On Board Decorum

[Ramrouser]

Stick around. You add things.

I can empathize with your past a bit more than you might expect. At least my mom had a bad enough experience in skipping grades, I was spared that one.

My late father in law skipped three grades and was the proverbial "Doogie Howser" at Emory Medical School. My wife and her brothers swear he never fully developed socially because of it.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Let's be clear. It's not outrage. It's more disappointment that they are such amateurish shit stirrers. If I had no conscience , I could probably argue their side better. Anybody's welcome to say anything they want to me. Somebody's opinion has to matter to me for what they say to bother me in the slightest. That is not going to be an anonymous poster on a message board. Does that answer you well enough?

Phrase of the Day! Is it possible for someone to be a semi-professional shit stirrer?

 

[finesse]

Phrase of the Day! Is it possible for someone to be a semi-professional shit stirrer?

Law and journalism interns.

 

[Badbehavior1015]

Let's be clear. It's not outrage. It's more disappointment that they are such amateurish shit stirrers. If I had no conscience , I could probably argue their side better. Anybody's welcome to say anything they want to me. Somebody's opinion has to matter to me for what they say to bother me in the slightest. That is not going to be an anonymous poster on a message board. Does that answer you well enough?

Thats not what you said in a previous post. You said, 'They don't deserve any respect. I'm not sure how to leave their motives and methods unquestioned or unchallenged without at least some disparagement. I'm not a member of the "If you don't have something nice to say" school'.

Sounds like you're not sure what you want to be mad about, how to handle your anger, how to respond to a poster, or if you make sense to yourself.

 

[JCTarheel82]

Phrase of the Day! Is it possible for someone to be a semi-professional shit stirrer?

Maybe. Does Taco get paid to post here?

 

[finesse]

Thats not what you said in a previous post. You said, 'They don't deserve any respect. I'm not sure how to leave their motives and methods unquestioned or unchallenged without at least some disparagement. I'm not a member of the "If you don't have something nice to say" school'.

Sounds like you're not sure what you want to be mad about, how to handle your anger, how to respond to a poster, or if you make sense to yourself.

What makes you think anger is the motivation? I'm just a worshipper of Momus.

 

[Badbehavior1015]

There could still be an issue. It's not like he's the only person that sees the boorish behavior. It's a public message board, not the private messaging feature.

With that said, while I would prefer the message board to be a bit more polite, it's not that big a deal.

and he, along with others, continue the boorish behavior.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Maybe. Does Taco get paid to post here?

Is Taco back?

I don't know because a taco by any other name would still be super ignored.

 

[Badbehavior1015]

What makes you think anger is the motivation? I'm just a worshipper of Momus.

Good choice to mimic. Perhaps there are times you can give it but not take it or even understand it.

 

[Zoo_View]

Thats not what you said in a previous post. You said, 'They don't deserve any respect. I'm not sure how to leave their motives and methods unquestioned or unchallenged without at least some disparagement. I'm not a member of the "If you don't have something nice to say" school'.

Sounds like you're not sure what you want to be mad about, how to handle your anger, how to respond to a poster, or if you make sense to yourself.

You are mistaken.

 

[farce©]

Take a break and decide if posting here is worth it for you. This board obviously creates stress in your life. Leave it alone for a while.

 

[finesse]

Good choice to mimic. Perhaps there are times you can give it but not take it or even understand it.

Are you another one afraid to make a specific argument? Make your case and I'll be as direct as you can stand.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

 

[UNCatTech]

So I have been debating and discussing on The Internets since 1991 (then called usenet), meaning back when a lot of you were nothing but random molecules spread all over. I debated creationists on Talk.Origins after that, and debated philosophy on other sites--where people can get really, really mean discussing stuff like truth and will and language. Through all that, decorum is something like the question of what is art (I know it when I emote it).

