Acknowledging fears while avoiding doomsaying

July 15, 2024 11:24 AM

I have a suggestion for community communication standards for posts such as the one on the shootings at Trump’s July 13 rally that make many of our fellow Mefites highly anxious.

When a big event happens that causes uncertainty or instability for the future, with the potential for significantly negative outcomes, people have a variety of different (and all equally normal) reactions.

* Some people find comfort in expressing their fear and hearing their emotion acknowledged.

* Some people find comfort in brainstorming or getting to work on solutions or ways to avoid the negative outcomes.

* There are multiple other options as well, but this is a very common “do you want sympathy or solutions?” dichotomy, kind of like the ask vs. guess culture dichotomy.

We can make room for both in threads such as the one about the shooting at a Trump rally. But posting one’s fears as if they were objective fact is not the way. That instead can be extra fear- or anxiety-inducing, to potentially traumatizing, for some other Mefites.

A better option is to use the format: “I am afraid/anxious that this will lead to outcome x. I would appreciate {select one or both of: ‘acknowledgement of my fear/anxiety’, ‘knowing that I’m not alone in this fear/anxiety, and that other people share it’, ‘solutions or suggestions for action to avoid or mitigate the negative outcomes’}.”

Those of you who are posting your fears as if they were objective fact probably have better suggestions than I can come up with for a corresponding script outline for those of us who find action most comforting. But I imagine it might help if we introduce our action suggestions with something like “I need solutions or action to feel less overwhelmed or scared. Here are some ideas I’ve thought of….”? (Yes, I know I didn’t think of this before posting my comments in that thread - and then multiple people seemed to misinterpret my comment. My best guess is that my pushback on the universalizing one’s own fears aspect came across as being dismissive of those fears, since I didn’t provide this sort of context?)

In both cases, other commenters should then be careful to note which type of comment they are replying to. This will enable us to collectively ensure that the people who are seeking acknowledgement or feeling heard and sharing their worry receive affirmation, without traumatizing anyone for whom stating one’s own fears about future outcomes as if they were immutable fact causes more emotional distress or harm. And that the people who find greater comfort in a solutions-oriented approach don’t end up feeling like the folks who just need some affirmation or acknowledgement are being obstructive of any potential solutions and thus making the situation worse/scarier.

posted by eviemath to Etiquette/Policy at 11:24 AM (303 comments total)

THANK YOU. Yes, this. The number of people who are posting "that's it, Trump just won" or "time to leave the country" comments is crazymaking.

And to head off the obvious pushback: nearly none of the people making these statements have previously indicated that they are from any group who would be at a societal disadvantage (i.e, a recent immigrant, or a person of color, or a trans individual or their family member), to my recollection, so instead of coming across as the very real concerns of someone who very likely may need to do this, it's sounding like Bill Paxon in ALIENS.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:00 PM on July 15 [20 favorites]

I thought about a similar post and I agree with the sentiment! It made me super stressed and pissed off - but then cooler heads posted in the thread, and that made a difference (for me).

As much as a reminder is welcome, I'm not sure any rule is getting broken(?)
Plus, there's that thing where a lot of Mefites don't come to this part of the site. But I do appreciate and agree with this post.
posted by Glinn at 12:11 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

Overall I agree. Personally, I mind less when people state their fears (regardless how they do it) and then turn to explaining why they feel the way they do. What feels least productive is a short one-line post of some variation of "we're doomed," whereas if a user puts some time into expressing why they feel the way they do, that's at least a place for potential engagement, discussion and understanding.
posted by coffeecat at 12:31 PM on July 15 [8 favorites]

On the other hand, the sincere doomsayers walked so schrodinger's piss-takers could run, and that's something I'll always enjoy about a contentious metafilter thread.
posted by phunniemee at 12:31 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

I'm the doomiest doomer who ever doomed, but I too have trouble with people making bold assertions of 100% certainty. I know Trump sort of inspires these superlative badnesses, especially in the context of all the other bad stuff in our lives. This is a tense fucking time for everyone on earth. But I think it's so much better to talk about things that are actually happening, plus our feelings about what's happening, in a way that respects, like, nuance and complexity and unpredictability. It's one thing to joke about Trump's plot armor, it's quite another to predict his unstoppable resurrection to the presidency and the resulting apocalypse.

On the other hand I think we can respect where people are coming from with those takes. In the recent shooting thread, even though I feel like I made a third of the comments, there were so many other comments and replies I wanted to make, because I really disagreed with so much of what was being said there...but, y'know, I decided that while I disagreed with them strongly, I wasn't really required to do anything about them. It's okay for people to be wrong, and we don't have to engage with them, we certainly don't have to fight with them. Probably more important than putting a stop to the doomsaying, is putting a stop to the fighting about it. (And when I say that, I'm including some of my own favorite people on the list of folks who should stop fighting.)
posted by mittens at 12:32 PM on July 15 [8 favorites]

it's sounding like Bill Paxon in ALIENS. yt

I've come to refer to such stuff as having a Denethor moment.

bottom line -- he (Denethor) was wrong. The future ain't written. Ever.
posted by philip-random at 12:33 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

[…] it's sounding like Bill Paxon in ALIENS.

Bill Paxton.
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 12:54 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Some of the doomer comments I read on here are really upsetting. I belong to a lot of the groups being politically targeted right now and it doesn't feel good to read long fanfiction comments about how people like me are going to be sent to camps any day now. I know that at least some of the people writing those comments are in a similar position to me and trying to process their fear and despair by sharing their feelings, and I don't want to tell anyone how to cope with things, but Jesus, that stuff is everywhere right now and it's fucking awful.
posted by birthday cake at 1:20 PM on July 15 [32 favorites]

It isn't hard to conceive of an anti-Trump platform uniting all interested parties. Better now than later from desperation.
posted by Brian B. at 1:34 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Maybe this is crazy, but just like we had nuke and no-nuke Ukraine posts (and just like Fanfare has books-included and show-only), could we have doom and no-doom threads?

Or is the real issue that big political events naturally create something akin to the megathreads of old. I think we all agree those were unsustainable, but how do you keep them from happening?
posted by rikschell at 2:14 PM on July 15

fanfiction comments about how people like me are going to be sent to camps any day now.

The comment about expecting a pogrom in Milwaukee was deleted but the attitude remains. Instead of empathy or support for the people who are already on the frontlines of this shit the vibe I get is “yep you’re gonna die.”

But that’s sort of what I expect on the “the Democrats haven’t done anything for anyone” website.
posted by brook horse at 2:38 PM on July 15 [12 favorites]

MetaFilter stared into the Abyss.
The Abyss stared into MetaFilter.
Neither much liked what they saw.
But at least the Abyss filed a 'MetaTalk' post and is doing much better.
(with apologies to brother theodore)
posted by zaixfeep at 2:38 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]

I think you pretty much have to stay out of hot-button-newsfilter if you don't want to see people speculating about what the news means for the future. It's a natural thing people do, even in face-to-face conversation. Maybe a mandatory Newsfilter tag for hiding those posts? (OTOH there is already a US politics tag with which many of these doomsaying threads overlap).

I go in streaks on how much is "too much". Lately I'll read the OP story and skim the comments for links. Other times I'm into the weeds of speculating about motives, predictions, people's feelings of despair, etc. OTHER other times, I just skip the whole thing. But I feel like that's on me to do, not everyone else's responsibility to be only positive and optimistic when I'm in a mood.

Which is not to say eviemath's suggestions are bad - I think everyone can try to be aware of how their comments affect other people. Practicing better communication techniques is something we can all stand to do, every day. Just, not everyone is always going to. "Favor to ask", "Awareness bulletin", "Reminder"... sure, thanks for that, I'll try (honestly, no snark intended). "Community communication standards" makes it seem mandatory somehow, and I don't see how that's going to work. Mod deletions like that tend to raise the temperature, not lower it.
posted by ctmf at 2:41 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

Mod deletions like that tend to raise the temperature, not lower it.

I guess I have no evidence of that other than gut feel. I would only see when it blows up, not all the times it works.
posted by ctmf at 2:54 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Those of you who are posting your fears as if they were objective fact

I think it's WORSE than that. I feel like there are people here who have kind of an accelerationist viewpoint and I think they post doomsday scenarios as if they were actual fact because they get some kind of satisfaction from having their worldview validated.

I'm fine with speculation about what things could mean for the future, but "THIS IS DEFINITELY THE END" isn't speculation, and it never offers any kind of positive action that we can take. Even in a literal doomsday scenario there would be actions we could take, such as finding shelter or ways to communicate.

Maybe they just have fears, like me. But the posts come across as something much worse.

This has been going on for a long time and it is NOT just in threads where major events happen, and it's the major reason I regularly consider buttoning my 24-year MeFi membership.
posted by mmoncur at 3:00 PM on July 15 [31 favorites]

I think people need to take responsibility for the things they read/participate in. Reading endless “discussion” about politics stresses me out, so I don’t do it. If reading something upsetting about Trump, politics, random speculation is likely to be traumatizing, take care of yourself and avoid places where people you can’t control may say things that will be traumatizing.

There’s a very mushy line here, it doesn’t seem easy to say what is doomerism or what the actual behavior is that is upsetting people. “Makes me upset” is not enough. “Is shitty to people with my marginalized identity” is enough. But they aren’t the same thing.

Also, I realize you’re trying to be kind and inclusive, but calling comments here traumatizing in this situation seems minimizing of trauma. It also seems to put the blame in the wrong place. Modern life is extremely stressful if you spend a lot of time paying attention to current events. That’s the fault of a lot of people, few of whom are here.

I don’t think it’s fair to put people’s mental health on the shoulders of other members over something this vague. Saying someone is traumatizing someone else is a pretty big accusation over a form of commenting that has the wrong tone, essentially.
posted by knobknosher at 3:32 PM on July 15 [12 favorites]

Knobknosher: if it helps, I have a for-instance.

There is a difference between the comment "Biden is going to lose SO HARD" in the Vance VP pick and "Biden is going to lose SO HARD unless we get the vote out".

The former is an example of what we're talking about, because it assumes that Biden losing is an inalterable and unchangeable fact. Which is ISN'T, yet. The second, "Biden is going to lose Unless...." at least warns of the stakes of the situation but ALSO gives an option for how to stop the situation.

Even "I'm afraid Biden is going to lose so hard" would be preferable, because the "I'm afraid" turns this into a statement of opinion, rather than a statement of fact.

Does that help?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:40 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

People are afraid and correctly so. The constant scolding is dismissive and incredibly unhelpful.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 3:49 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

Saying someone is traumatizing someone else is a pretty big accusation over a form of commenting that has the wrong tone, essentially.

Actually I think EC's example was a little weak compared to some of the other things we've seen lately. I don't want to delve into whether 'trauma' is the wrong word--I agree with you, I think it probably is too strong--but there's definitely a difference in the emotional impact between, like, "Trump's going to win" and "Hey, everybody with your particular identity are going to be rounded up and sent to the camps! I feel really bad about your future torture and murder! Sorry about that!" That second form of comment has really got to stop.
posted by mittens at 3:51 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

People are afraid and correctly so. The constant scolding is dismissive and incredibly unhelpful.

There is a way to express that fear without drawing other people into that same level of fear with you. That's not helpful either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:59 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

I feel like there are people here who have kind of an accelerationist viewpoint and I think they post doomsday scenarios as if they were actual fact because they get some kind of satisfaction from having their worldview validated.

I think this is exactly it in many cases, and then of course coupled with the desire to score points with others who are doing the same thing in these threads. It's telling to me that some of the worst perpetrators will sometimes repeatedly re-state their original take across various threads, and then defend that take using short quips, "dunks", and moral outrage, with seemingly no evolving views, suggested approaches, proposed solutions or discernible drive toward any sort of dialectic synthesis.

It's frustrating.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 4:01 PM on July 15 [10 favorites]

"I'm afraid Biden is going to lose so hard" would be preferable

It's been 30 years since I was trained to use "I statements" and I'm not always good at doing it, but it's excellent practice for communicating with other people, especially about potentially touchy things.

For me, posting doom and gloom is mostly because I'd rather be a pessimist who is sometimes pleasantly surprised than be a perpetually heartbroken optimist. I've always had a catastophizing personality (I think all the men in my family do), and then 9-11 broke something inside me, and 11-9 broke it more. I recognize it's maybe not the healthiest coping mechanism, and I really don't like it when it ends up hurting other people. So I will try to do better here. But I think a lot of people are going to be unsatisfied with standards of "positivity only!" and there need to be places where people can wrestle with feelings that are legitimately dark because while all hope might not yet be lost, things ain't looking so great, neither.
posted by rikschell at 4:08 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

"Biden is going to lose SO HARD unless we get the vote out".

I would rather crawl into my own asshole and backwards out of my own mouth than ever sit here on metafilter, of all places, and remind people of the importance of voting. Um no shit?

Nope Drake meme ✋: scolding
Satisfied Drake meme 👉: framing panic in I feel and from my perspective language
posted by phunniemee at 4:10 PM on July 15 [10 favorites]

(gentle reminder that drake is extremely problematic and it'd probably be better to refer to some other meme in your comments)
posted by mittens at 4:20 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]

Now that Drake is cancelled, just using the hand emojis seems sufficient, lol
posted by rikschell at 4:20 PM on July 15 [3 favorites]

"Hey, everybody with your particular identity are going to be rounded up and sent to the camps! I feel really bad about your future torture and murder! Sorry about that!" That second form of comment has really got to stop.

I think I agree with that. To me though it makes more sense to think about it from eg an anti-racism lens than a generic “doomsaying” lens. It reads to me as a microaggression as you are describing it. In the same way reminding women about how things are “dangerous” can be a microaggression.
posted by knobknosher at 4:22 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

There is a way to express that fear without drawing other people into that same level of fear with you. That's not helpful either.

That's not what I am talking about. What I am talking about are comments like "please don't do *xyz* here" when it is basically a disagreement about how bad things really are, which is labeled as -- dismissed as -- "doomsaying" by scolds.

This is a community and people have feelings about things. If you cannot cope with that, please go scold people somewhere else. Seriously. This should not be the place for you, if you are unable to deal with others feeling helpless and vulnerable and saying so.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:23 PM on July 15 [13 favorites]

Would administering selected political/crisis threads as an informal online group therapy session with a direct facilitator/lead rather than just a modded discussion be of value? (or have I just reinvented MetaTalk?)
posted by zaixfeep at 4:31 PM on July 15

I’m doomy as shit, but happy to take a few extra minutes to try to nuance about it.
posted by corb at 5:00 PM on July 15 [9 favorites]

Maybe this is crazy, but just like we had nuke and no-nuke Ukraine posts (and just like Fanfare has books-included and show-only), could we have doom and no-doom threads?

I’m surprised to find myself saying that I honestly don’t think we can. The thing with the Ukraine posts is that nuclear arsenals were undeniably a factor in the strategic calculus of what was happening (and is still happening) at all points, and there was a significant amount of uncertainty - even among very informed people - about what the escalation flowchart for each side might look like. Basically, if you’re going to storm in and say “can we please just talk about this like fucking adults already?” then there had better be something of substance - something new - to actually discuss once the conversation is no-holds-barred. Absent that you’re not exchanging information, just venting feelings despite the impact on the mods’ mental health.

There is nothing to be gained with doomerism for the sake of doomerism, and something to be lost - the sanity of the people holding the place together. I’ve written out no less than a dozen very long screeds to the tune of “okay so at what point do we start fucking acting like we actually want to survive?” and backspaced over all of them because while writing them made me feel better, actually posting what I wrote accomplishes nothing. It does not inform, does not yield insight-granting debate, and it sure as shit doesn’t entertain anybody not in dire need of psychiatric intervention (…okay that might be everyone right now).

And yeah that’s a little utilitarian but the reality of our resource situation as a community is that we need to be a little utilitarian right now. Those with extra energy should probably be putting it into the campaign.

That being said if someone wants to spin up a chat-style communal screaming pillow, please consider this my advance pillow reservation.
posted by Ryvar at 5:07 PM on July 15 [8 favorites]

Didn't we used to have "scream into the void" threads on the Gray? Maybe it's time to start that back up again.
posted by rikschell at 5:09 PM on July 15 [8 favorites]

My heart says yes but my laywer says no.
posted by Ryvar at 5:15 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]

I don't have a strong feeling about whether this particular iteration of encouraging better behavior in US politics threads will work, but I second/third/fourth/whatever the sense that the current run of threads is an unpleasant place to be. I noted out of the last one I participated in after several people were condescendingly smug about how something I said was wrong, not with any evidence but because they didn't like it (the topic was whether dumping Biden was acting contrary to the wills of primary voters; I said yes, other respondents said no). I don't want to litigate that incident other than to say it's the kind of thing that makes me bail out of those threads and when I've gut-checked with other folks, they say I'm not alone in seeing the threads as unpleasant to read and participate in.

