I'm tired and sad and angry · 8:28am Jun 5th, 2020
This website doesn't matter. I've been checking the news in a frenzy for the last few days. Locally, Spain could be doing so much better; internationally, the world is on fucking fire.
So this website doesn't matter. It annoys me, when I see people say vile shit, and I want them out. But it's the real world I care about. The Black Lives Matter protests have grown larger than ever -- we've reached a point where people can't stand the blatant shows of systemic racism, police brutality, and general fascist shit going around.
At one point the camel's back is going to break. I wonder if this is it. I hope it is, but I know nothing. Here are some links to help and educate yourself on the issue. Here's another page for that if you're done with the first. If you want to help, but don't have the financial means to do so, there are multiple videos in this Tumblr post which will donate their ad revenue to the BLM movement for you. Polygon has a very easy to read, structured basic guide for helping in the protests. Stay safe, and don't let them get away with this.
There are a lot of vile people on this website. As I said, in the grand view of things, that doesn't matter. But they're still shitty people making the place worse for everybody, and trying to influence others into joining their worldview. Which generally includes gems like "I read The Bell Curve and I think black people have a lower IQ," "We need to secure a future for white children", and further things I don't want to write, even if it's to demonstrate what I mean with "vile shit”.
I don't want them here. The BLM movement has thankfully made people more vocal when it comes to the evils of racism and the need to speak up against it, but that also means the racists will come crawling out of their holes because they’ll feel insulted. They weren't invisible before, mind you, but they'll get more obvious.
Cynewulf's blog is a good primer on why there are so many alt-right advocates around in this fandom. MrNumber's blog is a good primer on why it's driving away or alienating good members of our community. I've commented in both blogs with more heart than here, talking about the real issues, but if you want heart, they've got it.
I don't, not anymore.
I don't care about trying to convince fascists. Neither should you. If they're at the point where they're spewing white nationalist propaganda, they're either too far gone to be talked out of it, or they're young and edgy and stupid and won't listen to you.
This means that, whenever you find one in the wild, brazenly advising Jetfire2012 to use a gun next time they try to kill black people, be mindful that you're not talking to them. You're talking to the audience. To the people reading the comments, the ones who don’t know what’s going on, the ones who just found the thread.
Direct your efforts that way. Convince onlookers, not the person you're arguing with. Make easy-to-read arguments, be short and to the point, and call a spade a spade: if something is racist, outright say so, and say why. Don’t try to be polite and educated and respectful; when arguing racism, respect registers as validity.
Don’t stay silent, and call them out if you see them, because the alternative is that they’ll stay here. Every time the alt-right gains a new platform, that’s more people who might start to believe their abject bullshit.
Once more: stay safe. And don’t let them get away with this.
Well-put.
The mods have made it clear to us countless times that they advocate free speech above all else - hate speech must be protected, because otherwise they might be asked to censor women, or minorities, and where is the line drawn?
The freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose though. Allowing that hate speech, in effect, censors the people it targets. It makes them feel less safe, less welcome, and less likely to talk about the problems they experience.
Then, not feeling comfortable explaining why, they quietly leave.
The mods platform has been that all ideas are worthy of debate, and if they're bad ideas, they'll lose the argument. But seeing that this is considered an argument at all is enough to drive people away from the platform.
So? Don't argue. They're wrong, and you don't owe them an explanation why. The vulnerable members of our community don't deserve to see it.
I am sorry you're mad & sad. but I understand how you feel!
This was a point I was really hoping a large author to make in a blog post.
We can (and absolutely should) bully bigoted people, so onlookers never want to dedicate themselves to their ideology. Fascists are pathetic, they have small heads and their breath stinks. Bullying hateful people out of our spaces is something we absolutely need to do more of. If the mods won't take action (and they won't, let's all be fucking honest) then we have to.
And as said, this isn't about FiMFiction. Everywhere online has a problem with fascists, this site is just particularly negligent towards them.
Good post, Aragon, and I'm glad my sleep schedule is fucked up enough to catch this early at 6:00am.
Cheers, and Black Lives Matter.
I don't encounter the fascist and out-and-out racists on this site; I meet more with the aggressively apathetic, who halt progress by shooting down any arguments of their being a problem, or that this is the time to go after it. There's the classic "why'd ya gotta bring politics into this?" There's playing the victim card of how we're being "too aggressive" when we talk about cops killing blacks. I keep running into the roadblock where they frontload the argument with the giant qualifier of "let's be clear that burning stuff is bad." Implying that the people protesting hold the leashes of the people who do that. Or that these scant fires can actually equate to the number of lives taken, or the difference in which perpetrators on different sides of the law actually end up in jail.
The lattermost attitude of 'they started it' is what I see being brought up in defense of Jetfire/C.A. Shoultz. That we didn't see how he was provoked. And sure, a minute of a fight shouldn't be enough to condemn someone. But people are also avoiding the other evidence that Schoultz isn't in the right frame of mind:
pbs.twimg.com/media/EZXEK4zWAAE9wIW.jpg
I hadn't really considered that arguing with stubborn people online might be less about trying to convince the person than about convincing the audience. Kinda like a public debate, now that I think about it. Thanks, Aragon, for the perspective.