In all that participation I have used some insults in choice spots, and my personal view of the art of this kind of board debating is that there are in fact choice spots, but it must be part of an argument about what someone is not just ignorant about, but displaying a willful and obnoxious ignorance. Seeing an ongoing tactic to replace failed arguments with a "fix" to troll and annoy, and then I may respond by saying something about "the person, not the argument" in that case. This is viewed as wrong in academic debate of course. But I am telling you that among the highest of the highfalutin academics, it still happens, often with exquisite relish and flair, and in peer reviewed published stuff as well. Emotion motivates debate for people of all intelligence levels and skills at expressing themselves.

Do I think any debate on any level is better without personal invective? Yes, it can be, but it's also, in any debate of real importance, that emotion-free zone is something like a long speech in total monotone. Less of is better for the same reason: all personal invective all the time also loses all force and utility. To quote a brilliant Neil Peart lyric it's like "voices in a hurricane." So my idea of a moderator is that she has an impossible job leading and sorting, making impossible-to-be-consistent maddening decisions all over the place. Have fun.

But I do think, always, a post with nothing but stupid insults has no purpose and should be zapped into nothingness. That is what caused me to report one of those yesterday.

I really enjoy reading your post.

 

[UNCatTech]

last week the board decided to pile on me for some reasomn. i got exceedingly frustrated and broke fingers in my left hand punching a wall. i cant type well and voice recognition works poorly for me because i cant pronounce one letter correctly. i am adding this only because people are so eager to judge people they dont know. its all fund and games until someone gets hurt.

*here are some things that people maybe dont know about me, first, i am autistic but never diagnosed and have only come recently to that realization. its one reason prob that i miss a lot of social nuance. i also dont get memes involving faces or emojis though the latter are most often used to insult me so i dont pay much attention.

*my sociali development as a young child was set back by being abused by family, and being excluded from social activities due to being pushed ahead three grades. also the teachers used to openly mock me in class because they thought it was fun to boost their standing with kids by making fun of the same people the kids did.

*i am naturally inclined toward homosexuality. but i cant possibly be gay because i have no idea hoow to do that, esp when i was younger. i can barely navigate the most common social situations. plus ive seen from friends and family life as a gay man is full of pain and rejection and i cant take that. plus i am not very good looking but i can be charming with women. so i decided a while back that my best bet was to get so good at sex that no woman in her right mind would want to leave me. i have succeeded and its the only accomplishment i am proud of. i enjoy giving my wife hours of pleasure until she is pudding on the bed and cant really move, but i dont get much personal fulfillment. i have to take care of myself.

*i have been open about my mental health struggles. what people dont know is that psych meds often lose effectiveness over time. they dont just stop working,. they just do less and it is hard to notice. i thought i was super stressed and off kilter because of election. i now think my meds were also wearing off and i didnt realize it because i thought it was just fear of fascism. i have been in therapy, but there is only so much that can do.

*what people do know about me is that i am intelligent, whether threy want to admit it or not. my iq is in the 150s. that is an objective fact in the universe. i cant make that go away. for most people that is the end of the story, i am full of myself and thus deserving of scorn. for me it is just the beginning. it doesnt make me superior as a person to have this talent (and it pretty much my onlty one, unless you count inadvertently alienating people). i still have to get by in the world. it is both blessing and curse. i dont claim to manage it perfectly or even well. i do my best.

here is an example. when i was in geometry class, the teacher used to explain problems by making fun of me. explaining the concept of triangles having the same ratio of sides even if the side length is different, he said its like if [super] built a shrink ray and shrank everyones pizza slices. they would be less filling but they would all add up to a circle. i finallty got sick of it and said that he didnt have to bring me into every explanation. he said that i i got 100 on everything anyway so i should learn to have a sense of humor. i told him in these words that he was a fucking dickhead who liked other dicks. it was homophobic but i was 10 and i didnt care. i got sent to the principals office and then i did every day until finally the principal wanted to know what happened. it had happened with other teachers but this was the worst. i told him that i was going to do it every single day until they just gave me the final exam and let me get out of class in jan. i aced it. the teacher was fired over the summer. nobody ever apologized to me.

so i took it on myself not to let that happen to me anymore. the next fall and throughout hs, i made it a point near the beginning of every class to call out the teachers when they would make mistakes. there are teachers here. y'all dont know how many mistakes you make. at least mine didnt. and then i would tell them that if they tried to humiliate me like mr. f, then i would humiliate them in return by exposing how stupid they were. it worked. blessing and curse. it was not the best way to handle it maybe but i was 11 and was dealing with that bullshit by myself.

