void-shouting

I try to be really patient with my friends when we work on projects together, but some of them honestly need to calm the entire fuck down with the importance they put on the things we're doing.

While I love writing, I view it as a predominantly supportive structure in any movement. It provides people with a form of expression to open up new pathways and connections; it creates a discursive space to have open disagreements or open acknowledgements.

It's a space to record what will later be viewed as history.

But so often, it feels like one friend in particular wants to take a “write and publish immediately” tactic. And I hate that. Very few things need to be published immediately, and those are pieces that stand in solidarity with a movement happening now.

Standing with Palestinians against genocide, standing with Ukrainians against imperialism... Fighting against mass surveillance projects disguised as “child protection” (while also providing exceptions for the people who abuse children the most) that has an expiration date set... Challenging our anarcho-syndicalist unions bringing in transphobes and calling the cops against members who challenge those views... These are all urgent.

But I feel like something that is a persistent problem within movement spaces can have time to breathe, to grow, to expand into a better critique than just “throwing shit at the wall.” We have short-form communications to critique these problems in a fast-paced way; a long-form should be more considered.

It feels irresponsible, especially if we want it to stand as a document that makes it clear that this is a problem that we've had for a century or more that we collectively refuse to solve. Publishing it tomorrow will not solve those problems. Publishing in in a week will not solve those problems.

We have the time and space to get it out when it's good, when it properly supports people. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be considerate and cognizant of the current moment and climate.

If anything, it feels like this friend just wants to publish because they want to feel like they “did something.” I know they feel powerless to do much; I often do, too, especially as an alienated migrant.

But I know that writing projects can take time and incubate longer. It does not make me feel good to release something I can't stand behind.

Some people will complain about the lack of principles on the “we need numbers” side of politics, but they will absolutely force through actions that do the same thing.

Numbers are good, but principles are better. If you're working with people who have no ethics or principles, then you're on your way nowhere fast. Maybe a nicer version of the path to hell.

Allosexual people really need to find other relationships to sex, especially when they choose to date or remain with (for example) ace people.

They tell ace people that we need to be the ones to “meet them in the middle,” but then they find ways to ensure that sex is put into things where it doesn't need to be. Constantly making jokes about sex when it's not necessary, being snide about how 'frigid' or 'prude' their partner is (again, 'jokingly')... It feels overwhelming.

But when you ask them to try to stop overstepping boundaries and let you get comfortable with things, they won't.

For the record, I'm not bothered by people being against the United States government. I just expect that someone has coherent principles. “US bad only” thought is nonsensical.

I would be bothered less by anti-American sentiment if people would correctly be against all imperialist nations.

And also stop conflating people with their governments. I am no more in control of the government that I have been forcefully assigned than you are of the one who wants to control every aspect of your life.

I am an individual. I did not choose where I was born. But that does not mean I ignore what the US's government has done elsewhere and how they have hurt so many. I try to recognise what privileges I gained as a person who happened to be born within the borders of the US, and I try to recognise how I might continue acting in ways supporting of imperialism and stop doing them. But I do not have the power to stop the US, especially as I do not live within its borders and have routinely had my own ability to participate within what little “power” I have denied to me (which is not power at all but a farce—electoralism is nothing more than those in power letting us pretend we have a say in anything).

But the US is not the only imperialist nation; it's just the one that you are more likely to be against because it is easier than recognising that states like Russia or China engage in many similar behaviours (or even better, being able to understand what is happening when all three nations genuinely align in agreement).

We should be against the US government(s) and their abhorrent actions everywhere, but we should also be able to maintain the same principles across the board. Being coherent really is simple.

Capitalism is relatively new compared to so many things. It is not purely the fault of capitalism for depersonalisation or the imposition of “inefficient regimes.”

You can find so many examples of that before capitalism. One need only to read history to see it immediately because you will not see it at all. Why is it that so many working class people are invisibilised? Why do we mostly have the perspectives of the wealthy? Why do we have to make inferences based on random ass documents or the hope that one person left something behind in order to know something about someone who wasn't rich?

Why is our history of Europe dominated by individual monarchs instead of people?

Those should be your clues that capitalism has not been at fault for either of these things. The lack of existence for anyone else should make that clear.

Capitalism sucks, but it is not the impetus of all our troubles.

People really need to unlearn the propaganda of the public-school-as-good and see it for what it has always been.