My sense is that high-anxiety/doomer talk floods the zone and rapidly ends up with the same few people talking around and around each other in circles. I agree that this is some form of emotional talk and should be acknowledged as such, but I think getting folks who are that level of anxious to realize they're talking about fears instead of facts may be too heavy of a lift.

What I honestly think would improve those threads is a lot of flagging of comments that are the verbal equivalent of shaking people who are engaging in non-doomer discussion of any sort by the shoulders going "WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WE'RE DOOMED?" and mods giving some of those folks time-outs. I suspect we don't really have the capacity for that level of scrutiny on the number of open threads on US politics we have, though, so I don't expect it to happen.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 5:21 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

During the height of COVID, I worked for a guy who would search relentlessly for bad news and then spam his employees with it. I finally had to tell him to stop sending it to my people, since they were working in difficult conditions, and none of the articles were really applicable to their situation. I said, “part of my job is to assist you, so if sending these out helps your mental health, great, I look at them and ignore them, but don’t harass my people, please.” He was grumpy with me, but he complied.

If your coping mechanisms are causing other people distress, that is on you, and you need better coping mechanisms.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:35 PM on July 15 [36 favorites]

Anecdata: I am myself a doomer who, for most of the last decade, has found the doomerism on MeFi a primary reason to not engage with the site even as a lurker.

I made the most positive sincere comment I could in the happy-birthday-MeFi thread the other day, but even there honesty compelled me to admit that I have blocked myself from accessing MeFi more than once for self-care reasons. I'll almost certainly be taking another break for the foreseeable future (I pretty much only reverted to actively reading because of the anniversary).

Generally, I have A System, honed over decades. Only open MeFi tabs after they've been in my RSS reader for a couple of days. Do a probability-of-shitshow evaluation of the comment count before reading. Only open user profile links in the logged-in window if I'm having a "Christ, what an asshole" reaction to their comments, so the visited link color reminds me to weight their future comments accordingly.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I close a lot of tabs unread, and objectively that's perfectly fine, but I do wish it wasn't so.

I can deal with the distress of the canaries in the coal mine; I understand the feeling as I am often one of them. I can not deal with the conversational style that engages in self-soothing by conjuring hockey-stick line graph forecasts of Likely Dead Canaries per Capita, with or without an Unless We Vote Harder asterisk attached.
posted by structuregeek at 6:35 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

I feel like there are people here who have kind of an accelerationist viewpoint

I'm almost 60. I won't be alive long enough to see the other side of a Trump/Vance dictatorship. I'm already stuck with Trump's SROTUS fuckos for the rest of my life.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 7:16 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

If your coping mechanisms are causing other people distress, that is on you, and you need better coping mechanisms.

I don’t agree that people are entitled to reading threads about typically quite distressing topics without feeling distress nor do I agree that if they do feel distress, it must be someone in the thread’s fault.

I have sympathy for people who are upset by things they read, I understand being upset in that way. But sometimes you are just upset and it doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong. It still sucks, but it may be your responsibility to manage.
posted by knobknosher at 7:20 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

I'm not here to say people discussing US politics should never get upset by them. I do think that many US politics threads are going bad in a particular way and that a specific subset of users and their posting habits in such threads are responsible for the badness of those threads.

This is not a problem specific to US politics threads on the blue; we've had people get all axe-grindy on certain topics since pretty early in Metafilter's history. "We don't do [x topic] well" was a long-time shorthand for subjects that a small subset of users made so unpleasant that mods and a lot of users were happier not talking about the topics or really limiting the number of threads about them. I don't think we'll get to an official declaration that "Metafilter doesn't do US politics/US elections threads well" in the same way, but there is a problem larger than a particular user, even if it's me, getting their feelings hurt or getting upset by what they're reading.

Teal deer: it's one thing for people to be upset by the facts in US politics threads; it's another for us to be upset by the way Mefites are treating each other in US politics threads.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:50 PM on July 15 [6 favorites]

I'll be honest with you, I feel like there is an overwhelming tide of doom and that literally everything is going Trump's way. I find it very hard to not doomsay when I am not seeing any glimmers of hope for the situation. Like my vision is full of shit and Trump getting pass after pass after pass and the system is now gamed to let him win at every opportunity. I know technically it's not over until it's over, but that "technically" isn't really making me feel any better. I see stuff about how some people are already resigned to an ugly future, and well, feeling same. Bare technicality of "it hasn't happened quite yet but only because it's July" is not making me feel better unless the tides really change.

So how am I supposed to not doomsay? Asking for me. Because I need more reason not to think it's totally doomed than "well, nobody's dead yet!" and "as long as there's life, there's hope!"
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:31 PM on July 15 [9 favorites]

I don't think we'll get to an official declaration that "Metafilter doesn't do US politics/US elections threads well"

I believe that the first time Matt Haughey posted about closing MetaFilter was a comment in a literal "We don't do politics well" MeTa on November 6, 2002. The gulf between the vison for the site then and now, mod and user alike, is enormous, but this conversation is reminding me that this has always been an intractable problem. (But then, I'm a doomer with an avoidant streak; I'm not going to be a part of the solution, I can only try to minimize how much I contribute to the problem.)
posted by structuregeek at 8:32 PM on July 15 [2 favorites]

I don't know a nicer way to say this, but if your coping mechanism is to have a complete and total lack of empathy for people who are and will be murder victims of Republicans

An apt description of the person who told me they expect a pogrom in my city.

As someone who has actively been the victim of police and Republican violence, I don’t need to hear more people talking about how I’m going to get murdered while I’m trying to engage in a politics thread, thanks! But I sure did learn my lesson about how I can’t expect to engage with my fellow Mefites on a breaking news event without hearing my so-called allies parrot the same shit I hear from fascists just going about my day trying to provide healthcare in rural America. It actually does not help me to have people yell about how I’m going to die while offering nothing in the way of support or protection. But shame on me for thinking that Metafilter would offer any kind of community for people like me in a time like this. I mean, genuinely. I know better, but wasn’t thinking clearly because of the domestic terrorism.
posted by brook horse at 8:34 PM on July 15 [41 favorites]

I am by no means not a boomer. However. This past Sunday New York Times magazine had an article entitled Donald Trump Is Unfit To Lead. Following said editorial there are about six pages following the editorial that delineate specific egregious examples of his lies from 2017 to this last week that are dumbfounding in their detail. But the NYT in their infinite wisdom, or rather craven fear of project 2025 retribution, chose not put these examples online. I bought three copies. I have two friends with grown sons who worship Trump as an icon of masculinity. One is a former marine who once rappelled facefirst down a rope to rescue a hijacked freighter in the Red Sea. He later got his ass courtmartialed for keeping a Colt automatic in his locker and joking about popping a cap in his Sargeant's ass. I wrote a character reference that was so stand up that the prosecution had it struck from the record. That little fuckweasel owes me big time. He now lives in northern Idaho and lectures his mom on how he's raising a family, the smug arrogant little prick. I am sending that magazine to him via his mother with a note double dog daring him to refute those specific instances point by point. I doubt he will but he has a very thin skin and what I am saying to him is going to really sting, especially when I point out how and when I stood up for him. I am doing the same with my other friend but have no such power over her kid. But she can read and so can he and she has moral power over him -- he got caught in a crossfire outside Neumos and caught a bullet that entered and lodged in his perineum but managed to miss everything vital on its way through to there. And she, a retired RN, came over the next day, hauled him out of Harborview Hospital and took him back to Bainbridge Island and 'Oh, mom...' nursed him back to health. And she can read and so can he and she is so going to put the screws to him. Both moms have gone soft he's so old on Biden since the debate and started talking about Kamala until I pointed out that ship left the harbor long before the debate and told them the fact is Biden is the only person whoever defeated Trump and we have to play the cards we have been dealt. I am going to go help the folks watching the dropboxes because we are a mail in voting state. I am not giving up, I am not throwing in the towel not now, not until the last ding dong of Eternity. However I can put my shoulder to the wheel, I will. And so should we all.
posted by y2karl at 10:03 PM on July 15 [15 favorites]

I think there's a difference between the comments that acknowledge how bad things are, and how bad things may become, and the comments that seem to relish those things.

Usually the *relishing of doom* comments are also aimed at shutting down anyone who posts anything even vaguely optimistic or not doomy enough.

I don't think anyone here (in this thread at least) is arguing for "optimism only".

I also think that the people who enjoy doom sniping will pay no attention to requests like this.
They see themselves as the truth speakers, strong, clear seeing.

They're not aware that they are self soothing with this behaviour, and that there might be ways to do that are less harmful to others.
posted by Zumbador at 10:08 PM on July 15 [19 favorites]

I 100% believe that people who are spinning nightmare scenarios are doing so because they're worried and talking about it makes them feel better.

I also 100% understand that such processing causes unnecessary stress for a lot of other people, and lands most heavily on already marginalized people.

I don't think the former should be prioritized over the latter. There's not an easy way to moderate that, but I do think it needs to be moderated. Self-moderated would be great. Maybe unmoderated "Implode in anxiety here" threads. I don't know. But this in not just a MetaFilter thing, it's a human thing, and it's reasonable to expect moderators to manage it.
posted by lapis at 10:29 PM on July 15 [7 favorites]

Dropping this Rebecca Solnit piece here for anyone who may resonate with it.

It is not doom-y, and it is not pollyanna-y.
posted by german_bight at 10:54 PM on July 15 [11 favorites]

I bet a large part of the world population's first thought on hearing about the shooting was 'Well, that's it, Trump has won'. I was one of them and that's still my view. If I had been in a position to make that very comment in the thread, I almost certainly would have - I'm glad I wasn't because it doesn't add or change anything for anyone. I don't want to be the cause of adding to or escalating anyone's legitimate fears (old white male here, not even in the US, so absolutely no dog in the fight). But that was my thought at the time and I'd be surprised if anyone took such a comment as anything other than my opinion or thought it was a statement of fact. There is obviously a line where an opinion like that morphs into something personal, so saying 'Well that's it, Trump has won, so women better get back in the kitchen' or anything equally ludicrous and disgusting would be unacceptable because it targets specific people as opposed to just a (negative, but acceptable) opinion.

Having said all that, I appreciate being told that such 'doomy' comments can have adverse impacts on people here, many of whom already legitimately feel they have targets on their backs. I'll remember that in future.
posted by dg at 11:36 PM on July 15 [4 favorites]

Maybe there should be a "doomism" flag reason?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:41 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

Seconding (e.g. I support) whoever suggested that we all stick to 'I think/feel/believe/suggest/support' and 'My experience is'-type statements. I myself will do my part for MeFi and strive to never post a link to Sparks song 'Lighten Up, Morrisey' in politics/news threads no matter how upset I get.
posted by zaixfeep at 12:01 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Thank you, dg. It seems obvious that at least part of the disconnect comes from those hearing words like "Trump has won" not only as defeatist, but as the bleakest sort of despair. I know what I felt when I saw the news wasn't quite defeat, but more like a sinking feeling and then something like panic.

At the risk, again, of sounding rather dramatic, those words to some sound like "Well, that's it. Your relatives are getting deported to a dangerous place or a labor camp. Time to prepare for life with a broken family." To others still, "Welp, there goes any hope of living a life true to yourself. Time to start lying to survive." Others may hear, "That's it. Time to resign yourself to a life as someone's property with no rights over your body." I can hear, "Oh well. Your daughter never really had a chance at following her dreams or living her life as she wishes. And you will live your entire life merely to pay for medication to treat your partner's illness; you will work only so they may take another breath." And so on.

How can defeatism take hold in the face of such enormous stakes? So when someone answers with "It's not over. This guy cannot win. We have to do everything we can to ensure that this is the case. All it takes is for us to be willing to talk to people. Tell them what this means for us. Ask them what the think it means for them. Ask them if they'd consider helping get others on board to vote in this election", I think it's easier to understand why that sort of hope is useful. Essential, even. I don't think this is scolding, is it? I guess feeling "scolded" could be a kind of luxury.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 12:13 AM on July 16 [5 favorites]

That thread on the shooting (I stopped reading at about 250 responses, but started in real time) was so very disappointing. It brought out the worst in MetaFilter. It permanently changed the way I view this site.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:57 AM on July 16 [6 favorites]

gentlyepigrams "[I]t's one thing for people to be upset by the facts in US politics threads; it's another for us to be upset by the way Mefites are treating each other in US politics threads."

This gets at something I've never quite been able to articulate, but have noticed since at least 2017 on political threads (and frequently those on other heavy topics like climate or the Ukraine war):

There are, without a doubt, people who are handwringing and dooming because doing it publicly provides some sort of catharsis (and, based on people I know IRL who do this in IRL, possibly due to some magical thinking that if they go full blackpill now, of their own volition, The Bad Thing won't actually happen). Personally I find it both grating and worrisome, but as I've said before, I don't own the site and people's self-expression doesn't need to take my preferences into account. And I don't think these people are coming from a malicious or antisocial place; they're in earnest.

HOWEVER, there is also DEFINITELY a small but vocal coterie of users, who for years now have ONLY shown up in these kinds of threads--not on general-interest topics, not on fun silly wildlife posts, not on cultural discussions, not on Fanfare, not on the Green--to gleefully and aggressively interject with the most doomer shit they can come up with, in the nastiest tone possible, essentially to trigger (what they perceive to be) the libs. I think this bullshit has no place on the site, and goes beyond uncomfortably salty engagement and into active malevolence, especially because (as this Talk attests), anyone who's been on MF any length of time knows that the user base skews heavily towards sensitive, well-meaning (center-)lefties who are easily wounded by these kinds of fights. They're engaging here not because they want to contribute or participate, but because it's where they feel they can do the most psychic damage.

Unfortunately this is of course impossible for mods to moderate, and I'm not suggesting that they attempt to do so. I just think it might help some of us to bear in mind that not every single apparently strongly-held opinion expressed on here needs to be taken seriously, or that it's somehow close-minded to shut these people down or else roll your eyes, mentally flip the bird, and ignore them.

I also continue to lament the absence of a native block function, but I realize MF isn't designed for that.
posted by peakes at 3:32 AM on July 16 [22 favorites]

I also continue to lament the absence of a native block function, but I realize MF isn't designed for that.

There are browser add-ons and scripts people have come up with to address this. Maybe it's time to add those to the Wiki?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:05 AM on July 16 [4 favorites]

It actually does not help me to have people yell about how I’m going to die while offering nothing in the way of support or protection.

I'll say one more thing about this. Or rather will ask a rhetorical question: Do they not think we know already?

Every single one of us with a marginalized identity of any kind, has it on our minds, and has already had it on our minds because we're not exactly starting from Acceptance Paradise here to begin with. Some of us are already living like we're among the fascists because--well, we kinda are? We know the hiding places, we know who to ask for help (if we're lucky enough to have a community or family to help). And, I dunno, knowing all that, you try to forget about it and live your life, because constantly predicting the grim meathook future isn't good for you! What's the saying? 'Anxiety is not a plan?' It turns out it's not any more a plan when there's an existential crisis, than it's a plan when you're just worrying about calling the cable company or whatever. Trying to inspire anxiety in others is, like, not-a-plan squared.
posted by mittens at 4:35 AM on July 16 [25 favorites]

FWIW I dialed my time on Metafilter back in 2016 due to uptick in policing of expression of emotion and people weighing in constantly on how other people should feel and what they should say and how they should say it and prioritizing what's best for the site. To me, that wasn't 'best for the site'. Maybe it actually was. Sure looked like 'scolding' to me.

Maybe I was wrong in a few or multiple values of 'wrong'. I don't know. In retrospect maybe I felt like those attitude protected the vulnerable at the expense of the pain and fear of others (and that's a cruel dichotomy for everyone.) I moved to spaces where screaming into the abyss was the norm. I've been here more lately, though. FWIW I don't think I was personally a top-tier screamer, but I absolutely needed the vicarious catharsis (is there a word for that?)

I don't think it's as hard for me now, though it is very, very hard at least it is not a surprise. That was what killed me in 2016: the fucking surprise. Others weren't surprised. I think that people who felt as I did were unlikely to weigh in on meta discussions because by definition they felt too raw, so I felt like the most vocal people were saying 'I don't want to hear this shit' and people like me maybe drifted/slithered away because none of us had the energy to weigh in. This still seems true in this thread, though. Again: I don't know this. Maybe, I guess. I'm not putting together a spreadsheet.

Now that I think about it, a specific troubling thing was deleting dark humor. I come from a bleak background. The tag line of the city I grew up in is the City of No Illusions. I *need* those jokes.