*my dad used to punish me as a young boy by driving me somewhere miles from home, making me get out of the car and driving away. find your own way home. it was usually in a police car. but when the cop asked me where i went to school and i referred to the middle school at age 8, his attitude changed. i didnt need much protection i guess because i was smart. he told my dad that it wasnt the right thing to do even though i would be able to find my way home. no charges though. so it was up to me. in the car i took some of my dads business cards and when i got out i started hurling rocks through every store window around, and then put my dads card inside. told him it was going to cost him all that money everytime he did that. he stopped doing it and reverted to plain ole physical violence. but he was slow and fat and most of the time he could not catch me. sometimes i got pummeled but i preferred it to being abandoned. blessing and curse.

*so in the end i guess i come across as arrogrant. enouigh people tell me that. i do the best i can. at some point it is too exhausting to try to be someone else -- for instance by getting Bs which was an unsuccessful strategy for dealing with my teachers, or pretending not to understand health economics. so i am me, the best version of me that i can be, i am actually a good person i think but i am a repressed gay (or maybe trans adjacent) autistic dude with a history of abuse and other incidents nobody wants to hear about. nobody wanted to hear the above stuff either but i have to pad my post somehow to get it to proper super length.

i am not planning on posting here. typing is a problem. so is the fact that i have no desire to hang out where so many people clearly loathe me. so i will solve your super ignore problems for you.

but for the sake of decency, people -- especially progressives or liberals -- need to stop punching down on others. that is my message here. stop punching down. and since you might not know who is up or down, if you dont know them or what formed them, maybe stop punching. and if you want to deflecty responsibility by saying that i do it too, i dont care. i dont pick fights but i react to them. maybe i do more than that and dont realize it. regardless whether or not i am a hypocrite does not make your behavior ok.

Super, I hope your hand heals well and that you continue to post, I enjoy reading your post.

 

[Centerpiece]

So I have been debating and discussing on The Internets since 1991 (then called usenet), meaning back when a lot of you were nothing but random molecules spread all over. I debated creationists on Talk.Origins after that, and debated philosophy on other sites--where people can get really, really mean discussing stuff like truth and will and language. Through all that, decorum is something like the question of what is art (I know it when I emote it).

In all that participation I have used some insults in choice spots, and my personal view of the art of this kind of board debating is that there are in fact choice spots, but it must be part of an argument about what someone is not just ignorant about, but displaying a willful and obnoxious ignorance. Seeing an ongoing tactic to replace failed arguments with a "fix" to troll and annoy, and then I may respond by saying something about "the person, not the argument" in that case. This is viewed as wrong in academic debate of course. But I am telling you that among the highest of the highfalutin academics, it still happens, often with exquisite relish and flair, and in peer reviewed published stuff as well. Emotion motivates debate for people of all intelligence levels and skills at expressing themselves.

Do I think any debate on any level is better without personal invective? Yes, it can be, but it's also, in any debate of real importance, that emotion-free zone is something like a long speech in total monotone. Less of is better for the same reason: all personal invective all the time also loses all force and utility. To quote a brilliant Neil Peart lyric it's like "voices in a hurricane." So my idea of a moderator is that she has an impossible job leading and sorting, making impossible-to-be-consistent maddening decisions all over the place. Have fun.

But I do think, always, a post with nothing but stupid insults has no purpose and should be zapped into nothingness. That is what caused me to report one of those yesterday.

Extra credit for the Neil Peart reference.

 

[an0maly]

Extra credit for the Neil Peart reference.

That the best drummer was also the best lyricist is a gift we got and did not deserve. Our brevity in time and vapor:

Horizon to horizon
Memory written on the wind
Fading away, like an hourglass, grain by grain
Swept away like voices in a hurricane
In a vapor trail

 

[Centerpiece]

last week the board decided to pile on me for some reasomn. i got exceedingly frustrated and broke fingers in my left hand punching a wall. i cant type well and voice recognition works poorly for me because i cant pronounce one letter correctly. i am adding this only because people are so eager to judge people they dont know. its all fund and games until someone gets hurt.