I sincerely hope that systemic racism in the US (and wherever else it's entrenched) takes a heavy blow from the Black Lives Matter protests.
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I don't support bullying people, even if they stand for something I despise. Now I don't have to be nice to them, be polite to them, or even listen to what they have to say, but I refuse to go out of my way to make someone's life miserable. There's more than enough misery going around without my adding to it on purpose.
But then again, maybe you and I have different definitions of bullying and I'm actually preaching to the choir.
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5277398
Y'all, if you delete your own comments to edit them slightly, it looks like you said something racist and I deleted them. This isn't the case, your comments were absolutely fine, so I'm posting this to tell people who look at the comment section later.
Just edit your posts; with the current situation, a deleted comment has bad connotations for whoever posted, and you two are cool.
5277403
Yeah, no, if someone stands for bigotry, I'm going to bully them. I'm not going to make their life miserable. I'm going to bully them and let it be known to others that racists, transphobes, homophobes, xenophobes, etc, will be made fun of and aren't welcome around me and my groups.
As 5277403 said, I never really thought about argument as a performance piece. I admit, I've largely dismissed Internet arguments as fruitless endeavors that waste time and effort and yield no change in either party beyond making them more frustrated with one another. But it's never just the debaters, barring PMs. Thanks for the perspective shift and the style guide.
Just want to say the edit to my post was to improve readability due to me posting from my phone. Thanks
5277407
Ok, I understand
Hells yeah, Aragon. Well said.
Another good read? The Gettysburg Address.
My favorite part of Cynewulf's blog was how the first fucking comment was by a guy saying Jetfire should have used a car instead.
For a certain value of favorite.
5277346
That's cowardice. If someone spewed bigoted ideas about my ethnic group I'd tell them to go f*ck themselves not leave.
This is an admirable position when taken by agents of the state, who have guns and jails and can levy actual civil and criminal penalties against the populace for saying things if given the power to do so.
It is... shall we say... LESS admirable when taken by private citizens who are opening a platform. There are contexts where it is defensible, even laudable; the guys who originally built out the internet (back when it was the Internet, proper noun) deliberately designed it as a distributed network that everyone could access but which couldn't really be access-controlled at the granular level. The success of this has been mixed, of course; ask the Chinese how freely and anonymously accessible the internet is. But it wasn't a terrible thing to do.
But in most contexts... if you open up a gathering space, and fash start to congregate in it (or, say, outright criminals, or pederasts) and other people say "there are fash here" then 90% of the time, the response of "it's a free country, man" doesn't cut it. The guys aren't on a soapbox in the park. They are in YOUR private space, which YOU built, YOU own, and YOU control. When you do something like that you are responsible for what goes on in it to a greater or lesser extent. Not everything that happens on it is something you de facto endorse; context matters, of course. But when people specifically point out something like, you know, white nationalism, and you go "okay. And?" this makes you complicit.
We would not regard a bar owner who lets Stormfront roll up in full regalia and order drinks whenever they like with anything other than contempt, but for some reason the internet is different.
Some places understand this. RPG.net banned white nationalism awhile back. So did (I'm not making this up) one of the countries biggest discussion forums for quilting and quilt enthusiasts. Other places... do not.
This is possibly a defensible position if you have constructed a purpose-built debating platform and quite clearly delineated that this is what it is for. Many such places exist! They typically don't come in for criticism because people are made to understand going in that it is gonna welcome fascists, and Catholic Integralists, and hardcore "slavery should be legal; the only law should be contract law" ancap types, and other evil fucks. And they can make that decision heads-up.
Other places... not so much. You would never think to ask "are there gonna be people Nazi regalia in there? Is that allowed?" when walking into a grocery store, because you would just figure "no, of course there fucking are not, because they'd be kicked out." And you should be able to make that assumption for most places.
Should.
5277621
You're a usual of the Unsafe Space group, iirc. Let me say this as emphatically as possible:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/690130291863715884/718474533484625940/Horde_of_Savages.png
Shut the fuck up.
You're part of the problem, and one of the biggest offenders of the issues I'm talking about. I've seen you spew white supremacy bullshit enough times. Get the fuck out of my profile, you're not welcome here.
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That statement represents something that I (hi, alt account) NO LONGER AGREE WITH FROM A POST I DELETED.
5277482
You can edit your post without deleting it. There's an edit button literally right next to the delete button
5277625
Plus, hate speech isn't covered by free speech when it incites violence
I'm try to think of an explanation other than "admitting to block evasion via alt account" but I don't see one.
Stay strong Aragón. Love ya.
5277690 I'm not implying anything, I know it's nothing but coincidence, but I find it hilarious that the person saying this goes by the handle of SockPuppet.
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When Sock joined the FIMFic Discord, we immediately silenced him because we thought it was a bad joke from a bad actor that we'd just banned.
Eventually he PM'd us to ask why he could see the conversations but not participate, and we sheepishly undid our preemptive moderation.