It has always been:

1. a tool for colonisation, internally and externally. It enforced “national” languages and “correct” forms of “national” languages like German, English, French, or whatever. It denied communities their specific cultural attitudes, it denied them their specific dialects of a language, and it enforced a “national” attitude upon the children who were compelled to go. In places like the United States, it was used to homogenise and forcibly assimilate immigrants (especially those viewed as “less good”), and it was used to forcibly assimilate and commit wide-scale genocide against the Indigenous people who were already there. It continues to do these things, reinforcing “correct” values, and we can see that the schools and the people in them are more often than not “just following orders” even when those orders are unjust and harmful. (In Australia, it'd be wise to consider how schools were used against the Stolen Generations and how, even as they teach about Aboriginal peoples, they still reinforce the “correct” ways of being as being in line with white Australians.)

2. a tool for imperialism. Continuing from the colonial project, there has been a forceful push of linguistic supremacy. There's a reason so many people on this planet speak English now. It should be obvious what that is and why that is... and it's merely a signal and a symptom, not the goal. This doesn't mean it can't or won't change; there are other imperialist governments seeking to ensure that they can replace the others. And they are all finding ways to deal with implementing a positive view of themselves outside of their own borders, making it far easier for them to extend their reach.

3. a tool for punishment, both pre-emptive and after the fact. Children are segregated out of society for multiple years, only released back when they're “ready to participate” (though this age seems to be changing). Children cannot learn about the world, they cannot learn about their community, they cannot be autonomous if they're routinely segregated into a building where they are placed into an artificial community that has a handful of adults who maintain control over their every movement. Not to mention how often schools work with police forces, immigration agents, and militaries. This should worry everyone.

Begging people to either ask what's in a food or just shut up and deal with your mistake in ordering something you were unfamiliar with instead of harassing some person working at the restaurant.

Even if it's their mistake, deal with things calmly. Most people aren't going out of their way to kill you, and you're far more likely to get what you want if you're kind and considerate.

But I keep noticing people just asking for something, not asking for information about it, and then getting mad because it's “not what they want.” It's what you fucking asked for, though.

So... deal with it?

And 'deal with' also means you should “talk kindly to the wait staff once you realise that there's a mistake,” especially if there's an allergy-related problem. It does not mean “expect that this person is a mind-reader and shout them down for giving you exactly what you asked for.”

Guess I'm going to have to mute conversations on Mastodon, which is... annoying for me but the only option I have if I want my mentions to stop getting clogged with people who cannot or will not shift their understanding of how social media can work.

Perhaps in lieu of the reply-limit options that many of us wish existed in Mastodon, people could train themselves to:

1. click-through and see if there are more posts by the original author that clarify their current position or desire for communication on the topic you're responding about;
2. click-through to see what replies are there. Instead of simply replying with the same dozen responses that the original author likely got, you could either respond to someone else and create a functional conversation or you could decide against replying because someone's already said it;
3. just stop tagging the original author because, unlike other services, the original author can be removed from a thread and it can decrease the mentions in their comments.

While I'd love some better reply-limit options, I think we could address this if we'd just add more friction to our own existence on social media instead of believing that we have to just respond to everything all the time no matter what.

We really need to rid ourselves of this reply-guy energy and start realising that conversations online are a lot like conversations offline. You wouldn't (or at least you shouldn't) just start replying to every conversation happening around you; you'd be more likely to be more thoughtful and considered of your actions.

I find it absolutely hilarious that Noam Chomsky is, at the time of posting, not yet dead but two “reputable” papers that tend to “support” the “left” have both published obituaries.

Jacobin published one and, upon realising he's not dead, changed the headline to reflect that. They just wanted to “celebrate” him, that's all. Never mind the fact they didn't change any of the past tense in the body paragraphs or the references to how there “never will be another like him.” (Except there will be. There will be many. He was not unique or special; he was not some Great Man. He was simply well-placed.)

Then, upon further inspection to see if he really had died, there was a fully retracted New Statesman article written by Yanis Varoufakis; it was archived, which made that an easy task to track. But if anything ever did feel like someone who ran a cult of personality and was using the cults of personality around others, that did. Sometimes it feels as if people give Yanis far more credit than he deserves.

It probably won't be long for Chomsky, which is just as life goes. But the least people could do is wait for him to die and to get a statement from his family before they hit publish.