Not that I don't understand why people don't want to hang out with people screaming into the abyss or people who are worried about how the screams effect themselves or others, not that I don't understand why people don't want to hear Americans wailing all the time. Not that I don't get that emotions are not reality yet can manufacture reality. Not that I am unclear on what mindfulness is.

I just felt, yes, I too wish I had less skin in the game, and more skin in general. Remaining cold and logical and above-it-all wasn't something I was capable of and honestly, isn't something that I aspire to as a person, nor is it something I seek in others. I think, must be nice.

Putting my game face on is something I do for my child. And she's eight years older know, so she doesn't get the full on spray of my feelings but she's absolutely heard 'motherfucker' a few times. I do dial back my despair and fear, though.

I'm better about it now but it's because I'm hoping the sun will consume us first.

JUST KIDDING

I always feel frightened posting on Metatalk. How did I misspeak? Where? What did I say that can and will be misinterpreted? What did I forget? What nuance have I missed? What did I not clearly disavow that I should have clearly disavowed or embrace that I should not have embraced?

Which is how I wind up writing five hundred words and then looking and going, well, swing and a miss, I guess.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 4:43 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

2016 post-election is when I left MeFi for about four years. It got to be too much. It's looking like I'll be doing it again.

Do I know that the US is in crisis? Well, duh, it's kind of hard to escape. But I can choose where to participate outside of MeFi that does good for my community and my mental health. I don't find comfort in doomerism. I don't find myself sagely nodding when someone reiterates to a minority community member that they will be sent to camps (wow? you think they don't know that? they live a much different reality that of you beating that drum. it's gross). And I don't find reassurance in the groups of privileged people who talk about leaving the US for some imaginary socialist utopia. There's so much talk of doomerism but rarely anything at all about mutual aid or looking out for each other. The US is founded on the bodies of people of colour, and those communities have been looking out for each other with each successive shitty government because no one else will. I take my hope from those communities.
posted by Kitteh at 5:07 AM on July 16 [10 favorites]

I'm right there with you, Llama. One reason I think it's worth letting a little doom in is to be prepared if the worst DOES happen. I was caught flatfooted in 2016 and it took a long time to recover from the shock. If our institutions fail us, and if government becomes unrecoverable, we'll need new models to work from. So I've been trying to think rationally about community building and mutual aid and living under an authoritarian regime. It's a mindfuck for sure, but it's more hopeful than giving in to nihilism.
posted by rikschell at 5:11 AM on July 16 [5 favorites]

The moderators in the past have offered "venting" threads for those that want to vent their anxiety and asked community members to limit the comments on the blue to news and information for other readers. This was even done by Jessamyn just yesterday on the debate thread, and Taz earlier. Venters and ragers seem to skip right over the moderators efforts to keep the thread useful for a large audience to read, and go right into excoriating another user for some choice of word or more solipsistic screaming into the void.
posted by effluvia at 5:41 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

I bet a large part of the world population's first thought on hearing about the shooting was 'Well, that's it, Trump has won'

I'm extremely pessimistic in general. This response honestly didn't even occur to me *at all* until I read it in that thread. I'm still trying to wrap my head around why someone would believe this (especially in July, especially without knowing what actually happened / why, ...). If you truly believe that this is how the rest of the world would respond to such an event, please consider the possibility that you are not representative.
posted by advil at 5:56 AM on July 16 [17 favorites]

Yeah, for perspective my response was “Maybe the news will finally stop talking about Biden being old” and then thinking this could actually be good for Biden in a more active way—because the kind of people who were going to be fired up about and want to vote for Trump more because of this were already going to be out in droves to vote. Unless it spurs them to commit voter fraud nothing is likely to change about the numbers.

On the other hand, Biden is now able to project the statesman everyone wants him to be in a role he’s eminently comfortable with. He gets to exhibit all sorts of presidential qualities in handling this crisis that don’t rely as heavily on him performing in hostile situations for people who don’t understand how speech disorders work. This may therefore assuage a lot of the anxiety about him being a doddering corpse and bolster the part of the Biden base that’s in panic right now.

Which may or may not happen. But the instant doom thinking is not a given even for those of us who are currently very directly impacted by American fascism. I don’t say this to go “I can think positively so you should as well” but to offer that perspective because yeah, I also didn’t consider “Trump will win because of this” until that thread and I still am not convinced because it seemed like a lot of stating opinion as fact.

Some of us are already living like we're among the fascists because--well, we kinda are? We know the hiding places, we know who to ask for help (if we're lucky enough to have a community or family to help). And, I dunno, knowing all that, you try to forget about it and live your life, because constantly predicting the grim meathook future isn't good for you!

This. The minority stress model is a constant ghost in the corner of my vision lately.

I don’t know the identities of people making the comments but knowing the demographics of Metafilter I would guess a lot of it is not coming from people who are multiply marginalized and experience discrimination daily. This doesn’t mean they can’t have fears around the election or coming events, but it is exhausting for those of us who are already dealing with the reality to listen to people yell out as fact that we’re all doomed. Marginalized communities don’t function when they do that; it literally kills people. But Metafilter is by and large not a community of marginalized people, so it has not learned how to be resilient and functional (which does not mean to be only positive, and does mean taking care of people’s mental health and providing supportive spaces for processing which do not look like what those threads look like) when faced with the threat of fascist violence, because that is not really a daily reality for a large portion of the userbase. This is not to dismiss the anxiety, fear, and pain people experience or say no one making those comments is a marginalized person, but to comment on a dynamic that may be playing into things.
posted by brook horse at 6:57 AM on July 16 [24 favorites]

Thank you, dg. It seems obvious that at least part of the disconnect comes from those hearing words like "Trump has won" not only as defeatist, but as the bleakest sort of despair.

I think that’s part of the problem - what is doomerism?
posted by corb at 7:06 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Do they not think we know already?

There is a certain amount of know your audience at play but if one is surrounded by the ignorant everywhere else it can be hard to remember that this is a space that is more educated to the crisis and threat. I certainly find myself starting to comment and then deleting it because I'm preaching to the choir.

I'm in the very earliest stages of planning a several week/month road trip in the next year's or so and people I talk about it to here in Canada often ask or suggest venturing into the US with seemingly obliviousness to how things are going. Which is not to say Canada isn't progressing down the fascist route like so many western democracies but holy hell is it more advanced in the US.

Yet many people here just don't see the danger. They do stupid shit like wearing MAGA hats and flying American Confederate flags. They think we should give Poilievre a go to "shake thing up". They argue that things aren't bad for minority groups or that there isn't any discrimination. They say stuff like interactions with police are the same regardless of sex, race, economic status or orientation.

It's definitely cathartic to be able to say to a group that "Shits bad yo" and at least not have anyone take the there is no danger side.

Commenting here without engaging in doomerism is a tough path.
posted by Mitheral at 7:12 AM on July 16 [3 favorites]

Interesting comment Mitheral—in my friend groups I have noticed that the worst of the doomerism (not saying you are doing this, just what I see in my friends) comes from people who are outside the US (and not related to the impact to their own countries). And I can appreciate the isolating position of seeing how bad things are and having your community ignore or dismiss it. But I know for myself I had to disengage from parts of these friendships because it was extra exhausting to hear this from my non-US friends while I was living it, especially because they would understandably get a lot of the nuance or details wrong in ways that sent them off on spirals I had to course correct with basic factual knowledge and it just got to be too much. Ring theory comes to mind. Of course in an open thread of diverse opinions you can’t really implement that, but I do think that people might think more about “if I’m on the outer ring, should I be engaging in this particular catharsis here, given the people involved?” in life in general
posted by brook horse at 7:24 AM on July 16 [7 favorites]

What I am talking about are comments like "please don't do *xyz* here" when it is basically a disagreement about how bad things really are, which is labeled as -- dismissed as -- "doomsaying" by scolds.

I think it's true that this comes down to genuine disagreement about how bad things really are. But the behaviour goes both ways, and I think that labelling one side or the other as "scolds" is unhelpfully dismissive in itself.

For some, the scolds are the people telling them not to express very justified feelings of despair. But for folks at the less pessimistic end of the spectrum, the scolds are the people telling them off for daring to have the slightest bit of hope.

I see both going on, and I think the site could do with a whole lot less of it in both directions. I think this place would be a lot healthier if we could all cut back on policing other people's feelings, and instead put a lot more work into managing and filtering our own.

I'm saying this as someone who's at a distance from the US situation, because hopefully it's easier for this point to come from someone who hasn't been participating in the fights in question.

But I'm not trying to cast myself as without fault; I was pretty fucking doomy myself in the days of the Brexit threads. And, well, all that did indeed turn out to be very shit. But I was wrong about a lot of the specifics, and with a bit of distance, I can see that I wasn't really helping matters by going on about why and how everything was fucked.
posted by automatronic at 7:25 AM on July 16 [6 favorites]

I have sympathy for people who are upset by things they read, I understand being upset in that way. But sometimes you are just upset and it doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong. It still sucks, but it may be your responsibility to manage.

I think you are conflating two things here. Yes, it's not reasonable to step into a thread about a subject you find upsetting and expect not to be upset. However, that is very different from stepping into a thread about a subject you find upsetting looking for news or more information and getting barraged with short comments that are amount to, more or less, "you are not upset enough!" The first example is something you can prepare for, the send... not so much.

And what is the benefit of short doomer comments? I suspect that, for most of the doom posters, it relieves their anxiety a bit to exclaim it. (Other opinions are available, that's just the one I see.) Which, OK, but, if I am right, and doomer-type comments have a negative effect on readers, then the cost of the doomer's relief is someone else's, maybe many someone else's pain, and that's not a moral decision. In that case, it's on the doomer to find better ways to cope with their anxiety than publicly declare it.

Another problem with the pithy one-line doom statements is that they are really easy. You don't have to have new information or an informed perspective to make them, you can just throw it out there. No one is going to keep track and come back to you with a report on your doom success rate. This is literally Alex Jones' shtick.

What value are MeFites supposed to take from a simple pronouncement of doom? What action can they take? What information have you provided that they don't already know? It's the unfolding news equivalent of "I hate this band you posted about." I suppose it might make you feel better or superior or more informed or something, but is that feeling worth the possibility that you've made others feel worse?
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:41 AM on July 16 [16 favorites]

From today: 'You will witness mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, subjugation of women, religious cleansing of queer people, return to stigmatization of disability, and so forth.'
posted by mittens at 8:04 AM on July 16 [5 favorites]

As someone who has actively been the victim of police and Republican violence, I don’t need to hear more people talking about how I’m going to get murdered while I’m trying to engage in a politics thread, thanks!

Thank you. The comment you responded to made me insane. The exact people who don't need to hear about how Republicans are going to march us all off to camps and/or gun us down in the streets are members of marginalized groups! Do you know how many times I've been called the f-word in my life! It has gotten much worse since 2016! Sometimes it happens on deserted subway platforms at night and it's really scary!
posted by rhymedirective at 8:11 AM on July 16 [12 favorites]

"I'm worried" is a feeling. "The U.S. is going to be unlivable" is not a feeling. Asking people to turn down the doom rhetoric is not asking anyone to stop talking about, or even having, their feelings.

And I want to reiterate brook horse's framing. Talking about your own experience and communities and expressing worry for yourself is different than expressing a bunch of pessimism for other people, too.
posted by lapis at 8:13 AM on July 16 [21 favorites]

bring back GYOFB
posted by Klipspringer at 8:42 AM on July 16 [7 favorites]

It's interesting. My grandparents were Austrian Jews who survived the literal Nazis and whose immediate families, with the exception of one person, did not survive the Nazis. And I find doomerism literally infuriating. It makes me furious. I think this may be a generational trauma thing: I cannot abide docile acceptance of the inevitability of defeat, because I am not suicidal, and for me, doomed means *doomed*. You have to fight like hell with the belief that you can win, and then if you don't win you continue fighting like hell to save as many people as you can until you find a way to fight your way out of it, because the alternative is to go like lambs to the slaughter, and that's not an alternative I'm willing to accept. And I realize that this might sound like toxic positivity. It might actually be toxic positivity, in the sense that I am emotionally unequipped to face negative sentiments. But yeah: doomerism makes me angry. And my impulse is always to try to shake people out of it, which may not be useful.

I do think that there's at least one person who has pretty much horse-shoe theoried himself into Trump support, and he's basically just gloating because he's a white guy who thinks he will be fine and gets off on other people's terror. But that's evil, and I don't have time to engage with evil people. If I wanted to be mocked by Trump supporters, I could go find some Trump supporters, and I'm not going to engage on Metafilter any more than I would engage with them anywhere else. I really wish we had an ignore feature, but in the absence of it, I'm going to be my own personal ignore feature on that user.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:45 AM on July 16 [31 favorites]

It's definitely cathartic to be able to say to a group that "Shits bad yo" and at least not have anyone take the there is no danger side.

For me, it's become rather instinctual. Doomism is ALWAYS an opinion. This Great And Horrible END we keep hearing about (whether it be Trump related or climate change related or bird flu related or maybe just malevolent aliens from the 7th dimension infiltrating our thought processes and making us hungry for human flesh) -- though all of these outcomes may indeed be plausible, arguable, all too possible (except perhaps the last one), none of them are FACTS. So when I hear them presented as facts, loudly, and I can literally see the pulse of poisonous gravity they send through the crowded room, thus hastening the doom in question, my instinct is to say, "Fuck off, you're wrong, you're doing the devil's work for him."

The wrong here not being that all of this couldn't possibly happen. Of course it could. Just pick up a history book. The wrong is buying into the devil's* certainty and then fucking broadcasting it. It's panic. It's terrible for morale. It frightens the house pets and the children. It achieves nothing I could see as good.



* when I say devil here, I hope I'm not landing too theistic. I really just mean despair which, in my vague Catholic education long ago and far away, I learned was the devil's favourite weapon. I do see a lot of the devil these days in every day circumstances.
posted by philip-random at 9:07 AM on July 16 [3 favorites]

german_bright, thanks for posting that Solnit piece. I've been thinking a lot about post-apocalyptic fiction and why it's appealing, and for me (especially in role playing games) it's because there's no opportunity for a save-the-world narrative: the world is already ruined and the narrative focus is on survival and rebuilding. That resonates with my trauma stories. "Accepting defeat in advance is a curious form of self-protection" indeed. I think there's a place for speculatively letting go, of emotional detachments from results, especially as election day approaches. But that's different from giving up hope. We have to have enough hope and investment to keep working for the cause, even if we do feel doomed sometimes.
posted by rikschell at 9:33 AM on July 16 [1 favorite]

First, I think the “I’m worried that” or “I believe that” construction is a great solution and community norm, and we can also add “I’m hopeful that” and the same old “I believe that” because good feeling or optimistic predictions can use it too. So I will work to do that for both.

Second, pragmatically, saying “I believe…” is powerful and in my experience, can be much more influential in terms of having people come along with you and really think rather than just having a knee jerk reaction. I can give examples but won’t for brevity. Happy to share.

Third, to my brethren who sometimes may fall into our adrenal glands’ inability to separate a text argument that touches on an existential threat from a physical existential threat, I think a chance to slow down and use this language (as well as maybe taking a break and a walk) can help our highly sensitized response systems slow down.

Third and a half, I say this as someone who in decades past did contribute to enshittifying communities out of that response and next to relationships I also pooched, I regret it.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:46 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

"Accepting defeat in advance is a curious form of self-protection" indeed.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that one. I do that a lot. It's easier to fast forward to acceptance rather than rage against the dying of the light, denial, etc.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:48 AM on July 16

I cannot abide docile acceptance of the inevitability of defeat, because I am not suicidal, and for me, doomed means *doomed*. You have to fight like hell with the belief that you can win, and then if you don't win you continue fighting like hell to save as many people as you can until you find a way to fight your way out of it, because the alternative is to go like lambs to the slaughter, and that's not an alternative I'm willing to accept.

So I think, in keeping with my earlier post-promise to bring more nuance to my doomerism, I owe it to explain where I am and why I think this disagreement and misunderstanding is happening.

When a war is going on, from a tactical perspective, it’s really important to know the point when some territory can no longer be held. Sometimes, that’s because you will need to hold that territory until that very last moment to give people time to get out. Sometimes, it’s because you need to weigh whether you need to evacuate everyone and fall back to a more defensible position. Sometimes it’s so you can win the ultimate war; sometimes it’s to make losing the war less awful. But ultimately, it’s for the same goal: not to go like lambs to the slaughter.