*here are some things that people maybe dont know about me, first, i am autistic but never diagnosed and have only come recently to that realization. its one reason prob that i miss a lot of social nuance. i also dont get memes involving faces or emojis though the latter are most often used to insult me so i dont pay much attention.

*my sociali development as a young child was set back by being abused by family, and being excluded from social activities due to being pushed ahead three grades. also the teachers used to openly mock me in class because they thought it was fun to boost their standing with kids by making fun of the same people the kids did.

*i am naturally inclined toward homosexuality. but i cant possibly be gay because i have no idea hoow to do that, esp when i was younger. i can barely navigate the most common social situations. plus ive seen from friends and family life as a gay man is full of pain and rejection and i cant take that. plus i am not very good looking but i can be charming with women. so i decided a while back that my best bet was to get so good at sex that no woman in her right mind would want to leave me. i have succeeded and its the only accomplishment i am proud of. i enjoy giving my wife hours of pleasure until she is pudding on the bed and cant really move, but i dont get much personal fulfillment. i have to take care of myself.

*i have been open about my mental health struggles. what people dont know is that psych meds often lose effectiveness over time. they dont just stop working,. they just do less and it is hard to notice. i thought i was super stressed and off kilter because of election. i now think my meds were also wearing off and i didnt realize it because i thought it was just fear of fascism. i have been in therapy, but there is only so much that can do.

*what people do know about me is that i am intelligent, whether threy want to admit it or not. my iq is in the 150s. that is an objective fact in the universe. i cant make that go away. for most people that is the end of the story, i am full of myself and thus deserving of scorn. for me it is just the beginning. it doesnt make me superior as a person to have this talent (and it pretty much my onlty one, unless you count inadvertently alienating people). i still have to get by in the world. it is both blessing and curse. i dont claim to manage it perfectly or even well. i do my best.

here is an example. when i was in geometry class, the teacher used to explain problems by making fun of me. explaining the concept of triangles having the same ratio of sides even if the side length is different, he said its like if [super] built a shrink ray and shrank everyones pizza slices. they would be less filling but they would all add up to a circle. i finallty got sick of it and said that he didnt have to bring me into every explanation. he said that i i got 100 on everything anyway so i should learn to have a sense of humor. i told him in these words that he was a fucking dickhead who liked other dicks. it was homophobic but i was 10 and i didnt care. i got sent to the principals office and then i did every day until finally the principal wanted to know what happened. it had happened with other teachers but this was the worst. i told him that i was going to do it every single day until they just gave me the final exam and let me get out of class in jan. i aced it. the teacher was fired over the summer. nobody ever apologized to me.

so i took it on myself not to let that happen to me anymore. the next fall and throughout hs, i made it a point near the beginning of every class to call out the teachers when they would make mistakes. there are teachers here. y'all dont know how many mistakes you make. at least mine didnt. and then i would tell them that if they tried to humiliate me like mr. f, then i would humiliate them in return by exposing how stupid they were. it worked. blessing and curse. it was not the best way to handle it maybe but i was 11 and was dealing with that bullshit by myself.

*my dad used to punish me as a young boy by driving me somewhere miles from home, making me get out of the car and driving away. find your own way home. it was usually in a police car. but when the cop asked me where i went to school and i referred to the middle school at age 8, his attitude changed. i didnt need much protection i guess because i was smart. he told my dad that it wasnt the right thing to do even though i would be able to find my way home. no charges though. so it was up to me. in the car i took some of my dads business cards and when i got out i started hurling rocks through every store window around, and then put my dads card inside. told him it was going to cost him all that money everytime he did that. he stopped doing it and reverted to plain ole physical violence. but he was slow and fat and most of the time he could not catch me. sometimes i got pummeled but i preferred it to being abandoned. blessing and curse.