5277695
And yet this is my main account, not my alt!
How existential...
5277702
True story. Can confirm.
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Love ya, Sock.
As an explicitly legal matter, this is only kinda true.
It is legal to say "we should all storm Washington D.C, hang every one of the race traitors in the Congress, and proclaim the White Man's Republic." It's even legal to say this to a baying crowd. It might even be legal to say it to a baying crowd on the steps of Congress itself. There's complicated legal tests involved as to when you cross the line from "advocating theoretical violence at some point in the future" (protected speech in many cases) to "this is gonna go down right here, right now."
Whether this SHOULD be legal or not is up for debate, but its where current caselaw stands.
Great blog, Aragon! I know I heard the advice that you should be arguing for the audience and not trying to convince the other person, but it's easy to forget in the heat of the moment. Well, hopefully I still acted that way regardless.
Also a bit surprised I'm not seeing the usual suspects here. It's been the same couple people picking fights in other blogs.
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Oh man, I do. Like Trick Question's husband who is fucking vile, numerous transphobes and/or religious fundies.
Also when Woke Twitter is debating whether or not it's perfectly okay to burn and loot a white-owned business then there absolutely needs to be the frontload of "burning things is not okay."
5277410
Better start with yourself.
You aren't against bigotry, you're against racism.
5277901
Hey. Get out.
5277346
Well, then maybe that "freedom" should come at a cost. I cancelled my patreon donation to this site and put "allows racist hate-speech" in the comment box. I know that's not an option for most people, but I encourage people who regularly donate to do the same.
5277690
Please take note of my comment above.
5277346
apparently wishing death on cops is where knighty draws the line as he explained to me yet again last night.
5277602
God I hate Jordan179 so fucking much. I'd say I want him to die, but lately Knighty has been informing me that you're only allowed to say that about black people.
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Nah burning things is pretty great actually. Fuck capitalism and fuck the state and fuck F6. Now if only some of those burning objects were bacon. Yummm
~Sincerely, your local insufferable LibSoc moving towards AnCom
I care.
I fight every day against misinformation.
And I do get tired at time. I take rests. And I then come back, as angry as ever.
5277908
I am considering that strongly TBH.
5277959
I didn't name names, but man, I've gone round and round with that guy so many times. He was a BIG defender of the Rabid Puppies
Okay, no, it isn't... but not for the reasons you think.
There is no safe way to do an arson. None whatsoever. There are people who are real experts in controlled burns, who have spent their entire professional lives working with fire and demolitions... and some of those guys, experts, get fucked up by it every year.
Fire spreads. It seems under control and it really isn't. It loves to spread onto people and into homes.
More sinisterly, fire creates smoke.
Smoke is the real killer. Especially fires that take place in modern homes and business. Woodsmoke is bad enough; do you have any idea how toxic the smoke created by a fire that's wood, plaster, insulation, modern electronics, fabric, furniture, and god knows what else containing who knows what toxic chemicals and metals is? Extremely toxic, that's how
A non-trivial number of SPECTATORS to house fires, people who turn up because there's a blaze in the neighborhood, die every year. Fire Departments do what they can to create a safe perimeter, but you always end up with some people who are uniquely vulnerable for some reason who stand at just the wrong place downwind, suck a bunch of shit into their lungs, feel fine for a few hours, and then die on a ventilator two days later. Many more suffer permanent, debilitating lifetime damage.
I got a fair amount of sympathy for property damage. But some of these loons running around with accelerates are gonna get themselves or others killed or seriously hurt through their own negligence and ignorance. Fire isn't to be played with. Ever. It's deadly and rages out of control and doesn't care who it takes down.
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Even if it doesn't exactly raise a smile as such, you may perhaps still find a little solace in how he attempts to sound erudite by using a Latin maxim, and then manages to fuck it up.
Inter arma enim silent lēgēs : "Amidst arms, laws are silent."
Inter armes silent leges : "I'm not as smart as I think I am."
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I guarantee you the only reason he knows it to begin with is because of that one episode of Deep Space Nine.
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I honestly don't know if it will help or not, but it's the only thing I could think of to do.
Great blog, Aragon. Thank you for writing this.
5278176
My decision to not donate is sadly less effective than your decision to cease doing so. It's sad that fucking with their money is the only way to effect change on a platform, and something I've seen too frequently.
5278096
Okay, you raise legitimate points. What would you say are safer methods of property destruction?
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Capitalists care more about capital than people.
5278292 Serious answer? Read up on the Hong Kong protests, they've been doing a fair bit of precision property destruction as part of their efforts. Matthew Rodier did some long-term journalistic investigation there, and he held an AMA on Reddit where quite a few people spoke up from the apparent perspective of being HK protesters, so you might ask around there.
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Imrix is better informed than me. I am not generally on the "smash and loot private property as a form of protest" train. (Public property, sure. Going nuts on a police precinct sounds great to me.) Going after corporate America? Yeah, sure, okay.
Using the protests as cover to organize a band of looters to roll down a street of small business, wrecking them systematically? That's sort of where I get off. Especially when it isn't a form of protest, it's just vultures.