If I were to say things like “I think Trump just won”, for me, that would be me falling back, not giving up. That would be me saying that I don’t think it’s worth putting dollars into defeating Trump at the ballot box, because I don’t think, barring an October Surprise, he’s defeatable anymore. That I need to save those dollars for fights to help evacuate people, or to help battle the terrible things he’s going to do. That I need to make sure there aren’t camps or some of the other terrible things noted upthread. It wouldn’t be suggesting accepting that we are all doomed - just suggesting fighting on a different front. Does that make sense?
posted by corb at 9:51 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

Speaking personally, I take a statement like "I think Trump just won" as an analysis of the situation, and I would think of it an opinion, not doomsaying. I think that maybe then stretching that out to "therefore pogroms, look out minorities" is the part where it crosses the line for me. Everyone is capable of foreseeing the worst-case outcomes from these things, especially, as brook horse and others have noted, the people who would be the likely targets of their ill effects.

I had a thought about screaming into the abyss too, and I'm genuinely not trying to call out anyone who feels that they need to do that, because I certainly have. There do exist online abysses that one can scream into. Twitter is right there, or you've got snarky subreddits, YouTube comments, imageboards, and whatnot (LinkedIn?). MetaFilter is not an abyss. It's full of people. Again, I'm not trying to scold anyone by noting that, I think it can be hard to remember.
posted by whir at 10:30 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find a lot more community and comfort in the comments that seem to be taking the situation sufficiently seriously for the reality we exist in, than I do comments that try to focus on anything other than how fucked everything is. I guess my life plan and internal emotional tenor is hope for the best, sure, but prepare for the worst, and don't hide from the shit that scares you.

I think "doomerism" and "doomsaying" are incredibly dismissive terms.
posted by Dysk at 11:04 AM on July 16 [10 favorites]

The thing is that in normal life when people talk about the future they generally start with an "I think" or "I expect" or "Looks like", even when they're pretty sure about it. It's a distinctly doomer trope that the doom-future is talked about with absolute certainty.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:07 AM on July 16 [9 favorites]

I'm just routinely surprised (which is something that shouldn't happen if my predictive models were well-calibrated) by others' apparent confidence. We don't know what will happen, and we don't even know all of the dimensions of our ignorance. The reality of the world is so impossibly detailed, full of little facts and interactions, and on time's course from what we see and know now towards what we have predicted there are any number of those small things that could divert us into the unforeseen.

I should probably get Solnit's Hope in the Dark, because this paragraph is so important to me:

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognise uncertainty, you recognise that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement: pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things that we can know beforehand.

posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:07 AM on July 16 [6 favorites]

Not a lot of the recent political and world news has devastated this left leaning person. Bothered? Oh yes, but not devastated.

Much of it is because I've been practicing gratitude, both in writing and internally. I try to be remind myself of things to be grateful, be they large or small. This isn't a cure all and may not be for everyone, but it does help me and my mood a helluva lot. I may not be able to change the world on a grand scale, but on a personal level that is much I can do.

So while part of me may feel overwhelmed when reading/moderating some of doomerish comments on the site, a larger part of me is grateful for having a job I like, having decent physical and mental health, positive about where I my beliefs about what is right and wrong, and confident that while I may not know the future and there's a lot potential bleakness for me and others, I take solace in the fact I can meet those challenges in small ways that help.

Slight pause from that run on sentence.

I'll listen to others rant and try to find them a bit of solace and joy. I'll go down to the local political office and offer my services, even if it's just writing postcards to get out the vote. I'll sign up to work the voting polls. I'll look for sources to talk about the positive things done by this administration.

Mostly, I'll leave myself open to and look for new or different ways to make the world a bit of better place, even if it gets worse, because fuck any and everyone, every place, every group, every institution trying to make it worse. There is much the world can take from me, but they will not take that.

"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go."
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:09 AM on July 16 [14 favorites]

I don't like when people talk about the unknown with certainty, most of the time. I like nuance, which the internet as a whole hates.

But if someone is saying something doomy you don't like, that doesn't seem like fact, YOU can place an "I think," or "I believe" before their statement yourself and dismiss it that way. I need that reminder too sometimes but it can help.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:11 AM on July 16 [6 favorites]

When I started college, my papers on subjective matters (like literature and opinions on literature) were loaded with phrases like "I think" and "in my opinion." A prof always crossed them out. When I asked why, he said, "Of course it's your opinion. Why would you know? Why would anyone?" It affected the way I read damn near everything. I humbly suggest it could affect the way you read damn near everything as well.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 11:26 AM on July 16 [10 favorites]

However, that is very different from stepping into a thread about a subject you find upsetting looking for news or more information and getting barraged with short comments that are amount to, more or less, "you are not upset enough!" The first example is something you can prepare for, the send... not so much.



...

What value are MeFites supposed to take from a simple pronouncement of doom? What action can they take? What information have you provided that they don't already know? It's the unfolding news equivalent of "I hate this band you posted about." I suppose it might make you feel better or superior or more informed or something, but is that feeling worth the possibility that you've made others feel worse?

Everything you post here has the possibility of making others feel worse. I think it's important to distinguish situations where that is a concern vs where it is not a concern.

I think my issue is with "doomsaying" as an umbrella term for a lot of different behaviors.

There are a lot of genuinely shitty things going on in politics threads. For example, condescendingly lecturing members of marginalized groups about [horrible thing here] without centering them, their feelings, their interests etc. is not acceptable behavior IMO. This is a form of objectification--instead of thinking about members of [marginalized group] as people and members of this community, people are treating them like characters in their own personal little drama. That is very bad behavior and people should cut it the fuck out.

However, that's not the same thing as "someone's comment gave me anxiety because it was too negative and I don't want to feel negative." That, to me, is a very different thing that calls for people to self-manage their own anxiety. Sometimes reality is very, very negative.

I also don't buy that people here would be doing a ton of super helpful proactive amazing stuff if we could only get rid of the "doomers." These are comment threads on a website that are mainly for discussion. If you want plain news, there are probably better places. If you want mutual aid, there are so, so many other places.

I genuinely think it is a bit irresponsible to hold metafilter threads out as useful places to address our current political reality, if only we could get rid of [things/comments I don't like].

Metafilter threads are primarily entertainment. Sometimes helpful in terms of information, sure, but they aren't GOTV drives, they aren't mutual aid, they aren't donating money to an important cause, they aren't volunteering to help people get access to medical care they need, they aren't creating networks.

That doesn't mean it's not important to avoid harmful behavior like the objectification of marginalized people I described above. It's super super important. But it does mean that trying to police these threads in order to make them cohere to your personal view of what would make them "useful" is not something that should be heavily prioritized or used to attempt to shape the conversation in exactly the way you want it to go at the expense of others who are using the space in a reasonable way.
posted by knobknosher at 11:35 AM on July 16 [8 favorites]

I never post in the political threads but I read them every so often. I had to check out of the assassination attempt thread after several “this was staged”-type conspiracy theory comments that were repeated even after pushback. It’s just not the kind of comment I expect to read around these parts.

Times like that I wish it was more acceptable to come down hard on stuff like that. On one hand, I find the thin veneer of civility in the comments to be annoying but probably good in the long run. On the other hand, shut up. Shut the fuck up.
posted by Diskeater at 11:55 AM on July 16 [6 favorites]

Well, I mean...that's not really how text based websites work. We talk. Not all the talking will appeal to all talkers or readers and that part's fine. I believe there were some mod notes to tone down the conspiracy stuff anyway.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:58 AM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Post-2016, the site went too far down the track of "people are angry so we just have to accept that every pol thread is now endless pointless shouting into the void". It pushed away users who had something interesting or analytical to say, and ceded space to the END IS NIGH shut-ins.
posted by Klipspringer at 12:06 PM on July 16 [15 favorites]

Several of you have expressed that I statements are unnecessary and of course everyone should just assume that no one is making pronouncements of fact or truth ever and everything is only one person's opinion and if you don't read it that way, YOU'RE the problem. I would suggest that you could be more compassionate toward the people you are communicating with. I statements cost you nothing except a few extra keystrokes.

Just as we can accept that there are ask people and guess people, and neither side is right or wrong exactly, but they definitely can have difficulty understanding each other if they don't understand each other's expectations, can we accept that for the most part no one is TRYING to be an asshole here, but that we could find better ways of communicating with each other that don't cause so much stress? If there are small things we can do to mitigate miscommunication, couldn't we at least try to do them?
posted by rikschell at 12:32 PM on July 16 [8 favorites]

The thing is that in normal life when people talk about the future they generally start with an "I think" or "I expect" or "Looks like", even when they're pretty sure about it.

I guess I don't live a normal life then. I can't think I've ever actually heard anyone say "I think that film was shit", only ever "that film was shit". It's always "this won't go well" and never "my prediction is that this will not go well". Always "welp, we're fucked" and never "welp, in my estimation we're fucked". Like, this is just how language and communication work in my offline life, everywhere. I will concede that I am probably far from normal, but it's not a particularly pleasant way to put it, either, and many of the people I interact with a far less strange than I.
posted by Dysk at 12:39 PM on July 16 [11 favorites]

I actually think it’s partly a text-based thing. In person, a doom statement comes with a lot of non-verbal communication and context. Even on the phone there’s tone.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:43 PM on July 16 [9 favorites]

I am shocked, just shocked, that some people on a MetaTalk are more concerned with their right to not modify their behavior and focusing on dissecting one imperfect solution (I statements) rather than addressing the problems discussed in the post (sympathy vs solutions, trauma-dumping as threadshitting).

Whatever, this place will never change. Since I'm apparently speedrunning The MetaFilter Experience after lurking for so long, I guess it's only proper to flame out and flounce over to the big red button. Be well, folks.
posted by structuregeek at 12:49 PM on July 16 [11 favorites]

I am shocked, just shocked, that some people on a MetaTalk are more concerned with their right to not modify their behavior and focusing on dissecting one imperfect solution (I statements) rather than addressing the problems discussed in the post

Arguably the problems discussed in the post are people not wanting to modify their behaviour, instead asking others to.

Hence the bristling, I guess.

(I do think it's worth differentiating between pessimistic opinions that aren't couched in obvious qualifiers ("you can't know that!" seems like such a weird objection to me - like yeah, that's obvious, it's an opinion or prediction, not a statement of fact) and people fantasising about violence against groups they aren't part of, but just as a lot of this thread has been people trying to tease out the shape of that difference, a lot of it has also been people collapsing that distinction altogether, in service of wanting to ban negative opinions, "doomsaying", etc.)
posted by Dysk at 1:24 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

I believe that the first time Matt Haughey posted about closing MetaFilter was a comment in a literal "We don't do politics well" MeTa on November 6, 2002.

I stand corrected; that was well before my time but thinking of the circumstances after 9/11, I'm not surprised that it was super ugly. That was another time when people were calling other people traitors for not sharing the same politics; I was involved in some pretty unpleasant personal discussions then. I'm glad we're still here and I hope that the current community figures out a way to make today's political discussions palatable to more of us.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:24 PM on July 16

Whatever, this place will never change. Since I'm apparently speedrunning The MetaFilter Experience after lurking for so long, I guess it's only proper to flame out and flounce over to the big red button. Be well, folks.

Aaaaaaand lack of basic online courtesy has cost us another long-term member.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 1:43 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Seconding (e.g. I support) whoever suggested that we all stick to 'I think/feel/believe/suggest/support' and 'My experience is'-type statements.

That was me, in the original post that this is a comment thread for.


To clarify for those who skimmed a little too fast:

1. The suggestion is not that despair or worry or fear or anxiety should be unwelcome. The suggestion is to preface all of what you would write anyway with two or three extra words. warriorqueen’s observation that we lose a whole bunch of contextual information in text-only communication is a key detail here, that changes how the lack of “I statement” or similar preface in such comments impacts folks who are already experiencing violence also experience those comments. In person, folks can see from the speaker’s demeanour that they are just venting or such but not advocating that everyone else give up/in. In text-only, without the metatextual cues, however, that looks identical to advocating inaction or to a sort of gloating. I do strongly believe that each of us commenting on this text-only site have a responsibility to be aware of the lack of non-textual context cues and ensure to the best of our ability that our comment says what we meant it to say in that absence.

Annoyed snark that only applies to two or so of the commenters upthread follows.

And for folks who don’t see how a comment that states a doom outcome as objective fact could be (re-/further) traumatizing in the clinical sense to some of our fellow community members: have you not been paying attention to any of the discussions of inclusivity on this site in the past several years? Maybe go educate yourself a little more on mental health and/or check your assumptions about other Mefites before making such pronouncements.

2. As noted in the post, the original suggestion includes also being aware of how posts supporting action as an antidote to despair are phrased so as to not come across as trying to silence the folks who need some support in their anxiety or distress. Those of you who pronounce your fears as objective fact are not being exclusively targeted or called out by this post.
posted by eviemath at 2:26 PM on July 16 [9 favorites]

Metafilter threads are primarily entertainment. Sometimes helpful in terms of information, sure, but they aren't GOTV drives, they aren't mutual aid, they aren't donating money to an important cause, they aren't volunteering to help people get access to medical care they need, they aren't creating networks.

This might be part of the problem. I don't come to those threads primarily for "entertainment."

Maybe expecting those other things is naive, but I (used to) expect reasonable discussion between like-minded peers, analysis to help understand a situation, links to news I may have missed, and yes, suggestions for moving forward.

I don't think we need policing to fix this and I don't think it's going to change. I just think there's a fundamental culture problem here and I miss what we used to have.
posted by mmoncur at 2:49 PM on July 16 [4 favorites]

If this site is going to be community run, then it needs to foster community, which means it DOES need to be about "creating networks" and "mutual aid." If most of us just saw this place as an alternative to fark.com I don't think we'd need to go through the whole rigamarole of nonprofit status, we could just shut this puppy down now.
posted by rikschell at 3:24 PM on July 16 [6 favorites]

We've had this discussion at least once a year since 2016, so I'm just going to cut & paste what I wrote previously:

Certain topics (usually political, environmental, social) bring out a sense of fatalism and hopelessness from commenters, and while their feelings may be genuine, the comments begin to accumulate a message of:

It's hopeless, this country is turning fascist, there's nothing you can do
The temperature will rise 5 degrees, massive environmental catastrophe, there's nothing you can do
U.S. and Russia will start a global war leading to nuclear exchange, there's nothing you can do
and so on

And what I want to tell these people is that EVEN IF YOU ARE BEING HONEST and genuine and not just trolling and EVEN IF YOU ARE CORRECT (for whatever value "correct" has when making armchair prognostications about immensely complex topics), I don't think you understand the effect those comments have on other people. It makes me check out of threads, it makes me hesitant to read other posts because I worry about how that sort of negativity and hopelessness spreads, it makes me engage less with this site. Especially when it becomes a debate battle between people who believe that things can be salvaged and improved vs. people who don't. [...] Then the second-order effect is those dozens and dozens of people using further comments as a way to communicate and share their fear/anger. Then the third-order effect is the reaction from anyone who's trying to comment in the thread on analysis, or strategy, or anything that isn't the raw exposure of (completely justified) anxiety. See all the comments above about how different people interact with the news in threads.

And thus we have the problem: Even though none of these people had intended to take over the thread, even though all of them are processing their real emotions in an entirely human way, the thread has become (a) dangerous for people whose anxieties trigger more easily when they read catastrophizing predictions, (b) useless for people who are trying to discuss the topic, rather than their feelings about the topic, and (c) combative between the disparate users of the site as described above.

But don't take my word for it! Let's check out what former mod restless_nomad said after the Fucking Fuck threads were retired:

[...] we decided there was no real way to make it fair to both the people who wanted to express that particular emotion and all the other folks who found that emotion, in aggregate, seriously harmful to their own mental health. This wasn't a judgement of the validity of the feeling or even really of the effectiveness of the rhetorical choices being made - it was making people, including the mods, miserable, and that is not good for the site or the people being harmed. (emphasis mine)

posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:45 PM on July 16 [16 favorites]

If this site is going to be community run, then it needs to foster community, which means it DOES need to be about "creating networks" and "mutual aid." If most of us just saw this place as an alternative to fark.com I don't think we'd need to go through the whole rigamarole of nonprofit status, we could just shut this puppy down now.

I believe MetaFilter does have an actual mission statement (which I can't locate right now), but the Guidelines page starts with "We're all here together trying to foster positive conversations, build community, and share all the good and interesting things the internet makes possible." So yes, "build community" is in there but so is "foster POSITIVE conversations" -- in fact, it's listed first.