*so in the end i guess i come across as arrogrant. enouigh people tell me that. i do the best i can. at some point it is too exhausting to try to be someone else -- for instance by getting Bs which was an unsuccessful strategy for dealing with my teachers, or pretending not to understand health economics. so i am me, the best version of me that i can be, i am actually a good person i think but i am a repressed gay (or maybe trans adjacent) autistic dude with a history of abuse and other incidents nobody wants to hear about. nobody wanted to hear the above stuff either but i have to pad my post somehow to get it to proper super length.

i am not planning on posting here. typing is a problem. so is the fact that i have no desire to hang out where so many people clearly loathe me. so i will solve your super ignore problems for you.

but for the sake of decency, people -- especially progressives or liberals -- need to stop punching down on others. that is my message here. stop punching down. and since you might not know who is up or down, if you dont know them or what formed them, maybe stop punching. and if you want to deflecty responsibility by saying that i do it too, i dont care. i dont pick fights but i react to them. maybe i do more than that and dont realize it. regardless whether or not i am a hypocrite does not make your behavior ok.

I feel ya.
And all of this (especially your main point of quit punching down, and if you’re not sure which way you’re punching, just stop it altogether) is why my favorite saying, found as graffiti scrawled on a stone wall in Strasbourg, is: “Go ahead, draw your petty conclusions.”

Everybody’s got their opinions and assumptions. And we’re all going to draw our own, petty conclusions. But as has been stated on this board many times and many places, we’re all free to assume our own positions on the issues, but we’re not free to create our own facts. Although We do indeed create our own “facts”, but that doesn’t mean they’re truthful, and sincerely and empirically factual.

So we debate about it all on an anonymous message board. The key to it all flowing in a direction which makes any sense for even being here, is found in the OP. Decency. Decorum. Utilize a demeanor slightly less than being a total arseling. Being a bit abrasive or demanding at times has a place. But at the end of the day remember that opinions are like assholes.

Or is it, everybody with an opinion unlike mine is an asshole?

Choose your battles, and not every battle you choose needs to be a war.

 

[StrangePackage]

last week the board decided to pile on me for some reasomn. i got exceedingly frustrated and broke fingers in my left hand punching a wall. i cant type well and voice recognition works poorly for me because i cant pronounce one letter correctly. i am adding this only because people are so eager to judge people they dont know. its all fund and games until someone gets hurt.

*here are some things that people maybe dont know about me, first, i am autistic but never diagnosed and have only come recently to that realization. its one reason prob that i miss a lot of social nuance. i also dont get memes involving faces or emojis though the latter are most often used to insult me so i dont pay much attention.

*my sociali development as a young child was set back by being abused by family, and being excluded from social activities due to being pushed ahead three grades. also the teachers used to openly mock me in class because they thought it was fun to boost their standing with kids by making fun of the same people the kids did.

*i am naturally inclined toward homosexuality. but i cant possibly be gay because i have no idea hoow to do that, esp when i was younger. i can barely navigate the most common social situations. plus ive seen from friends and family life as a gay man is full of pain and rejection and i cant take that. plus i am not very good looking but i can be charming with women. so i decided a while back that my best bet was to get so good at sex that no woman in her right mind would want to leave me. i have succeeded and its the only accomplishment i am proud of. i enjoy giving my wife hours of pleasure until she is pudding on the bed and cant really move, but i dont get much personal fulfillment. i have to take care of myself.

*i have been open about my mental health struggles. what people dont know is that psych meds often lose effectiveness over time. they dont just stop working,. they just do less and it is hard to notice. i thought i was super stressed and off kilter because of election. i now think my meds were also wearing off and i didnt realize it because i thought it was just fear of fascism. i have been in therapy, but there is only so much that can do.

