Comment by CoolGuySteve
7 years ago
This reply right here is what I'm talking about. I simply don't care about veganism, I do care about the grandparent's points concerning insecurity.
Stop telling me about veganism, it's irrelevant. Stop writing irrelevant stuff, just stop it.
Edit: To clarify, before a stealth edit, hombre_fatal's first paragraph used to consist entirely of "Eh, the upstream comment used bogus incendiary flamebait as an "example" so yes, people are going to reply to it.". At least now he's added some more substance.
The irony..
Maybe it's best to install an add-on which blurs veganism out for you, if it is so uninteresting that even mentioning it offends you.
If I could find an extension that blocked the thousands of "ackshually" reply threads or replies like yours that miss the point entirely I would be so happy.
I realize and appreciate your point, but are you willing to consider the possibility that there's something important going on here that you may be overlooking? "Stop writing irrelevant stuff, just stop it" suggests not, but I try to not make assumptions.
> If I say something like, "veganism is unhealthy" (because of lack of B12... yes I'm aware there are nuances), some vegans interpret that as a statement of opinion, rather than a statement of fact, or even as an attack on their lifestyle choices, because they are so involved with their egos.
tomp wisely acknowledges, within brackets, that there are nuances, but statements like "veganism is unhealthy" are incredibly vague, and the very real nuances will be automatically constructed and appended to the message (and attributed to the speaker) by the listener's brain, typically without their conscious knowledge, and often in a manner not to your liking. Should people be like this? Who knows. Are they like this? Of course, and we all know it when the topic of conversation is psychology, but how easy it is to forget this when the topic is something else.
"they are so involved with their egos" seems to me of key importance, but it's so easy to forget that we are all involved with our egos. I listen to a fair amount of lectures by experienced Buddhists, people who devote their lives to observing their own minds, and a recurring theme that arises is that even with the substantial discipline and skills they've acquired in that field, they are still regularly fooled by their egos.
> but for the time being I've started to moderate my stated opinions to spare other people's feelings (though I still think it would be better if they grew more emotionally mature, but I realize that's unlikely to happen)
"feelings" is a tricky term in this context. What does it mean, really? Sometimes, it accurately refers to simplistic, emotional, low-information emotional reactions, as opposed to logical thinking. But is this always the case? Might there be times that it is perceived that this is what's happening in someone else, but in reality there is an unseen, complex multi-dimensional (nuanced) analysis taking place that happens to come to a different (and not incorrect) conclusion than the one (also not incorrect, considering the implicitly assumed nuances) that you or I might have formed?
Getting along can be amazingly difficult even in the simplest of situations (say, a family or team consisting of only 4 or 5 people, who mostly have aligned interests). But look at how the complexity, interconnectedness, and technical capabilities of the world has exploded in the last 50, 20, or even 10 years. And we're managing all of this complexity with largely the same political and psychological tools that we used when half of us were farming the land, with the addition of some "weaponized" psychological capabilities and techniques (mass media, internet, machine learning) thrown into the mix to make things even more interesting.
Considering all this, how reasonable does this common "just look at the facts and agree with me already" attitude seem?