In case you can’t tell, I’m passionate about rationality and critical thinking.

  • 2 Posts
  • 109 Comments
Joined 9 months ago
cake
Cake day: September 22nd, 2024

help-circle

  • The one exception is when you end up on a runaway train of thought.

    You go for a walk and you see a seagull, which reminds you of the last time you went to the beach, which reminds you of coconuts, which reminds you of a silly cartoon you used to watch, which reminds you of a specific day in elementary school when a kid quoted an episode, and then you start to wonder what that kid’s up to as an adult today.

    And maybe you have the thought of, “I should reach out to them. I think they added me on Facebook like 15 years ago.” But then a nearby car honks. You snap out of the thought and look around. You don’t know what car honked, but you do spot a dog. It’s an uncommon breed and you can’t remember the name of it. You then spend the next minute or so either guessing the wrong breed or going down the alphabet, hoping to trigger the right name.

    By the time you give up guessing and decide to look it up on your phone, you’ve completely forgotten about that kid from elementary school. The thought has vanished back into the void whence it came.



  • I let my brain put things where it’ll actually use them.

    And this is why I hated cleaning my room as a child. It’s been a consistent point of contention between my mother and me all my life, but whenever I “cleaned” the way she wanted me to, I couldn’t find a damn thing afterwards.

    Certain things go on my nightstand for a reason. Certain things need to be out on a table, fully visible, near my door. Some clothes are in one spot because they were lightly used but are not soiled, and that concept eludes my mom (she would insist on just washing it.) Things are where they are for reasons. Instead of teaching me how to keep my stuff organized (which is a skill I clearly could have used instruction on), I was taught that “cleaning” means “shoving everything into a drawer or closet.” (It was “out of sight, out of mind,” for my mom.)

    I’d inevitably forget what I put where, leading to long searches to find each and every important thing. As soon as I found all the important things and set them where I’d naturally be able to use/remember them, that’d be the cue to be told that my rOOm’S tOo mEsSY again.

    And the cycle repeats…








  • Way to go with meeting your needs! I know how hard that is - my mom also trained me to put myself second, and treats me as an extension of herself. I recently (within the last year) realized that not only do I not reach out for help when I need it, but I don’t even recognize when I need help. It took my old manager seeing I was stressed and saying she wanted to help me, but that she’s “not a mind-reader” and I have to actually ask her for it, for me to step back and realize that my approach isn’t typical. It turns out I’m so accustomed to having to go through shit entirely by myself, that the thought that somebody else might be able to help doesn’t even occur to me.

    By coincidence, guess who dismissed me as a child anytime I went to her for help? Yep, dear ol’ Mommy, telling me shit like “you’re just too sensitive” and “the bullies won’t remember [that awful rumor they made up and are currently spreading against me] years from now.” Mmhmm, surefire solutions right there that definitely demonstrate concern and understanding of my issues.

    Why yes, I am still bitter, why do you ask?



  • That makes sense. Sometimes common arguments, advice, and old ideas get shared ad nauseum around social circles, like moldy old memes that everyone, except them, is tired of hearing. One person says stupid idea with conviction, and others listen. Now when someone else repeats stupid idea around the first person, they know they’ll be agreed with - it’s an easy way to get that dopamine hit and strengthen a social bond. Others in the group then start to think that stupid idea is important for them to also believe, and the effect snowballs, as more of them share stupid idea with others - expecting to be agreed with.

    People keep doing this, over and again, never once examining the words they repeat. This leads to people who confidently say ignorant crap like, “You don’t need medicine, you seem fine to me!” despite the fact that they’ve only ever seen you after you’d taken your medicine. It’s likely someone in their social circle put that idea in their head once, and they never critically examined it because it’s easier and more rewarding to simply repeat things without thinking about them.





  • I had a coworker (cashier) who did her job well, but who didn’t kiss ass. One day, she broke her leg. A few weeks later, one of the cashiers who cozied up to management went off to Cuba and came back with brand new breast implants.

    Guess which one was provided a stool and which one had to somehow stand throughout her entire shift. 🙃

    (Btw, this was in Florida, or as I called it, the Wild Wild South. This was only the tip of the somehow-legal worker abuse I’ve witnessed. Other examples include a workplace that segregated all its young, black, male employees into the un-air conditioned lumber yard, and that color-coded its uniform differently for disabled employees.)


  • I understood the comment above to be comparing how public opinion is allowed to shape itself in the fediverse, vs being censored and molded to only fit particular permitted messages in mainstream social media. We can express ourselves without worrying that we’ll get locked out of the entire fediverse for stating an opinion that mods or admins don’t like. Which makes it fair to wonder how much suppression is going on elsewhere, that we don’t see and never hear reports on, because censorship.

    I’m not sure where the idea of Lemmy having an effect on public opinion at large came from. It feels like a non-sequitur, but maybe I’m just too tired and I missed something.