Respectfully, this site is not going to turn into a mutual aid network just because that's what you think we all need now. Resources to form those sites already exist, you can try them and then -- and I mean this in complete honesty -- come back to tell us how you're doing.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:56 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

Actor and Director Tim Robbins on X:

To anyone drawing a parallel between my film Bob Roberts and the attempted assassination of Trump, let’s be clear. What happened yesterday was a real attempt on a presidential candidate’s life. Those that are denying the assassination attempt was real are truly in a deranged mindset. A human being was shot yesterday. Another killed. They may not be human beings that you agree with politically but for shame folks. Get over your blind hatred of these people. They are fellow Americans. This collective hatred is killing our souls and consuming whatever is left of our humanity.

Link here.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:04 PM on July 16 [4 favorites]

I think this discussion also collapses the distinction between emotional processing catastrophising, and pessimistic analyses. The former might be an expression of despair, but the latter absolutely is not. If you want to be able to deal with a situation you see developing, acknowledging and exploring the shape of the problem is the first step. "This vote will go the wrong way" for example (for any given vote, not necessarily the one that's coming up in the US) is not a call to pull the covers over your head and shout lalala, to give up, though a lot of people seem to insist on reading it that way? It can just as much be a call to start planning for that eventuality, to recognise the scale of challenge ahead, and be appropriately braced and ready for it when it happens.

If you're thinking along those lines when you posit that a situation is bad enough that the awful thing is going to happen, and the response you get is all "no, we just have to do x, it'll be fine" it starts to look a lot like it isn't the "doomsayers" who are hiding their heads in the sand and giving up.
posted by Dysk at 4:06 PM on July 16 [7 favorites]

I'm not saying Metafilter should primarily be about mutual aid, or take the place of local communities, but there are famous examples of people here helping each other out of jams, and we should celebrate that and encourage it.
posted by rikschell at 4:07 PM on July 16 [5 favorites]

I'll try to be brief.

I think it's in John Gardner's book, On Moral Fiction, that he recommends that when we write fiction we imagine that our reader could be a person who, very late at night, is waiting outside the hospital room of a loved one, waiting to hear how their loved one will do.

What does that mean? Well, John Gardner was not a pollyanna, so I don't think what he meant was that we should write feel good stuff. I think what he meant was to be kind and fair. If you write a story where everything is happy all the time, someone will like it, but most people will reject it, because we know life isn't like that. What we are less likely to reject is a story where everything is awful all the time, because although our lives are not like that, we fear that they could be. A troubled person may be very willing to accept that reality into their heart. Is it real? No. Is it something that seems very plausible to a person who is in a dark place? Yes. And I think telling that cruel lie to our theoretical person who waits, who has probably been all of us at some point, is a bad thing to do.

Here's why. When you write fiction, you are trying to make a map of the world. You want it to be a world people believe in, so they believe your story. If you write it well enough, differences between your sham world and the real world that the reader perceives may actually be seen, by the reader, as evidence that their own understanding of the real world is flawed, not just that you wrote something phony. In a sense, you as a writer are an authority figure. Did you earn that authority? No. But that's not the point.

But it is the point, I think, when you are writing in real time what you think about things that are happening now. This world is not a simulacra. We do not control it. We are part of it. We are not authorities. We are voices in the dark. I do not, truly, know what is in the dark any more than you do. If my voice sounds fearful, it is because I am afraid -- genuinely, really afraid of something that is happening in real life. I can't reassure you that everything will be okay because I do not know whether everything will be okay, no one does, and anyone who says they do is lying to you or to themselves.

I'm sorry if that is scary. But I do not believe that people who sound afraid are trying to scare you. If anything, they may be hoping someone else will say everything will be okay.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:23 PM on July 16 [4 favorites]

I think this discussion also collapses the distinction between emotional processing catastrophising, and pessimistic analyses.

I haven’t seen that in any of the comments. But it’s also not particularly relevant: I wasn’t asking anyone to stop doing any of those things, just to preface it with an “I think” or something when they do.
posted by eviemath at 4:31 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

Sure, I'm not saying you personally collapsed that distinction explicitly in the original post here. I was referencing the discussion in the thread, not the OP itself. I don't see the distinction is not acknowledged anywhere, and the discourse here in this thread and in previous discussions in the subject here on meta generally treat all negative predictions as anxiety-induced "doomsaying". There is a distinction, I think it's meaningful, and I don't think that throwing "imo" after a comment is suddenly going to make anyone who was going to react negatively suddenly to "oh well, it's just their opinion, that's fine then".

(ETA on reread, I don't understand how you got the impression I was addressing you specifically?)
posted by Dysk at 4:40 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

I can't think I've ever actually heard anyone say "I think that film was shit", only ever "that film was shit".

Perhaps the real point of this linguistic exercise is to make the writer think twice before tossing off a doomy pronouncement? Because I agree that the explicit “I think” is not the most natural construction for some of the things people are trying to say. And I think for comments that do come from a place of anxiety, sometimes distancing makes them easier to say, so I’m wary of nudging people too hard to make the emotion explicit (granting that I don’t suppose that this suggestion was meant to be a rule).

But I am also pretty sympathetic to, uh, not liking these kinds of threads very much.
posted by atoxyl at 5:49 PM on July 16

The suggestion is to preface all of what you would write anyway with two or three extra words.

Whether it is scolding or tone policing or concern trolling, at the end of the day, it is more and more clear that this just comes to a lack of empathy.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:52 PM on July 16

And for folks who don’t see how a comment that states a doom outcome as objective fact could be (re-/further) traumatizing in the clinical sense to some of our fellow community members: have you not been paying attention to any of the discussions of inclusivity on this site in the past several years? Maybe go educate yourself a little more on mental health and/or check your assumptions about other Mefites before making such pronouncements.

Okay, as someone with "clinical sense" PTSD, I think that your intentions are likely good here. That said, I think your use of the word "traumatizing " to refer to people not putting "I feel" in front of overly pessimistic sentences is inappropriate. There are some behaviors being discussed here that do strike me as potentially traumatizing (e.g. saying "people like you are going to end up in camps" -- actual WTF and totally unacceptable behavior). But you are painting with a really broad brush and labeling a lot of behavior as potentially "traumatizing" in a way that feels minimizing and a bit appropriative.
posted by knobknosher at 5:52 PM on July 16 [5 favorites]

Speaking as one of the commenters whose (deleted) comment sparked this MeTa: i do not believe that the people talking about I-statements will actually be satisfied by them.

What I said in the other thread, which was deleted, was:

"Oh, Biden is SO going to lose."

If I had instead said,

"Oh, I think Biden is SO going to lose."

I flatly do not believe that anyone would be less likely to scold me or get irritated with me.

Now, i should've known better than to post that in any form, not least because MetaFilter as a whole doesn't like me! But I did in fact want to register my certainty that "People won't be mad at you for 'doomerism' if you just use I-statements" is, in fact, categorically not true.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:08 PM on July 16 [8 favorites]

Hi. I am less irritated with you when you write “I think that Biden is going to lose” rather than “Biden is going to lose”.

Believe me or not, but that is indeed how I feel.
posted by nat at 6:13 PM on July 16 [16 favorites]

not least because MetaFilter as a whole doesn't like me!

I do. (I feel like I do? I think I do? Am I doing this right?)

In any case, it's "A" communication technique, not the only one or a cure-all.
posted by ctmf at 6:22 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

I would think those two statements differ in the degree of confidence expressed.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 7:03 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

“I think Trump will win” is a clear statement of opinion. So is “I fear Trump will win” or “I worry Trump will win”. All those statements read similarly to me.

But “Trump will win” reads like the statement of someone who will get mad at me if I try to say anything about what we might to do to prevent that. Or if I present any evidence to the contrary. “Trump will win” strikes me more as coming from someone who is trying to resign themselves to their fate rather than working to prevent it, or working to mitigate it if it’s not preventable. This sort of bald faced prediction (without evidence) shuts down discussion and insists everyone else reading join the commenter in their dismay and consequent inaction.

(yes I realize “Trump will win” can be read in more than one way, but this is how it reads to me, and that’s what I was asked).

For what it’s worth I would also be less annoyed by “Trump will win, look at the polls in AZ and GA” because then at least there’s an opening to discuss the likelihood. Or “Trump will win so I am focusing on local races” or “Trump will win, so let’s set up mutual aid networks and safety strategies”. In those cases I can still engage constructively, even if I disagree that “Trump will win” is a foregone conclusion, because it’s likely enough that I think developing mutual strategies to endure and survive is a great idea (and those strategies will be useful even if he loses).
posted by nat at 7:50 PM on July 16 [9 favorites]

To me, "Oh, Biden is SO going to lose" sounds almost gleeful. At the very least it sounds definitive, authoritative. Whereas "Oh, I think Biden is SO going to lose" sounds like an opinion. If your username is bombastic lowercase pronouncements you get a bit of a pass because you obviously don't take yourself too seriously, but otherwise I would beg you to believe me when I say that this one weird trick DOES make a difference to at least SOME people. Not everyone, obviously. There's nothing that's going to just fix people talking past each other. But I want to try to do better here. It's hard with some of these topics not to get caught up in emotion and honestly half the time I should probably just close the laptop instead of saying anything.
posted by rikschell at 8:09 PM on July 16 [7 favorites]

Sincere question: do you feel that they mean different things? Like, do you actually believe that the lack of “I think” in the second statement means that the commenter has some sort of powers of premonition/inside knowledge that makes the statement factually distinct from the first?

Speaking as another person who would prefer the "I think" statements -

I don't think that someone saying "This candidate will lose" is clairvoyant, but rather i think that they have decided to act like they are. Someone who's saying "I'm scared this candidate will lose" is leaving the door open to the possibility that "there's something we can do about it though" or even "please, someone tell me that there's a way to stop this".

But someone who just says "This candidate will lose" is completely giving up hope. And some of those of us who do have hope are clinging onto it by our fingernails and are scared too - especially since the hope we have is kind of dependent on a lot of other people pitching in to stop this from happening.

"I'm scared this candidate will lose" is a genuine expression of concern, to which others can say "shit, yeah, me too sometimes, I feel you. But we got this, right? We can indulge in a few minutes' freakout but then let's get back out there and fight again." But "this candidate will lose" makes me think "okay, well, THAT person isn't gonna try to do anything to stop this, that's one person down...."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:14 PM on July 16 [8 favorites]

this is at least partially on you

It’s on both ends of the communication. It’s on you to state when you’re giving an opinion, I think.
posted by nat at 8:24 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

But if we’re just talking about uncomfortable thoughts, we all owe it to the community to regulate our own emotions and reactions to whatever’s going on around us.

Gently(?), how does this not also apply at least as strongly to those who are using Metafilter threads to vent their fears and regulate their reactions to current events in ways that harm others? How does stating one’s own opinion or fears as if it were objective fact not contravene site guidelines about speaking only for oneself and not others? And how come the posters in the thread about the Trump rally shooting who were doing the most posting of their fears as objective opinion were mostly also the ones most upset or saying they were feeling invalidated by other posters either disagreeing with their analysis or pushing back on trying to get people to do more to avoid the outcome of Trump gaining power again? Why is it just the one side who you seem to be implying needs to regulate their emotions and reactions more? Why can’t we all try to be more gentle and considerate with each other, in both directions?
posted by eviemath at 8:24 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

But "this candidate will lose" makes me think "okay, well, THAT person isn't gonna try to do anything to stop this, that's one person down...."

This just doesn't follow.

In 2015, when Cameron announced a referendum on Brexit if the tories won the election, I told my mates that the UK was leaving the EU. At no point did my belief in that prediction waver even a little. Yet throughout the campaign (once the Tories had won the election, which was itself always going to happen) I was engaging the lexiteers, here and elsewhere in my life, trying to convince them not to do the thing. Of course they did the thing anyway. Of course I did what I could anyway.

You're just reading "...and I give up on doing anything!" onto the ends of statements where it isn't there, and isn't really implicit either.
posted by Dysk at 8:25 PM on July 16 [7 favorites]

This just doesn't follow.

I believe you that it is not your interpretation.

Please believe me and others when we say that it is how it comes across to us. You mentioned above that your interpretation is informed by your personal experience. Ours is likewise informed by our personal experience. That you haven’t experience people using such language in the way that it comes across to us doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen ever or that no one else has had a different experience from you.
posted by eviemath at 8:28 PM on July 16 [4 favorites]

Or that there aren’t maybe regional or cultural differences coming into play here.
posted by eviemath at 8:29 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

How does stating one’s own opinion or fears as if it were objective fact not contravene site guidelines about speaking only for oneself and not others?

Because you're not saying "you think x" - that would be talking for others (imo). The way language is generally used, people don't always flag opinions (ime). When you're making statements about the future, they are predictions (imo). When you're making pronouncements of taste, they are opinions (imo). They don't need explicit labelling, that just isn't how it works - it isn't the case that the absence of an "I think" makes something a statement of fact, like you seem to be insisting on calling it. (imo)


I believe you that it is not your interpretation.

It is not just not my personal interpretation, it is an illustrative example of how a lot of us talk in a way where the shit people are assuming of us based on it is wild, wildly beyond what is actually stated (imo). I'm pointing out how the interpretation people are using produces assumptions that are both wrong and unhelpful (imo). It's not that my perspective is different. I talk different, I act different, to the boxes some people apparently want to put us in (imo) and it isn't just "well of course you have your own boxes but I have mine" I'm trying to say that maybe the boxes themselves (or the concept of boxes) are the problem.
posted by Dysk at 8:35 PM on July 16 [5 favorites]

It's reasonable to expect people won't tack on the worst possible addendum to every one of your comments.

this comment is an opinion, and should not be considered an ironclad statement of truth
posted by sagc at 8:37 PM on July 16 [10 favorites]

Like, this isn't about me providing a different interpretation on someone else's words - it's me pointing out how the provided interpretation just doesn't fit how a lot of us actually communicate. It's not my perspective, it's me, myself, existing, telling you that if you read the stuff I write in that, way you will be inserting so much of your own baggage that simply isn't there in the text, and isn't written between the lines either.

This is not "another perspective" - this is me telling you that making those kinds of assumptions, you will regularly be wrong.

(imo)
posted by Dysk at 8:39 PM on July 16 [3 favorites]

It’s on both ends of the communication. It’s on you to state when you’re giving an opinion, I think.

I guess that would make that first statement one of inarguable fact?
posted by Dysk at 8:40 PM on July 16

The provided opinion does fit how a lot of other people who are not you or the people you know communicate. Other people have different experiences from you. That doesn’t invalidate your experience, it just means that your experience and interpretation aren’t universal.
posted by eviemath at 8:43 PM on July 16

And in recognition of the fact that different people have different ways of speaking, I'm not going to mentally tack my own little addendums onto their statements before reacting to them.

I merely ask for the same courtesy in return.
posted by Dysk at 8:47 PM on July 16 [6 favorites]

In my experience, people who universalize their fears sometimes act to avert the feared outcome, but most often do not.
posted by eviemath at 8:47 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Great, and use that experience of the thing you think might be the case of the person whose statement you're reading not being universal, to not assume it about the person absent any further evidence.
posted by Dysk at 8:48 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

From your responses here, Dysk, I’m assuming that you like to be able to make assertions without prefacing them with “I think”.

I don’t actually remember a time when you’ve done this, personally, so I don’t have a specific example. But I’d really like to understand what the more charitable reading of such an assertion would be. As in, if you were to say “Trump will win” then what are you trying to communicate? Or what responses are you hoping for?

(I’m trying to understand why including a “I think” at the beginning is counter to your purposes).
posted by nat at 9:10 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Why is your cultural communication style superior or deserving of primacy? Using the context that I know about you, that you are British, puts that in rather a more negative light than my general default assumptions would. Why are you so insistent about that despite multiple of us telling you that we are both more directly harmed by a potential Trump win and that this communication style causes us additional harm? Do you just not believe me or others in our reports of our harms experienced?

On other topics, Dysk, you’ve been at the forefront of recognizing that asking people in more vulnerable positions to constantly have to apply more advanced anxiety suppression techniques in order to participate in conversations about topics that deeply impact them is not compassionate. I recognize that some of the folks universalizing their fears are also coming from a position of similar vulnerability but just having a different response. In your case, I can see how you might be concerned about growing right wing power around the world further feeding anti-trans sentiment in the UK (though I would assess you as being in a slightly more outer ring of the onion than some of the rest of us on this particular issue). I’m asking you for the same consideration.

My post is also a call for mutual consideration, for all of us to think a moment about small changes to our phrasing that could help each other. Folks in the thread that prompted this MeTa who were universalizing their fears were also getting upset by implications they were reading into some other comments, so part of this MeTa was also asking if there were similar small phrasing changes that would help in the other direction. I’d like our community to move in the direction of more consideration, not some sort of free speech absolutism ‘everyone needs to just toughen up’ sort of attitude.
posted by eviemath at 9:15 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

That said, I think your use of the word "traumatizing " to refer to people not putting "I feel" in front of overly pessimistic sentences is inappropriate.