*what people do know about me is that i am intelligent, whether threy want to admit it or not. my iq is in the 150s. that is an objective fact in the universe. i cant make that go away. for most people that is the end of the story, i am full of myself and thus deserving of scorn. for me it is just the beginning. it doesnt make me superior as a person to have this talent (and it pretty much my onlty one, unless you count inadvertently alienating people). i still have to get by in the world. it is both blessing and curse. i dont claim to manage it perfectly or even well. i do my best.

here is an example. when i was in geometry class, the teacher used to explain problems by making fun of me. explaining the concept of triangles having the same ratio of sides even if the side length is different, he said its like if [super] built a shrink ray and shrank everyones pizza slices. they would be less filling but they would all add up to a circle. i finallty got sick of it and said that he didnt have to bring me into every explanation. he said that i i got 100 on everything anyway so i should learn to have a sense of humor. i told him in these words that he was a fucking dickhead who liked other dicks. it was homophobic but i was 10 and i didnt care. i got sent to the principals office and then i did every day until finally the principal wanted to know what happened. it had happened with other teachers but this was the worst. i told him that i was going to do it every single day until they just gave me the final exam and let me get out of class in jan. i aced it. the teacher was fired over the summer. nobody ever apologized to me.

so i took it on myself not to let that happen to me anymore. the next fall and throughout hs, i made it a point near the beginning of every class to call out the teachers when they would make mistakes. there are teachers here. y'all dont know how many mistakes you make. at least mine didnt. and then i would tell them that if they tried to humiliate me like mr. f, then i would humiliate them in return by exposing how stupid they were. it worked. blessing and curse. it was not the best way to handle it maybe but i was 11 and was dealing with that bullshit by myself.

*my dad used to punish me as a young boy by driving me somewhere miles from home, making me get out of the car and driving away. find your own way home. it was usually in a police car. but when the cop asked me where i went to school and i referred to the middle school at age 8, his attitude changed. i didnt need much protection i guess because i was smart. he told my dad that it wasnt the right thing to do even though i would be able to find my way home. no charges though. so it was up to me. in the car i took some of my dads business cards and when i got out i started hurling rocks through every store window around, and then put my dads card inside. told him it was going to cost him all that money everytime he did that. he stopped doing it and reverted to plain ole physical violence. but he was slow and fat and most of the time he could not catch me. sometimes i got pummeled but i preferred it to being abandoned. blessing and curse.

*so in the end i guess i come across as arrogrant. enouigh people tell me that. i do the best i can. at some point it is too exhausting to try to be someone else -- for instance by getting Bs which was an unsuccessful strategy for dealing with my teachers, or pretending not to understand health economics. so i am me, the best version of me that i can be, i am actually a good person i think but i am a repressed gay (or maybe trans adjacent) autistic dude with a history of abuse and other incidents nobody wants to hear about. nobody wanted to hear the above stuff either but i have to pad my post somehow to get it to proper super length.

i am not planning on posting here. typing is a problem. so is the fact that i have no desire to hang out where so many people clearly loathe me. so i will solve your super ignore problems for you.

but for the sake of decency, people -- especially progressives or liberals -- need to stop punching down on others. that is my message here. stop punching down. and since you might not know who is up or down, if you dont know them or what formed them, maybe stop punching. and if you want to deflecty responsibility by saying that i do it too, i dont care. i dont pick fights but i react to them. maybe i do more than that and dont realize it. regardless whether or not i am a hypocrite does not make your behavior ok.

I'm sorry you're struggling. I hope things get better for you.

 

[Turd Ferguson]

last week the board decided to pile on me for some reasomn. i got exceedingly frustrated and broke fingers in my left hand punching a wall. i cant type well and voice recognition works poorly for me because i cant pronounce one letter correctly. i am adding this only because people are so eager to judge people they dont know. its all fund and games until someone gets hurt.

*here are some things that people maybe dont know about me, first, i am autistic but never diagnosed and have only come recently to that realization. its one reason prob that i miss a lot of social nuance. i also dont get memes involving faces or emojis though the latter are most often used to insult me so i dont pay much attention.

*my sociali development as a young child was set back by being abused by family, and being excluded from social activities due to being pushed ahead three grades. also the teachers used to openly mock me in class because they thought it was fun to boost their standing with kids by making fun of the same people the kids did.

