In the last few years of my life, I have allowed myself an increased amount of face-to-face time with some folks. Going further back, I really seriously had some years where I was chronically online in my spare time.
But in the recent years, when I found myself interacting with people who sometimes had very different opinions than I did, I have come to find that talking to people who disagree with me seems very, very healthy ā as long as everyone involved is reasonable and their intention is to exchange ideas, not some malicious intention or whatever.
Also, as it happens, in the last few years, I have gained probably 20 or 30 lbs of additional weight. As far as I know, I believe this is a direct result of an increased consumption of pizza, chocolate, and ice cream while socializing, coupled with a decrease in my day to day exercise because I now work from home instead of walking to work.
When I think about the world, and when I think about myself, those extra 20-30 lbs are not a part of what I think about. These are not something that I want to be there, nor to identify as. But when I get in a conversation with someone who tells me that this kind of increasingly overweight person is who they see me as, even if I disagree with them about what I am, I do not feel that they should be āseparated from civil conversations.ā I would rather to think they are simply incorrect about who I am, or who I can be ā a form of disagreement, if you will.
This is different than, say, if someone were to constantly refer to me as an increasingly overweight person ā and perhaps at times when I was busy and not at liberty to do anything about it. There is a way that I could discern that someoneās actual intentional goal might seriously be to stress me out and cause me to feel hurt and unwell, rather than to inform me that they disagree about their perception of who they think I am. The people who really and truly only want to stress me out, and to make me feel upset or unwell at times when Iām not even able to do anything about it, are really a sort of folk that itās good to stay away from. I think thatās probably very true and accurate.
But if you find someone who disagrees about their perception of who you are, would you go so far as to say that such a person should likewise be removed from civil conversations as if they were equivalent to the sort of antagonistic, hurtful kind of person?
Accordingly, from my perspective, I would think that the language someone uses isnāt itself the problem. Instead, I would think that if there was any problem, it would be whether the other person desired to be antagonistic ā and thatās a different problem. If they were simply disagreeing with me about who I considered myself to be ā for example if they believe Iāll never lose those extra pounds, and thatās who I am ā wellā¦ Shouldnāt people who disagree be allowed in basically all civil conversations, for basically all topics, even if Iām extremely confident that theyāre wrong to disagree with me?
Of course, in an ideal worldās civil conversations, Iām not sure chatbots should ever be allowed. So what Iām trying to imagine ā this concept of a world where we allow people who disagree with us to be in civil conversations ā I am imagining a world that would be free of malicious chatbots causing people to arrive at warped perspectives about their fellow humans. And itās possible that we wonāt ever be able to have that kind of world that Iām imagining. So there might be other consequences of this brainstorm ā maybe itās an attempt to imagine something that could never happen, or never work, and the real and pragmatic steps we have to take for how to have conversations end up being quite different. Maybe you find what Iām writing here extremely offensive; I guess I hope not, but whether you do is entirely out of my control.
But actual people should be allowed to disagree with me, in my ideal type of civil conversations. Iām just pretty sure thatās true, at least for me. Is that a really misguided take? Do you disagree?
Earlier in this thread, I asked where you would advise me to go to read about how to understand/respect the situation of people who are trans, since I mentioned that Iāve not actually really had much of a conversation with any in person. And Iāll admit, I did not yet make time to read through all of the materials you suggest. So there might just be stuff I donāt know. You might feel like Iām asking something that is a question you donāt want to hear, because it has been asked elsewhere too many times, and you would rather the ability for someone to think through this type of question to disappear.
I guess I can kind of respect that, if thatās how things are, but I didnāt go and research into it yet, and instead was sitting here sharing some thoughts on my Librem
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