he/she' is a fine descriptor of living things and 'they' is the blanket term for living things as to snickerdoodles/chocolate chip cookies is a fine descriptor of cookie and 'baked goods' is the blanket term of baked things.

But as mentioned in the spoilered part: gender info is stored so poorly in my brain and is something I think about so little that it's going to slip out of my brain basically immediately so I go with the gender neutral by default. It's not a "fall back to gender neutral, I can't remember what they prefer" it's a "refering to someone multiple times and it slips out of my brain without noticing". Like proofreading my comments is something I do constantly but I still miss things constantly.

I hope that makes sense?

Edit: I came up with a different way to voice my thinking but bear with me it's odd. Say there's 3 people, 1 is colorblind (monochromatic), 1 says there's only a handful of colors and the rest are confused, and the third says there's a color spectrum. The monochromatic colorblind person agrees with the person who says there's a spectrum (basically everything is a spectrum, why not color?) but due to not seeing color defaults to refering to things in generic ways. Would you say the colorblind person is an ally to the person saying there's a spectrum or would you say that they're an ally to the person saying there's only a small number of colors and the rest are confused?

I'm basically the monochromatic colorblind person in this scenario. It's Greek to me.

The more I end up running into Grail the more they give me narcissist vibes. Especially their stance that "critising narcissism is actually a conservative view point"

Not to mention the amount of times they seem to find excuses to link back to their blog articles.

I'm not sure who mindtraveler was/is but looking at Grail's recent comment history, yeah I hadn't seen the worst of their behavior as we're, in general, in different parts of the site.

You say I'm intending to disrespect others but that isn't my intent at all, as even in my comment there I make my intent clear. My intent is to interact in "small talk" kind of way with people online as that is how I see online interactions. Small talk. And small talk doesn't require exchanging names to function properly.

In terms of respecting identies, I'm fully willing to respect people's genders.

When it comes to transhumanism that's where I start getting a bit wishy washy and I need to do some more pondering on. At this point my thinking is basically, "If you're identifying as a living thing then IDGAF. You're you, I'm me, and my brain is about as organized and focused as a garbage dump. I'm probably going to forget in general on most things so I hope you're okay with 'they/them' and other generic ways of referring to you."

Identifying as non-living things though is where I get a hang up. You're a living breathing critter on this miserable little mudball suspended in a sunbeam.

As an example: I blocked Drag for being an ass not for what they identify as. My interactions with them were limited but highly abrasive. I haven't blocked Grail because, though I think identifying as a goddess is something I don't support, They're not enough of an ass (behavior wise) to warrant blocking yet. My interactions with them have been limited and mild in general.

They/them are gender neutral / agnostic pronouns for referring to other, typically, living things both singular and plural. I make heavy use of them as they're easy. Much like how I refer to groups as "Y'all" and "Folks", or when greeting specific people IRL as "friend" or "bud".

I see interacting with people online the same way I see interacting with people on the bus or at work, typically fleeting and likely never going to interact with that person again. And interactions happening to the point I learn someone's name is, at best, rare.

Edit: Hopefully that makes sense? I am trying to be clear on my feelings on things. If not, I'm willing to continue chatting about it.

Y'all are getting hit with they/them from me not because of intolerance but because it's my default way of referring to people let alone online.

I don't read comments and posts as: [username] says "yada yada."

I read them as: [random person nearby wanting to engage in small talk] says "yada yada"

I don't read the usernames often which has lead to funny situations where I was having a pleasant conversation in one thread and a shit show in another with the same person.

I engage like I would with small talk with a stranger. We don't need to exchange names to chat, it's not important. Hell I used to talk with a handful of people daily when I rode the city bus. Did that for 2 years. We never learned each others names. I even went to one of their kid's weddings. Was quite the party, still didn't catch their name though.

'Tis a silly word but I like it.

Don't know how I'd say it though lol

TLDR: IMO drag is an abusive troll, so I blocked them. IMO Grail is genuine (though terminally online), I haven't blocked Them yet but They def are close due to having some shitty beliefs on some things (narcissism, politically inactive queers, etc). Also a bonus paragraph about my gender identity because I felt it fit(? IDK I'm tired AF and rambling).

Personally I saw drag's online behaviour as abusive and trolling so they got my standard response to that kind of behaviour; reported and blocked. On one of my alts I encountered them advocating for someone's suicide, then I blocked them across all of my accounts instead of just my main. (Looking at the modlog for them should be enough to see their pattern of behaviour )

In terms of Grail on the other hand I don't respect Their claims of divinity because I'm staunchly atheist. It has nothing to do with Their gender and is purely about Their claims of being a goddess. Will I capitalize Their pronouns when I use them? Sure, if I remember to go back and edit them as my phone likes to auto correct them constantly. (Hell I was in the thread awhile back with them trying to help them come up with a method so that their preferences could easily be seen by others because they were throwing a fit about a mod "misgendering" them by not remembering to capitalize their pronouns (The Post))

In regards to my gender: frankly I don't give a damn. I don't have strong opinions about my gender and I present how I please, which wanders about the gender spectrum‡. Personally I feel that agender-genderfluid is basically my label in that regard. Just don't refer to me in a dehumanizing way and we'll be fine. I reflect that by not having pronouns in my bios or usernames.

‡ The gender spectrum itself is complex and multi-axial but that's the short and sweet of it.

IDK man, I'm just here to have a good time and not have to dodge abusive trolls and tip toe through the daisies for people who throw a fit when they get hit with my default way of referring to people (they/them).

Y'all are decent folk around here but I do feel there's a decent amount who need to step outside and touch grass (myself included)

Personally I blocked the guy a long time ago

I didn't even know what was going on around here until I dug into it and found the source the situation