I have no interest in elaborating on my own experience in this setting, and the ptsd experiences of other folks I know aren’t mine to tell. I’m glad you don’t find this sort of thing personally an issue - sincerely, because it does suck, and I would not wish that for you. Your assumptions in this comment about my knowledge or usage appear to be inaccurate.
posted by eviemath at 9:29 PM on July 16

This feels like a case of people reading the purpose and degree of rigidity of the post differently? “Consider being more thoughtful and less absolute in your prophecies of doom” is a good suggestion. “Prefix every statement of opinion with ‘I think’” is not a good rule. It seems like a lot of people are caught up in arguing the latter point but I also think that was probably not quite the intention of the post.
posted by atoxyl at 9:37 PM on July 16 [16 favorites]

Using the context that I know about you, that you are British

Turns out you don't know much, then. I'm not British.

Why is your cultural communication style superior or deserving of primacy?

Why is yours?

This isn't "my" communication style - in practice, it's virtually everyone's. You're asking for all communication here to be taken out of a colloquial, conversational tone and mode, to something more resembling deliberate essay-writing. That isn't sustainable on a discussion site.

Everything I have read in this thread suggests that the problem is people bringing their own assumptions here. "This sucks" and "I think this sucks" mean the exact same thing, and it extends the basic decency and respect and assumptions of good faith that are the bedrock of how we are supposed to treat each other on mefi to not make a bunch of assumptions based on some tone you've read into something.

like our community to move in the direction of more consideration, not some sort of free speech absolutism ‘everyone needs to just toughen up’ sort of attitude.

I'd like the community to move in the direction of more consideration, and not some kind of weird speech absolutism where nobody can have an opinion without explicit disclaiming it as such, or we can just assume the worst things about them based on words we've put in their mouths.
posted by Dysk at 11:13 PM on July 16 [6 favorites]

Like, I don't want a site where people assume someone is a goddamn monster because they didn't say "I think" but that's exactly what we have people in this thread saying they do. I'm not about to participate in reifying and entrenching that by playing to those assumptions.
posted by Dysk at 11:15 PM on July 16 [9 favorites]

At the risk of adding absolutely nothing to this discussion,

What would having the community move in the direction of more consideration look like?

And is this additional consideration for the users who are upset by statements like "The fascists have won" without qualifiers (e.g "I think this means..."), softeners (e.g. "It's beginning to look like..."), humility (e.g. "... But wtf do I know."), or proposed solutions (e.g. "...unless we start doing XYZ right now."), etc., whatever their reasons?

Or is this additional consideration for the people who are upset by people who say they're upset by people saying statements like "The fascists have won" (without qualifiers, softeners, humility or proposed solutions, etc.), whatever their reasons?

If both, what could that look like?
posted by donttouchmymustache at 12:08 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

I have some statements and some questions.
- The sky is blue.
- This discussion has gone well off the rails.
- Written language frequently does not capture the writer's emotions or intent without extra effort -- or emojis.
- Writing clearly and precisely is respectful of others, good social etiquette and essential to avoiding misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
- This place is the god-damn train-wrecked Golgafrincham B-Ark incarnate.
- I'm walking away from posting on MeFi indefinitely (again); the effort of sharing helpful or entertaining content is simply not worth the reward of others willfully misunderstanding me to satisfy their own worldviews.

Which of the above statements is a fact? Which are beliefs or opinions? Which are offered sarcastically? Ironcally? Humorously?

The world may never know...
posted by zaixfeep at 12:44 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Using the context that I know about you, that you are British, puts that in rather a more negative light than my general default assumptions would.

Leaving aside Dysk's actual nationality, what the fuck is this shit?
posted by biffa at 2:33 AM on July 17 [17 favorites]

Dysk,

You're arguing that you shouldn't have to make additional effort when writing, and that other people should instead make additional effort when reading. Others are arguing the opposite. This is a long-running debate here, and in general I've been very much on your side of it, for much the reasons that mstokes650 set out in this fantastic comment a year or so ago.

But when it comes to particularly contentious threads on fraught issues, I believe we need people to make more effort in both directions, and arguing that it should be only one or the other isn't really productive.

I want to encourage you to rethink your position on using wording like "I think", "I believe", etc, because I think you're misunderstanding why people care about it.

This is something that I've actually been consciously working on doing, not so much here specifically, but in communications at work. Because I was finding that my coworkers were tiptoeing around disagreeing with me, and then I started noticing that I tend to give my comments in a very authoritative way by default. And I wanted to pull back on that, so I started adding a whole lot more "Personally...", "In my view...", "I think", and so on.

When I do so, what I'm signalling is NOT "this is my opinion as opposed to an objective fact"; as you already say, that's implicit and doesn't add information.

Rather, what I'm signalling is "this is something I'm willing to believe I might be wrong about", or more specifically "this is not something I'm going to start a fight with you about if you disagree". And that's a much less obvious piece of information to give, but a really important one.

It didn't come naturally to do it, and still doesn't. But when I consciously made the effort to make that change, it really helped. It made other people more comfortable disagreeing with me, and discussions went more smoothly.

This wasn't a problem when I worked in the same room as other folks, because that information was carried by non-verbal cues. But when I went fully remote and was communicating only over text, it became much more important.
posted by automatronic at 3:20 AM on July 17 [15 favorites]

Rather, what I'm signalling is "this is something I'm willing to believe I might be wrong about", or more specifically "this is not something . And that's a much less obvious piece of information to give, but a really important one.

This is metafilter; "I'm not going to start a fight with you about if you disagree" is supposed to be table stakes for most stuff.

You're effectively asking me to not stand by my opinions, analyses, etc. Respectful disagreement is always fine (leaving aside bigotry and microaggressions) and to assume otherwise of your fellow mefites (or worse, mentally tack your own words onto theirs) is not extending the good faith assumptions that are supposed to be bedrock to how this site operates. It's the linguistic equivalent of "maybe if you didn't have so many piercings..." as a way to manage other people's expectations and impressions. People are responsible for their own assumptions.
posted by Dysk at 3:26 AM on July 17 [5 favorites]

This is metafilter; "I'm not going to start a fight with you about if you disagree" is supposed to be table stakes for most stuff.

That is supposed to be the case, yes. But for a lot of people, the starting assumption about comments here is more like "I'm going to start a screaming fight with you if you disagree, and then I'll take it to Metatalk and fight about it there too, and there will be at least three buttonings in the resulting shitshow".

That's what puts a lot of people off posting here these days, and given things that have happened in the past here, it's hard to say they're wrong for having that assumption.

So if we're going to walk the expectations back to where things ought to be, I think that having more explicit signalling about this sort of thing is going to be kind of essential.

You're effectively asking me to not stand by my opinions, analyses, etc.

No, I'm not asking that at all, and if you got that from my comment it wasn't intended.
posted by automatronic at 3:59 AM on July 17 [8 favorites]

To get away from the phrasing stuff, I’ll just share that I thought of saying something hopeful in the Trump was shot thread, passing on a thought my aunt, a long time Michigan Democrat shared, but did not, because I assumed the most likely response would be people coming back at me hard about it. (I also had a very negative thought that is fear based that I didn’t share, because it’s a new angle not in that thread, I think it’s possible, and it freaks me out and I don’t want to dump that on y’all because it comes from my ptsd-laden writer brain which is great at doomsday plots.)

This comes from experience with these kinds of threads here along with a few other topics. Like I said above, I think it’s pretty easy and beneficial to preface opinion and desire with statements that flag that. But there is a deeper issue here as well.

As someone who was literally formed from a need to think up threats and avoid them, I have had to learn that expressing those thoughts constantly has a corrosive effect around me. You may not think of me that way from my posts on this site, and there are reasons for that but mainly that after years of therapy, having a baby who died after spending months in therapy trying to absorb that I wasn’t necessarily cursed and passing a curse to the next generation, going on to have kids that survived, etc., I have fought my way out of that. And guess what…good things happen as well as bad no matter what my thoughts, shocking.

Anyways.

I do believe that there are people on this site who use it for venting in thoughtless ways. I have seen other communities become…not screaming matches, but maybe wailing matches. It usually is a negative effect because “we’re fucked” isn’t - how to put this - engaging, I think is the word I’m looking for. The only decent human response to that is either some equivalent of a hug or agreement or a “well, anyway, let’s go get a smoothie.” It’s not really an invitation to discussion- except I guess the doomsday scenarios (which as pointed out can start to walk that line on harming marginalized groups.)

Sometimes there’s a sense of solidarity in it. And I mean, assassination attempts are scary and destabilizing, so of all the threads, that was not one to pitch my tent in.

BUT - if people reading this thread would like to engage in thinking a bit about how we speak with each other. I would ask that as well as the question of how we state things, we consider whether “venting” is really dumping. And it might be nice - not mandatory, doesn’t make anyone a bad person for not following this as a rule 100% of the time - if people considered not expressing their one liners of doom all the time because of the cumulative effect.

And I’d actually also suggest one doom statement per person per thread, and maybe be mindful of how many there are…like if someone says something positive and your first impulse is to repeat the doom statement, is that necessary or are you at that point just trying to drown out a differing viewpoint? Because on some threads I find that’s the feeling I get. And it’s at that point I stop participating.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:01 AM on July 17 [16 favorites]

No, I'm not asking that at all, and if you got that from my comment it wasn't intended.

If we're asking for only a certain set of opinions to have to come with qualifiers, softeners, etc then that is the effect in practice.

(ETA: imo)
posted by Dysk at 4:23 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

If we're asking for only a certain set of opinions to have to come with qualifiers, softeners, etc then that is the effect in practice.

That's not my position. I'm suggesting things might go more smoothly if all opinions came with more of those qualifiers. See also my earlier comment in the thread.
posted by automatronic at 4:32 AM on July 17 [6 favorites]

That's fair, at least, though I have a hard time seeing it play out that way in practice, both in past and future. It also changes the tenor and tone of discussion entirely, in a way I think is unhelpful, not least for a site with declining engagement to begin with.
posted by Dysk at 4:46 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

(And rather prioritises a particular cultural form of communication at the expense of others, but this site being alienating bordering on hostile to people who aren't from a white collar/middle class background is hardly new.)
posted by Dysk at 4:49 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

What automatronic said; part of my post was asking what qualifiers on my comments would better help others, so that I know and can apply them in the future, because my initial comment in the Trump rally shooting thread got misunderstood and dumped on a bit.

Likewise, I suggested an example of specific qualifying language to show how what I was suggesting could be done. I called it an “option” specifically to not be proscriptive in following exactly the example script I gave. Reading that as proscriptive is one example of how communication is influenced by both the writer and the receiver and their lived experiences, because that certainly wasn’t in my intention from the writers side. How could I have written things to give an illustrative example without that having come across as proscriptive, for those of you who found it so?


This isn't "my" communication style - in practice, it's virtually everyone's.

I believe you that such is your experience. Please believe stop negating my experience, which happens to be the opposite. I now know that you are not British despite your having mentioned living in the UK in multiple past threads - and I believe that because you have said so, and you know yourself and your experience better than I do! Please stop trying to tell me what my experience is, or ignore that perhaps there could be regional or cultural communication differences in this. I’m asking for greater consideration about a communication issue that has caused me, and other people I know, active harm. I’m acknowledging that it may be stemming from techniques other people are using to mitigate their own harm, and asking if there are any ways I can change my communication in return for mutual accommodation.

Metafilter has at times been an important source of information for me, broadening the array of sources I know of in useful ways or highlighting useful tidbits from a wider array of sources than I have the time to follow on my own. And it has at times been one of if not my only support for certain political issues relating to my country of origin. It would be really shitty for me if a handful of posters took that away from me when a very small and minor change would make a big difference for me. It doesn’t even matter if folks understand why that minor change would have an outsized impact, they/you simply have to believe my reports of my own personal experience, and care a tiny bit for a fellow Mefite, who is even asking/offering if they can make similar minor phrasing changes that would benefit you in return so as to not just be requesting a one-sided accommodation.
posted by eviemath at 5:07 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

(Re: Dysk's last two comments)

I think that the tenor and tone of discussion here, and the declining engagement, are not unconnected things.

What you say about alienating folks who aren't from a white collar/middle class background is interesting, because to me, adding those sorts of qualifiers is something that I've had to learn to do precisely because I do come to some extent from that background (or at least, from folks who'd tried to break into that world and only partially succeeded), and I'd picked up the cultural habit of making very authoritative-sounding statements, which I'm trying to unlearn by doing this.

I also feel like right now, what the site really prioritises is comments that get a lot of favourites, and that really encourages people to make a lot of bold, stark, uncompromising (and yes, sometimes bombastic) statements, which garner a lot of favourites from the subset of people who agree with them, at the expense perhaps of alienating the people who don't.
posted by automatronic at 5:07 AM on July 17 [6 favorites]

(Noting that I am not from a white collar or middle class background, myself. And in my experience of the over a dozen places I’ve lived, the specific communication issue we’re discussing varies regionally and culturally, in addition to socioeconomically, with regional or cultural differences in the socioeconomic component. That is, Dysk’s experience of this having a socioeconomic component with their preferred communication style aligning with more working class culture where they are from is not at all inconsistent with the opposite being the case in my or others’ experience.)
posted by eviemath at 5:13 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

I would like to add that there are actually some harms that people may be reacting to without consciously experiencing in being requested to add qualifiers to their opinions, especially if they come from a working class or marginalized background. As a woman, for example, I have often felt pressure to add what I will call “hesitant qualifiers” to my opinions - “I think? As long as it’s okay that I think this? And won’t upset you too much that I’m expressing my opinion?” It’s something I actually struggle with unlearning in legal writing now - because I need to be expressing authoritative opinions about how things are or should be, without hesitance. And I have a much harder time with it than my male peers do, especially my male peers that come from upper class backgrounds.

That doesn’t mean that some sort of nuance or qualifier never has value, but I think that in areas where it *is* basically being used to ask people to give a mini-apology for their opinions, that’s going to grate for some folk.
posted by corb at 5:46 AM on July 17 [13 favorites]

eviemath, I'm sure there are areas of your life where you add 'imo' style qualifiers consistently. But I know you don't do it on metafilter. I'm not trying to tell you about your lived reality, but what you're telling me directly contradicts your own conduct on the site at times.
posted by Dysk at 5:51 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

(I think it's also worth differentiating between service sector work, which while absolutely blue collar, inherits a lot of social norms from the shape of the customer base, which typically includes people of a higher social class. Do you really see the same "I think..." "in my opinion" careful qualifiers on e.g. construction sites in North America? Factories? Warehouses? Blue collar cultures where you aren't directly serving middle class customers or managers tend to look quite different to e.g. retail, healthcare, or hospitality.)
posted by Dysk at 6:19 AM on July 17 [5 favorites]

german_bight, that Rebecca Solnit piece is extraordinary.

This is not an argument against fear. It’s an argument for clarity about what’s a feeling and what’s a fact and a contemplation of how our words shape our world. I’ve been saying for the last few years, in regard to climate, “I respect despair as an emotion but don’t confuse it with an analysis.”

But more to the point:

We make something more likely, more widely believed, by saying and repeating it. Our rhetoric encourages or discourages. Which is why sports teams chant a version of “I believe we will win.” A whole sector of the progressive/left/whatever, however, seems to be eternally chanting “I believe we will lose.” This is not something sports teams do, incidentally.

In life outside games, warnings matter, but warnings are not prophecies. Warnings say, “this could happen, or if this happens, the results will be that,” which is quite different from “this will happen” as a flat declaration of inevitability. From Orwell to Octavia Butler, the people who give us warnings believe we have choices to make

I think I'm going to try to re-read this piece every day between now and November. Thank you so much for posting it.


eviemath, thank you so much for posting this, and thanks also to everyone here participating in trying to make MetaFilter even better, for everyone who reads MetaFilter.
posted by kristi at 6:32 AM on July 17 [14 favorites]

Thanks for the pull quote, kristi.

Discussing this thread with Mr.Nat, he brought up a Claude Shannon quote:
“We know the past but cannot control it. We control the future but cannot know it.”

Seems relevant.
posted by nat at 7:17 AM on July 17 [7 favorites]

And corb, thank you for the insight about a possible problem with adding “hesitant qualifiers”. I definitely don’t do that in my professional world and I make sure when mentoring younger women to warn them how this can be perceived (as a middle aged woman I’ve seen that happen). But all of that speech is happening in a particular context, usually in person (or, in my case, within scientific writing).

I think the metafilter context is different. If the point of the comments is discussion, and flat statements of doom (especially when repeated by one poster many times or by many posters) shut that down.

