this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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You have a real talent for talking down to people
Yeah, when I talk as I normally do to people they don't understand me so I need to get on their level most of the time and that pisses me off because it really doesn't take much effort to have a decent vocabulary and a basic understanding of how the world works so I end up being bitter, misanthropic and sarcastic nearly all of the time.
80% of my life I feel like wherever I go I'm talking to stubborn, self-important children who think anything they don't understand cannot exist.
And it's been that way for more than 4 decades now, so yeah, I talk down to people a lot because most of the time that's all you understand.
You have to respect that people are smart in different ways. The human mind has to spend its time doing something.
Likely the people you meet have completely tangential interests to yours and so you don't notice their intelligence, but there will always be a topic that someone else is expert in to which you are a novice in.
The key is to bridge those small interest overlaps by finding a common vocabulary that you can use as a basis for examples. If you truly understand a topic, you should be able to create digestible examples for it.
Refusing to compromise on this is more a sign of immaturity and insecurity, than a consolidation of your intellect.
Yes, Drumpf is an idiot for everything except manipulating people. Should I 'respect' his ability to literally get away consequence free with *Gestures wildly at EVERYTHING*
No, most people are idiots through and through, some people have self-improving interests and hobbies that gives them greater breadth of though, but I'd argue that's less than 20% of the population.
Most people have a calcified worldview built from things their families and friends tell them with very little self-examination that they are STUBBORNLY resistant to shedding, and will ghost family instead of addressing their internal conflicts.
Look I get you have a positive view of humanity and at one point so did I but I cannot stress to you the importance of the fact that 60-70% of the population are basically just children that refuse to leave the Concrete Operational mode.
I hear where you're coming from, and though the voting habits of my peers does cause me a lot of passive grief -- I noticed that actively, the people that one would pigeonhole as "fascist" in the binary political groups we now seem to operate under, are just as there for me in times of need and have many overlapping interests as my more progressive peers.
Ultimately what I'm saying I think is, there will always be monstrous outliers who will enact harm on society and empower the worst aspects in everyone by example alone, but I think there will always be many more generally decent people who look after one another and keep this (*gestures wildly at everything*) going, despite these few bad actors.
As for accountability, I wholeheartedly agree that these bad actors should face their just dues, but I'm not going to set myself up for failure by staking my entire world outlook on it when those at the top barely get a tap on the wrist. The world is unjust, but it's also full of many wonderful people.
Of course they are, for the most part, to their 'own' fascists are supportive and even show a sense of community that has faded from the world, and that's one of the things that makes them so dangerous and effective at radicalizing because they cater to the human need for connection that the modern world has robbed us of.
Almost no one acts like a movie nazi, not even the original actual genocide initiating nazis. Watch the videos and see the pics in archives, the vast majority of the population that made up the nazi engine looked and acted like normal people to everyone 'on the inside'.
We have demonized Hitler's look, and the looks of his cabinet, but the truth is that none of these things are salient to the hateful and dangerous practices they initiated.
I think the one thing you are missing is that in your mind, you see these kinds of hierarchical extremist movements and believe they are a strict 'pyramid of evil' where the hatefulness is uniform from top to bottom but that is NEVER the case.
The actual core of the nazi party that orchestrated the inhuman slaughter of outgroupers were not that large, and if it wasn't for those exceptionally hateful individuals promoting propaganda and stirring up an entire nation against the innocents in their midst, I don't think the genocides would have ever been initiated by anyone else.
Just like if we thanos snapped away all of the hateful propaganda media that repugnicans feed on, I'm pretty sure 80 percent of the loud shouters would eventually just going back to being mildly racist.
Like I said, the image we have of nazis is caroonish. I grew up in a very red state and being a tall white guy, most of my neighbors were helpful and empathic.
But I personally know at least nine people who would gladly lynch a black person if they were absolutely sure they could get away with it, and suspect about 20 more.
Nearly all of those men have had me over for beers or would offer to help me change a tire.
Not to mention all the people who are wrong on the internet who need to be told exactly how they're wrong... I feel ya mate...
Also, fractions are easy as, and the cake analogy is nothing like the burger analogy.
If people took half as much interest in basic arythmatics as they do in tone-policing and what their peers are wearing they might actually know when they are underpaid or overcharged.