[split] Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[Bob Butler 54]

(12-28-2016, 03:31 AM)taramarie Wrote: So how would you have approached it? I know you would have thought the same thing. You are one of the very few like minded and one of the most reflective folks on this forum that I know of. I think you have a lot of wisdom to give on this topic. The reason I first started thinking on this is because i listened to the other side and started to self reflect due to it and see the flaws within myself as well as others. It concerns me because how are we to convince others that we have a genuine concern for inequality and other issues if we ourselves promote prejudice and hate? Just in a different manner.I have reflected on a lot of things and feel I have changed a lot. It helps to listen. How would you have approached it? Do you think it would cause others to consider what you have to say? All really depends on the character you are speaking to, I think. Also if they are ready for that kind of talk.

Hmm...

I assume I am not an irresistible force.  I assume there are a lot of immovable objects floating about.  Thus, if my goal were to move things, I'm sorta, kinda, gonna fail a lot.  In other words, folks are going to cling to their values, they are not going to be impressed by my values, thus going in with the idea that Reason and Truth shall triumph on a regular basis breeds unreasonable expectations.  The goal is not necessarily to 'win', but to hopefully make the hypothetical undecided and objective person reading these forums think. I wouldn't write solely to the person one is responding to, but write only if you have a wider message for the hypothetical third person reader.

[Semi off topic diversion]

While I have never served in any real world political or government role, I played Ambassador Joy Seven in a Federation Council role playing game.  Every month or so the players would be presented with some problem in the Star Trek universe, and would be asked to solve it by majority vote while staying in character as promoting the values of the planet one is representing.  Ambassador Joy was an android from the Planet Mudd, and had to promote and apply a variant of Asimov's Laws of Robotics to galactic level politics.  One of the lessons learned is that while an argument based on logic would convince the Vulcan ambassador, one needed to have a solid financial argument to convince the Ferengi.  Meanwhile, Joy's Asimov processor was telling her to preserve lives and not interfere with how other cultures wanted to develop. Each ambassador would be looking at the problem from a different perspective, striving for different goals, accustomed to using different approaches to solving problems.

Do you think humans have trouble respecting and honoring the values of other cultures?  No organic being can possibly out stubborn an Asimov Processor android.  Joy taught me an awful lot about values lock... from the inside.

But the flip side is knowing when to cut one's loses.  When it becomes clear that one is not going to convince enough other ambassadors to shift their values or disregard them on a given issue, do not burn one's bridges.  There will be another issue and another vote next month.  One should avoid ticking other ambassadors off such that they won't ever vote with you again.  At a certain point, no matter how loyal one is to one's values, one should make a brief conciliatory speech to set up a future hypothetical 'I told you so,' then let it go. Otherwise, the game doesn't stay fun.

In game, over a long period of time, the Council's political divide was between the progressive idealistic Roddenberry fans of the Original Series and Next Generation and the grittier more violent and pragmatic Berman fans of Deep Space 9. While the game masters did nothing to set this up, nothing to force it, over many years and many game masters the pattern stuck. It was entertaining yet disappointing to watch the make up of the players shift over the years away from Roddenberry towards Berman. One could watch the idealism and hope of Roddenberry Trek draining out of the game as the fan base lost Boomers and gained Xers.

I still miss the Federation Council sims.  We could go at it with marvelous intensity, but after the game master typed 'END SIM' we could laugh and admire how well we all stayed in character.  Well, mostly.  Quite often the players would select a Federation culture that most closely resembled their own personal values.  Sometimes things got intense and stayed intense.  

Alas, the Council games wound down, and I found myself posting in T4T forums instead.  Here the simulation never ends. Here, Joy's Asimov Processor is still whispering things like 'do not kill or injure, nor through inaction allow one to be killed or injured', 'do not interfere with the development of any society', or 'act within the law'. I understand that other Asimov Processors are programmed otherwise, and might be concerned with Ferengi profits or Klingon militarism. I'm not going to change other folk's programming. They are unlikely to change me.

When a science fiction author creates a fictional species and culture, part of the process is creating a history for the species that resulted in their values being what they are. In the Council games, no matter how much our characters disagreed, the players were aware of and respected the fictional histories that set up the values we were debating from. That is missing here. Too many folks come from a place where anyone who disagrees with one isn't thinking properly. From there, it is easy to get to dislike and conflict. We end up trying to modify other people's mannerisms and debating styles as well as their politics.

This to me is such a futile exercise that I seldom indulge.

[/Semi off topic diversion]

I guess it comes down to limiting one's degree of obsession. Some conflicts aren't worth pursuing. This is apt to include any conflict that presumes being able to change someone else into something they are not. One might eventually decide when it is not prudent or constructive to try.

I don't use an ignore list. I do tend to avoid interacting with certain people in certain ways. The likely result of repeatedly ramming one's forehead into an immovable object is to give the immovable object a headache. It doesn't do much for one's own forehead, either.

But here I am trying to change your approach. While I might pick my battles and set lesser expectations, perhaps some battles have to be fought and won? Perhaps simply standing aside and letting it happen is not the correct answer to neoliberalism?

I've been trying to tell the extreme partisans that extreme partisanship is a problem, without a lot of progress, but that's where I'm putting a lot of my energy. Everybody has to put energy somewhere. Just try to keep an eye out for places where the energy might be spent constructively. I definitely agree we have a problem here with excessive personal attacks. It is hard to address anything without the conversation rapidly shifting towards correcting the other poster's perceived personal flaws. Yes, this is a problem. Think on which poster you can work on to best reduce the problem.