I do think part of the problem in this discussion is that the people with actually problematic behavior (posting multiple doom statements in a single thread or in every thread on a given topic, treating any response doubting such a statement as an attack, etc) are not in this thread.

All those of us in this thread can do is listen to each other, and then take what we learn and put it into action.

Personally, I’m still really not sure how to respond when “posting multiple doom statements in a single thread or in every thread on a given topic, treating any response doubting such a statement as an attack, etc” happens. I don’t think flagging is the right answer, as deletion isn’t the goal, discussion is. But flat unknowable doom statements about the future are misinformation, and drive some people away, so just leaving such statements without a response doesn’t seem okay either. (It’s my most frequent response, though, as I often read threads late or when I can’t adequately respond ). Any ideas as to what would be better?
posted by nat at 7:35 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Also, moggies, I pretty directly said I do NOT understand your communication style above. I gave an explanation of what I perceive to be meant by a flat statement of doom, was told I was wrong, but still don’t know the right interpretation.

If you’d like to offer a further explanation so I can better understand, that would be appreciated.
posted by nat at 7:38 AM on July 17

What *do* you mean by a flat statement like “Trump will win” then, given that for you, it does not mean what I interpret?

I gave my understanding, you say it is wrong, what is your meaning?
posted by nat at 7:54 AM on July 17

Yeah, that’s basically where I’m at with this topic. To have one communication style telling another that essentially they understand us and how we communicate, but it scares them, so can’t we just soften things up so we frighten them less just isn’t a good look on a site like this.

I think you’re decontextualizing the request, as are others. Taking March 2020 as an example, what does dropping “we’re all going to die” (a now demonstrably false statement even though true for 7 million worldwide recorded, up to 35 million in excess deaths) into each Covid thread that year accomplish? It drowns out other voices, even if it’s an understandable statement.

I worked on several Covid related efforts here in Canada - food bank distribution and then vaccine hunters. The discussions that sparked those efforts were based in exactly that fear. People, including people I love or me, are going to die. Had the ideas phase been drowned out in negative statements they wouldn’t have happened. We did share our fears! But we owned that our fears were not destiny.

I mean…people who are defending your need to drop declarative doom - because that’s the context, not whether you make assertive comments in general or speak authoritatively on areas of expertise - what impact on the conversation do you want to have?
posted by warriorqueen at 7:57 AM on July 17 [9 favorites]

It means "My response to [subject of post] is 'Trump will win'". It emphatically does not imply any action or inaction on my part. Again, that is appending the worst possible series of assumptions onto comments that you have no reason to read that way other than... habit?
posted by sagc at 7:58 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

Okay, but my response to the “how to unlearn pain” post is “god, I hope I don’t develop chronic pain.” And I don’t post that response because I know how negating and terrible it is to hear something like that when suffering a condition. It doesn’t add anything. I don’t comment all my thoughts. I comment mostly (as I said , it’s not about batting 100%) when I think I have something to add to the discussion.

And I think most people do that most of the time…but not in politics threads for some reason.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:01 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

warriorqueen, there's a difference between "I want to 'drop declarative doom'" and "I don't want to be told that I have to add qualifiers to every comment I make as if I were responsible for every possible assumption based on my words", which is where this discussion seems to be going. It doesn't even seem to have much to do with "doom", as such, other than this being the only scenario where it's being requested.

It also feels separate from microaggressions around chronic pain, in your example; saying "trump will win" doesn't seem equivalent to not centring the experiences of people without chronic pain in a discussion of that subject.

this comment should be considered a "speech act", and not in any way a summoning into being of any particular future
posted by sagc at 8:06 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Yes, you mean “Trump will win”.

What response are you hoping for from others when you say that?

Do you want affirmation? Do you want people to tell you you’re wrong (I think you are, in that you can’t possibly know that, but I think your fears are very valid)? Do you want the discussion to stop? Do you want favorites?

I honestly don’t get it.
posted by nat at 8:07 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

I'm not going to speak for anyone else here, but as much as I appreciate I-statements and less stark pronouncements, I'm not demanding that everyone use them. I'm not even requesting that everyone use them. I'm just asking people to CONSIDER using them as a communication tool in order to be understood better.

If your goal is to make people upset or despairing, feel free to ignore. You're obviously having a lot of success! If that isn't your goal, there are tools that might help you get your point across better to more people here.

I'm also listening as much as possible and trying to do what other commenters have asked and add my own contextualizers when I can, assuming good faith as much as possible. But it would be great if both sides of the communication gap made an effort.

Again, I'll use the comparison will ask culture and guess culture. As much as guess culture can be annoying to those familiar with ask expectations, it's NOT ACTUALLY WRONG. If we want to truly welcome diversity, we have to be open to different cultural expectations and different communication styles. If we could approach this in the spirit of learning from each other rather than casting blame or getting defensive, we might get farther.
posted by rikschell at 8:09 AM on July 17 [5 favorites]

I mean, presumably people want other people to have seen that comment; I can't possibly speculate further, but I know I wouldn't opt to assume it means [worst things] without further context. That's the fundamental thing I think(?) people are getting confused about - the assumption that these are somehow performative, or for favorites, or somehow just... insincere? I really don't know what people are expecting from commenters.

the above is actually a true fact and prognostication
posted by sagc at 8:11 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

It doesn't even seem to have much to do with "doom", as such, other than this being the only scenario where it's being requested.

Okay - my understanding is that’s the request, that in the threads related to politics we be mindful of it. That’s where I’m discussing it (I would add on climate change threads too - basically apocalyptic threads.) so my comments are in that context.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:12 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

I sometimes put qualifiers on my comments (I probably use ones like “in my experience” more than “I think” or “it seems to me”, for reasons related to the dynamics corb mentions), and sometimes don’t. I try to pay some attention to context and the overall tenor of a discussion thread in doing so. I’m asking others to do the same, because that impacts my ability to participate in Metafilter.

The issue, sagc and not just everyday big moggies, is not just your one comment. It’s also or mostly about when the declarative doom (I like that phrase) becomes overwhelming. It is a context issue, and your one comment sits within a context of each overall discussion thread, whether you want it to or not. Communication is not just what we each say, but also how it is received, which is impacted by the speech it is surrounded by as well as the listener/reader’s experiences. To claim otherwise is either linguistic prescriptivism itself, or some sort of Libertarian/Stephen Harper denial of the existence of society beyond distinct individuals.
posted by eviemath at 8:13 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

OK, but then how is that resolved by having each one of those doomer comments prefaced by "this is merely an opinion: [list of terrible things that are going to happen]"? Is the issue the prevalence of pessimism, or that people are failing to frame their pessimism correctly?
posted by sagc at 8:15 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

The linguistic request is just one part of the request.

Also…as a professionally informed opinion from years of experience in online audiences, the reader does not “ just have to” anything. The reader leaves, and reads other stuff. That impacts on the health of the community in terms of diversity, activity, and donations.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:18 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

I think it's also worth considering that the request to adopt what - in my context at least - are polite, middle-class speech patterns is also not without context. There is a society-wide prejudice against a lot of working class expression. It's why a lot of blue collar workplaces inherit middle class norms: one middle class manager, and suddenly their way of doing things is correct and professional, and everything else is wrong. Like, it inherently whiffs of classism to request that everyone conform to middle class norms.
posted by Dysk at 8:20 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

And I’m leaving the discussion to do other things but I would say…honestly I think the prevalence is worse. But I also think if people (including me) slow down to think “how can I phrase this to make this discussion better/deeper/kinder/smarter” it will just…help.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:21 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

Sure, Dysk, so can you suggest a norm from your viewpoint that will help make US politics threads better?
posted by warriorqueen at 8:22 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

That's the fundamental thing I think(?) people are getting confused about - the assumption that these are somehow performative, or for favorites, or somehow just... insincere?

As noted in my post, I for one believe that the commenters are sincere, and that the declarative doom comments are doing something important for them. I’m asking that they also consider what their comments are doing to others, and have suggested what seems to me like a small change for them that would have a big impact for me on reducing the harms I experience. It’s okay if you don’t understand how that makes it better for me. I don’t understand experiencing gender as an intrinsic quality rather than an externally applied set of requirements, but I can still believe that others’ experiences are different from mine, and respect that.


Does anyone have an example of an actual doomer comment in a thread that they think is problematic, but would be ok if couched in the appropriate “I believe” language?

All of the examples from the Trump rally shooting thread that have been mentioned above.

And again, it’s not that people feeling that way or having that as their political analysis is problematic. Feelings themselves are, in my worldview, neutral; though how we act on them can sometimes cause problems. It’s that the communication choices that, collectively, lead to a sense of abandonment to a negative outcome that could potentially be averted if we did all pull together are causing myself and others harm.
posted by eviemath at 8:25 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

I'd say that “don’t make presumptions that you understand what someone is expressing better than they do” would go a long way.

Quoted for truth.

Respond to the words that are there, not the ones you imagine might have gone unsaid along with it. All we have is text, let's respond to the actual text.
posted by Dysk at 8:31 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

Dysk, from my perspective and in my experience, I’m asking us to abandon upper middle class norms that I learned in my academic training to instead follow what I’ve experienced as a more working class approach. I understand the class issues and how frustrating that can be, however, and (again) I hear that your experience is the opposite of my vis-a-vis the class dynamics. Would a helpful rule of thumb maybe be to follow norms relevant to the country or region whose semi-apocalyptic politics are being discussed, as a way of helping to center folks most directly affected?
posted by eviemath at 8:34 AM on July 17

Again, I'm not convinced it's regional (though I am not certain, either) I think it's more a question of what kind of working class culture/workplace you're in. Like, there's a difference here between "traditional" working class norms, and blue collar service sector norms (which is largely inherited middle class norms).

Like, are people on construction sites and warehouses and railyards really using "I think" qualifiers in conversation with each other in NA? (Genuine question!)
posted by Dysk at 8:40 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

Unfortunately, I can’t always just read “Trump will win” as “I think Trump will win” because many of our fellow metafilter commenters take it badly when I or someone else gives the natural response “you can’t possibly know that” . Same with “I hear your fear, here’s what you can do to prevent it”.

Also, for most of us, when we choose to make a statement, we make it for a reason. We have a goal. I am asking what the goal is, aside from the ones I already mentioned, when you personally say “Trump will win”.

If you are telling me you have no goal with that statement, then perhaps you don’t need to say it (especially when several people have expressed how it causes them harm). If you do have a goal, great, enlighten me as to what it is, because I have no idea.
posted by nat at 8:41 AM on July 17 [7 favorites]

(I also have little experience with upper middle class people, but my perception is that the norms there are pretty different again to more lower and middle- middle class, especially within academia and related disciplines like law, medicine, etc.)
posted by Dysk at 8:42 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

I didn’t realize (or had forgotten) that the fucking fuck threads were eliminated from the site because of the extreme psychic damage they were causing users and mods. If we take that as a given, it’s going to be important the closer we get to November to figure out how to keep every political thread from turning into what is essentially a fucking fuck thread.

During the pandemic, I would keep a daily track of what I called the “Mad Max forecast.” Like today I feel like there’s a 40% chance we end up devolving to a full Mad Max situation. It was partially tongue in cheek, partially deadly serious. I understand feeling that. I understand feeling the need to share that. But I agree that this sort of comment tends to shut down and/or hijack conversation to become at best a sympathetic doom spiral and at worst a fight between people who aren’t even necessarily disagreeing but are talking past each others passionately.

I don’t see those outcomes as good for the site or good for the users. Can we just ignore doomy pronouncements when they pop up? I think a lot of us want to reflexively push back or soothe when we come up against despair. But maybe that’s just a version of giving advice when what is wanted is simply listening. I can try to do that, but I will say that for some of us ignoring despair takes its own toll and so the proliferation of comments that serve no purpose beyond expressing despair will drive people away, which will increase the percentage of doom over time.
posted by rikschell at 8:42 AM on July 17 [8 favorites]

Yes, you mean “Trump will win”.

What response are you hoping for from others when you say that?

So one thing I think is also important to remember is that we all have different mental images of what Metafilter *is*.

Is it an Internet forum? An agora? A friendly neighborhood bar? Your friend’s party? Each of those have different social contexts.

I don’t know if I said it on Metafilter, but I watched the shooting within twenty minutes with my partner; I turned to him in shock and actually literally said the words, “Trump just fucking won.” Was I seeking a specific response from my partner? No, I was in shock, I was making mouth noises to process what was happening, to talk about the event as it was occurring. I probably would have done the same if I was in a bar.

I go back and forth on what Metafilter Is To Me. Sometimes it’s the thinky space where I process politics. Sometimes it’s Crone Island, where I go for emotional isssues I don’t know how to handle. Sometimes it’s the neighborhood bar, where I shake my fist at that one guy at the end who threw a chair at me ten years ago, but I’ll slip the bartender twenty bucks to call him a cab if he’s drunk. Sometimes it’s a space I feel I owe for helping me grow up a lot.

But whatever I say is going to be processed through all those contexts, and they’re going to be different from everyone else. So I think really it’s best not to assume intent if we can avoid it.
posted by corb at 8:53 AM on July 17 [10 favorites]

I was surprised to see the thread trending toward a discussion of "I" statements. I'm coming in late to say I agree that adding "I think" or "I feel" does not really change the emotional valence of the doom-related comments. "I think you're going to die in the most miserable abject way possible" is not that different from "You're going to die in the, etc."

The problem isn't whether a person is making an objective forecast of doom or just suggesting a subjective sensation of doom. The problem is the glee or blitheness with which that doom is slipped into the conversation. The certainty is the most visible part of the statement (which is why I called it out in an earlier comment), but the problem, the part that really gets under the skin, is the sense that the commenter is (a) kind of enjoying being the grim messenger, or (b) so convinced that this message of doom is urgent and necessary that it must be dropped early and often into multiple discussions regardless of its effect.

I want to be sure to point out my belief that these are two different motivations, and I do not think they necessarily overlap. I think the second motivation (the urgency so great that your readers' feelings can be ignored) is probably much more common than the first. I absolutely fall into that second motivation on some topics, and find it very hard to communicate in a way that isn't "YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW TERRIBLE THINGS ARE GOING TO GET, BUT I AM MORALLY OBLIGATED TO TELL YOU. REPEATEDLY." But I hope to be better about it, because I see the way other people's doom affects the conversation, and can only assume my own doom has the same impact.

I think you must feel free to tell others about the impact their words have on you. Which is different, again, from some sort of objective "you're wrong!" and shouldn't come with the expectation that someone will change the way they write. But! You're sure enough that everything is going to hell, that you're going to write volume 1 of the divine comedy, except all the sufferers are your fellow mefites? Well, fine, but since this is a conversation, let me explain why it sucks to listen to that.
posted by mittens at 8:54 AM on July 17 [14 favorites]

Thanks, corb, that helps give some context.

That’s an important point, Dysk— I definitely hear flat pronouncements about the future in real life most often come from fellow academics who are in rather elite positions (so definitely upper middle class now even if that isn’t their origin). And yeah, more often from such people in the US— much more rarely from similarly elite folk on other continents.

They are so sure that everything they say is true, and the world backs them up on it, and no one ever calls them out years later when it turns out they were wrong wrong wrong. And for some reason people keep believing their pronouncements even given their poor track record!

That is indeed part of the context I bring to reading such pronouncements here. If I’m not given further context, they read as the sort of unearned confidence of elite academics who are used to having their word be the last (regardless of validity).

So I guess what some of us are asking is given how many different contexts we come from, adding context in the form of a few words will help us understand each other.

(And again fwiw I went back through the comments that several of you have made on Mefi— and I’m not really seeing the problematic behavior among people who are actively commenting in this thread, at least not on any kind of frequent basis).

moggie, am I hearing you right that you want to make flat pronouncements of doom and get no response, and have them just stand in the thread with no engagement whatsoever? If not, then what are you asking for?
posted by nat at 8:59 AM on July 17 [6 favorites]

moggies, I think the sentiment you just expressed is quite problematic.

If I understand you right, you want to be able to come into a thread, make a statement of doom, and have nobody respond to you any way whatsoever. Given that other people have explained how such statements cause them harm, and given that you want no response to them, why make the statement?

If your statement has no goal, and if it has the effect of harming others, then it is deeply problematic to make the statement.
posted by nat at 9:15 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Are you saying that there shouldn't be a presupposition that comments are part of a conversation? That they are more like individual blog posts by their various authors without any particular need to relate to other comments in the same thread? Maybe more like YouTube comments and less like a back and forth? Because that's not the assumption I would make here.
posted by rikschell at 9:15 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Say person X posts a comment that person Y finds anxiety-provoking and would label as "doomsaying". What should person Y do?