*i am naturally inclined toward homosexuality. but i cant possibly be gay because i have no idea hoow to do that, esp when i was younger. i can barely navigate the most common social situations. plus ive seen from friends and family life as a gay man is full of pain and rejection and i cant take that. plus i am not very good looking but i can be charming with women. so i decided a while back that my best bet was to get so good at sex that no woman in her right mind would want to leave me. i have succeeded and its the only accomplishment i am proud of. i enjoy giving my wife hours of pleasure until she is pudding on the bed and cant really move, but i dont get much personal fulfillment. i have to take care of myself.

*i have been open about my mental health struggles. what people dont know is that psych meds often lose effectiveness over time. they dont just stop working,. they just do less and it is hard to notice. i thought i was super stressed and off kilter because of election. i now think my meds were also wearing off and i didnt realize it because i thought it was just fear of fascism. i have been in therapy, but there is only so much that can do.

*what people do know about me is that i am intelligent, whether threy want to admit it or not. my iq is in the 150s. that is an objective fact in the universe. i cant make that go away. for most people that is the end of the story, i am full of myself and thus deserving of scorn. for me it is just the beginning. it doesnt make me superior as a person to have this talent (and it pretty much my onlty one, unless you count inadvertently alienating people). i still have to get by in the world. it is both blessing and curse. i dont claim to manage it perfectly or even well. i do my best.

here is an example. when i was in geometry class, the teacher used to explain problems by making fun of me. explaining the concept of triangles having the same ratio of sides even if the side length is different, he said its like if [super] built a shrink ray and shrank everyones pizza slices. they would be less filling but they would all add up to a circle. i finallty got sick of it and said that he didnt have to bring me into every explanation. he said that i i got 100 on everything anyway so i should learn to have a sense of humor. i told him in these words that he was a fucking dickhead who liked other dicks. it was homophobic but i was 10 and i didnt care. i got sent to the principals office and then i did every day until finally the principal wanted to know what happened. it had happened with other teachers but this was the worst. i told him that i was going to do it every single day until they just gave me the final exam and let me get out of class in jan. i aced it. the teacher was fired over the summer. nobody ever apologized to me.

so i took it on myself not to let that happen to me anymore. the next fall and throughout hs, i made it a point near the beginning of every class to call out the teachers when they would make mistakes. there are teachers here. y'all dont know how many mistakes you make. at least mine didnt. and then i would tell them that if they tried to humiliate me like mr. f, then i would humiliate them in return by exposing how stupid they were. it worked. blessing and curse. it was not the best way to handle it maybe but i was 11 and was dealing with that bullshit by myself.

*my dad used to punish me as a young boy by driving me somewhere miles from home, making me get out of the car and driving away. find your own way home. it was usually in a police car. but when the cop asked me where i went to school and i referred to the middle school at age 8, his attitude changed. i didnt need much protection i guess because i was smart. he told my dad that it wasnt the right thing to do even though i would be able to find my way home. no charges though. so it was up to me. in the car i took some of my dads business cards and when i got out i started hurling rocks through every store window around, and then put my dads card inside. told him it was going to cost him all that money everytime he did that. he stopped doing it and reverted to plain ole physical violence. but he was slow and fat and most of the time he could not catch me. sometimes i got pummeled but i preferred it to being abandoned. blessing and curse.

*so in the end i guess i come across as arrogrant. enouigh people tell me that. i do the best i can. at some point it is too exhausting to try to be someone else -- for instance by getting Bs which was an unsuccessful strategy for dealing with my teachers, or pretending not to understand health economics. so i am me, the best version of me that i can be, i am actually a good person i think but i am a repressed gay (or maybe trans adjacent) autistic dude with a history of abuse and other incidents nobody wants to hear about. nobody wanted to hear the above stuff either but i have to pad my post somehow to get it to proper super length.

i am not planning on posting here. typing is a problem. so is the fact that i have no desire to hang out where so many people clearly loathe me. so i will solve your super ignore problems for you.

but for the sake of decency, people -- especially progressives or liberals -- need to stop punching down on others. that is my message here. stop punching down. and since you might not know who is up or down, if you dont know them or what formed them, maybe stop punching. and if you want to deflecty responsibility by saying that i do it too, i dont care. i dont pick fights but i react to them. maybe i do more than that and dont realize it. regardless whether or not i am a hypocrite does not make your behavior ok.