I think that there are so many different places that person X could be coming from that there might not be any one particular way for person Y to respond. Contrast the statements made by kittens for breakfast with those by Dysk, and the statements made by corb with not just everyday big moggies. They have different goals and different assumptions.

One possible way to respond is by asking clarifying questions about the doomy statement, which seems like it would be consistent with many of the perspectives mentioned here. If Person X is coming from the sort of perspective not just everyday big moggies has expressed, then maybe Person Y should try to add what they feel is missing from the conversation without directing a response specifically at Person X.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 9:26 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

Sometimes, listening is more important than responding that the commenter is wrong, not an oracle, shouldn't be as worried, etc.
posted by sagc at 9:26 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

The problem isn't whether a person is making an objective forecast of doom or just suggesting a subjective sensation of doom. The problem is the glee or blitheness with which that doom is slipped into the conversation. The certainty is the most visible part of the statement (which is why I called it out in an earlier comment), but the problem, the part that really gets under the skin, is the sense that the commenter is (a) kind of enjoying being the grim messenger, or (b) so convinced that this message of doom is urgent and necessary that it must be dropped early and often into multiple discussions regardless of its effect.

I think that reading glee and/or blitheness into a comment (or even a pattern of comments) is maybe more on the reader than on the commenter?

Again, i'm using my own deleted comment as an example so as to not speak for anyone else, but

"Oh God, Biden is SO going to lose"

was definitely not posted with "glee" or anything of the sort. It was an in-the-moment reaction based on dread. My other comments about how Biden sucks are also not posted with glee; they're posted because i think Biden sucks.

As for what i want other commenters to do about them -- i mean, whatever they want? I'm not interested in policing other people's reactions to me.

Honestly, at this point i'm not at all certain what i expected when i rejoined MeFi. I definitely don't fit in here, i'm not part of "the community", and i can't imagine that i ever will be. (Which also isn't a statement i make with glee or blitheness, by the way.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:27 AM on July 17 [8 favorites]

This isn't "my" communication style - in practice, it's virtually everyone's. You're asking for all communication here to be taken out of a colloquial, conversational tone and mode, to something more resembling deliberate essay-writing.

Isn’t it the other way around, almost? Argumentative writing tends to limit use of “I think” qualifiers, because it has a clear purpose from the outset, so there’s no reason to break up the flow or pull punches. I think this is a model that a lot of people follow for posting online, at least some of the time (I’m not right here but I certainly do sometimes) especially on text-heavy MetaFilter, and it’s a reason I don’t think it’s a viable guideline to apply broadly. But I am also under the impression that this post was not really supposed to be so broad.

“We’re fucked” is another mode of expression that I do think “virtually everyone” uses at some point, certainly people around me did IRL in reacting to the Trump shooting, but it’s more about registering an emotional reaction. Because of that, I can see two sides regarding those kinds of comments. I don’t really like policing people’s emotional responses, and in the right context it has a bonding function, but when I come across a whole thread of people posting stuff like that it does start to make me think - why am I reading this? I can sympathize with people wanting to scream into the void but is that what those threads are for?

(I don’t know what those threads are for)
posted by atoxyl at 9:28 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

I'm reading a whole lot of words that boil down to "I don't want to be disagreed with, corrected, or pushed back against for other people being affected by my words." Classic.

Honestly, at this point i'm not at all certain what i expected when i rejoined MeFi. I definitely don't fit in here, i'm not part of "the community", and i can't imagine that i ever will be.

Unrelated, just wanted to say Adrienneleigh that while I don't always agree with your points, you come at things with a consistency and with integrity that the site needs. I'm a data point of one, but the site would be worse off for your absence.
posted by Jarcat at 9:40 AM on July 17 [13 favorites]

Also, for an example of what I think a lot of people are referencing when they say 'doomsaying' take a gander at this thread from earlier in the week (feat. 'Who am I kidding? We're fucked.'):

https://www.metafilter.com/204651/Bird-flu-not-just-for-birds
posted by Jarcat at 9:46 AM on July 17 [3 favorites]

Like, are people on construction sites and warehouses and railyards really using "I think" qualifiers in conversation with each other in NA? (Genuine question!)

In my experience? They use “but whatever”, “but what do I know”, and similar qualifiers instead of “I think” or “I feel” type qualifiers. Or they use something along the lines of “in my experience”. My experience is also in New England, the Upper Midwest, and select regions of Canada. I also have experience in the mid Atlantic region, and shorter stints in North Carolina, mountain foothills of Colorado, and parts of California (for North American regions), but my mid Atlantic, Colorado, and California experience is weighted toward academic or white collar contexts, so I can’t say much about blue collar culture in those areas. My Upper Midwestern experience may also be a bit out of date - I’ve noticed some changes due to political norms among my conservative relatives in New England, so I imagine that could also be happening elsewhere. There did seem to be some regional differences between the mid Atlantic region and the other regions where I have spent more time (New England, Upper Midwest, and the part of Canada I’m now in) - not surprisingly, since it’s a big continent with significantly different backgrounds in different regions.
posted by eviemath at 9:47 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

It's legit wild to me that someone on a construction site could turn to their fellow labourer and say something with anything other than bombastic certainty. Like, "this is fucking daft" is about a thousand times more likely than "I guess this doesn't make sense, but whatever" in my neck of the woods, both UK and Scandinavia. That kind of statement is for office people here, not at all typical of boots on the ground.
posted by Dysk at 9:51 AM on July 17 [4 favorites]

Well, we wouldn’t use “daft” in the US or Canada, but “This is bullshit! Whatever. Fuck.” With the “whatever” said in a resigned huff is not something that would have been out of place, in my experience, at least back when “whatever” was more common slang. I think the kids these days have a different equivalent expression. But, as others noted way upthread now, there’s also a whole lot of extra information from body language, intonation, etc. Like, a construction worker such as my father when I was younger would say “this is bullshit” while getting started on doing the bullshit thing. That has a very different impact from just saying “this is bullshit” into the internet with no additional context.
posted by eviemath at 9:58 AM on July 17 [5 favorites]

The problem isn't whether a person is making an objective forecast of doom or just suggesting a subjective sensation of doom. The problem is the glee or blitheness with which that doom is slipped into the conversation.

Agree with the rest of your comment, but for me the problem is absolutely the certainty. The comments that come across as gleeful I, personally, can usually more easily dismiss as assholes (unless there are too many of them - if it’s just one or two posters and they are getting some pushback from other or not taking up too much space in a thread, that doesn’t personally trouble me as much, for broader US politics topics; though there are certainly specific more narrow topics that are more precise in their impact on me where the gleeful-sounding comments are hard to ignore). It’s having what feels like a preponderance of doom prognosticated with certainty, not tempered in any way by acknowledgement that the posters are venting for their own mental health or also saying what they are doing about the impending doom regardless of the feeling of inevitability, that makes me feel abandoned and related negative feelings from there.

The Trump rally shooting thread actually eventually developed into something that felt like a compromise that I could participate in with manageable negative impacts on myself a bit after I posted this MeTa - thanks to everyone who contributed to that.
posted by eviemath at 10:11 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

This is turning into a bad comedy act. "Office people say things like ______, while laborers are more like ______" holy shit do people really think that there is so much homogeneity in demographic groups?
posted by Jarcat at 10:11 AM on July 17 [17 favorites]

Well, there were more noticeable socioeconomic communication differences when I was younger. Modern media environments blur some of those distinctions, I think - or, change the demographic categories from those that were more relevant historically (where media environments are more algorithmically personalized and maybe a little less cohesive along traditional demographic lines), though I do (being in academia nowadays) see reports from time to time on actual serious sociological studies that find some broad trends based on socioeconomic and cultural status still.

Anyway, I’ll log off for a while and stop dominating the thread quite so much.
posted by eviemath at 10:23 AM on July 17 [2 favorites]

Unrelated, just wanted to say Adrienneleigh that while I don't always agree with your points, you come at things with a consistency and with integrity that the site needs. I'm a data point of one, but the site would be worse off for your absence.

Hard agree here. I also appreciate your willingness to spell out what you intended more clearly. Not everyone is willing to do that, it’s not easy, but personally I appreciate it.
posted by nat at 10:44 AM on July 17 [9 favorites]

someone on a construction site could turn to their fellow labourer and say something with anything other than bombastic certainty. Like, "this is fucking daft"

If it's certain parts of English speaking world I'm aware of, I imagine it would be more like, "this if fucking daft, know-what-I-mean." It's become the parlance. You make any kind of declaratory statement, you immediately follow it with an invitation to disagree or ask for clarification even as you leave no time for either, you just keep on keeping-on. But at least, it's there, that half-second of ... doubt?
posted by philip-random at 11:23 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

but those feelings can invade my feelings at which point, as I suggested earlier, it can become instinctual. I will respond. Maybe I need to work on this, but maybe the work could come from the other direction as well.
posted by philip-random at 11:36 AM on July 17

It's legit wild to me that someone on a construction site could turn to their fellow labourer and say something with anything other than bombastic certainty.

Last I checked, Metafilter isn't a construction site. Nor is it an office. Nor is it the UK, or Scandinavia, nor is it the USA (despite having a big number of Americans in its ranks), nor is it any one specific place or setting.

What Metafilter is, is a collection of people from these and other places - and populated by people that, it seems to me, to have a more-curious-than-average viewpoint and a genuine desire to know what other people are thinking and feeling about a given situation.

And maybe that's why the "we're fucked" hard-fact kinds of statements scare others so much. Because maybe deep down that's what we are all fearing - and we're coming to Metafilter to see if "maybe someone who has a different skill set and knows something I don't can clear this up and give me some hope". There's a chance someone on the site might come in and say "no, see, this doesn't mean what you're afraid it means, and I know because I am a political scientist and...." or "I'm a historian and this is exactly like this other incident when everything turned out okay and here's why..." because of all the places in the world, here is where we are likely to find those people, because we are such a broad sample set of the public.

We come to Metafilter to get away from our buddies at the construction sites who are saying "we're fucked", because we know our buddies at the construction site are dipshits who may not know anything more than we do, and we're looking for someone who knows more than them. So when we get here and the people who supposedly know more than Sid from the Construction site are also saying "we're fucked", that is terrifying.

UNLESS - unless the people who are also saying "we're fucked" are clearer that "fuck, I don't know anything for sure either, I'm just scared as shit". Then we know that they're just another terrified doofus like us, who's come to look for the same comfort.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:08 PM on July 17 [10 favorites]

So what I'm hearing is a lot of people saying that bold, unequivocal proclamations of doom are kind of shitty contributions to a conversation, and a lot of other people saying "So?" Plus also something about construction workers???

As someone who found this place and the prominence of those sentiments intensely destabilizing during the thick of the pandemic years, I will just continue to never, ever read a politics or climate or pandemic thread on MeFi. Well noted!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:27 PM on July 17 [10 favorites]

It's not, though, is the thing. I'm not scared as shit all the time. I know there are people who are, as a baseline, and that that's normal for them. I think assuming everyone's always in that headspace, though, or that when they are it's just normal functioning and not deeply upsetting for them, is not helpful.
posted by lapis at 12:36 PM on July 17 [4 favorites]

Maybe the real lesson is the friends we make at the construction site along the way
posted by Jarcat at 12:47 PM on July 17 [9 favorites]

I can avoid the US political threads to dodge the overwhelming negativity but I definitely empathize with folks who are tired of the same constant doomy refrains hammered over and over and over.

A couple of times? Yeah, I get it. It's when the same set of posters that can't engage with things without immediately yelling that the marginalized will be put in camps (obv different if you are said member of those communities)--also, are they yelling that in the faces of people they know who will be under threat? No? Then why do it here? We have folx who fall under that rubric too--or just to not bother with anything anymore because it's all stupid and dumb (see also: climate change threads) multiple times that it gets very not very community minded.

Am I telling you to not be negative? Non. What am I saying is that I feel folx who don't want to read that many times in contentious threads? You feel overwhelmed and scared? Tell us. But don't make that your brand every comment. We get it. We are all Going Through It. But let's have enough respect for each other that we don't turn Metafilter into a place that people want to avoid because they know they won't learn anything but just read nothing but walls of misery. I'm not asking people to change their language, but I am asking for a little less negativity for megathreads. Ain't no one here not aware of how shitty stuff is rn.
posted by Kitteh at 1:19 PM on July 17 [4 favorites]

but those feelings can invade my feelings at which point, as I suggested earlier, it can become instinctual. I will respond.

and to be clear, because this has been a long thread. My first comment here was basically a link to Lord Of The Rings (Denethor giving motivation), which I placed in support to a link to Aliens (Bill Paxton losing it, diving enthusiastically into full on panic mode). Both of these are extreme example of somebody losing their shit in a crisis moment, and not keeping it to themselves. Nothing nuanced about any of it. They are panicking and (relevant to what we're discussing here) -- PANIC IS CONTAGIOUS

Which is significantly different, for instance, from what corb illustrates with this example:

When a war is going on, from a tactical perspective, it’s really important to know the point when some territory can no longer be held. Sometimes, that’s because you will need to hold that territory until that very last moment to give people time to get out. Sometimes, it’s because you need to weigh whether you need to evacuate everyone and fall back to a more defensible position. Sometimes it’s so you can win the ultimate war; sometimes it’s to make losing the war less awful. But ultimately, it’s for the same goal: not to go like lambs to the slaughter.

I may not want to hear stuff like this (ie: it doesn't exactly fill me with hope and joy) but it's definitely useful, it's coming from somebody who knows what they're talking about. And it's certaily not advocating DESPAIR.
posted by philip-random at 1:23 PM on July 17 [3 favorites]

(Apologies for the derail, I find linguistic community/culture fascinating, even if my understanding is very lay, based on just having worn a lot of different hats in a lot of different places over the years.)
posted by Dysk at 2:26 PM on July 17 [2 favorites]

I think I'm starting to understand where people are coming from on this.

When I was working for a large company in Tokyo almost a decade ago, HR delivered a presentation one day introducing microagressions to a largely local workforce who were unfamiliar the concept. They began by showing several slides of culturally significant bits of comedy, statements, images, etc. and then explained that some people who saw/read/heard these were upset by them, that they had a negative impact on some proportion of the population.

They then proceeded to ask the audience how this could be avoided in the future? Many audience members began by explaining the greater context around each event or statement and explained that these were not coming from a place of malice or contempt, and that the intent was certainly not to cause harm. Most people proposed a greater understanding of context as being critical in consuming the media in the correct way, and that the people feeling "offended" should assume they've misunderstood something if they felt that way.

This, of course, was a trap laid by the presenters. The next slide displayed only the following in large, bold text:
INTENT DOES NOT EQUAL IMPACT.

I think about this a lot. I think there is definitely a continuum of speech, from currently culturally unacceptable, mostly indefensible speech (one of the examples was an extremely famous current comedian doing a bit in blackface; another was someone imitating foreigners speaking in broken Japanese with strong accents), to less-but-still-problematic speech (a message complimenting a woman on her looks in the workplace, a comment praising a foreigner's chopstick ability), to finally more defensible but still somewhat tone-deaf speech (a suggestion that someone should get married, questions about why someone doesn't have kids yet, etc.).

The presenters had a few points: It's important to consider the purpose of your interactions before you have them. Think about your audience, be considerate, etc.

I personally feel it was a bit reductive. (The presentation was certainly progressive for Japan, but there was no discussion of trans- and nonbinary gender issues, for example.) Communication is a cooperative activity. It's important to assume positive intent on each end. For example, if you misgender someone by mistake, as long as the aggrieved knows that you're trying your best, they won't take offense in the same sort of way as if an apparent bigot misgenders them.

But even then, it can still be hurtful.

I think that this sort of understanding should be the starting point.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 2:34 PM on July 17 [6 favorites]

Or what the text above the "Post Comment" button says:

"Note: Everyone needs a hug."
posted by donttouchmymustache at 2:35 PM on July 17

Honestly, at this point i'm not at all certain what i expected when i rejoined MeFi. I definitely don't fit in here, i'm not part of "the community", and i can't imagine that i ever will be. (Which also isn't a statement i make with glee or blitheness, by the way.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:27 AM on July 17 [+] [⚑]

I just glanced over every (undeleted) comment you made in that thread.

You made a huge, extremely valuable, and very well sourced contribution. I have never contributed as much worthwhile content to any thread as you did to that thread.
posted by jamjam at 2:36 PM on July 17 [8 favorites]

I definitely don't fit in here, i'm not part of "the community", and i can't imagine that i ever will be.

To be perfectly honest, this is absolutely a statement I could imagine myself making ten years ago and yet somehow I grumpily seem to have settled in here anyway. I know we often argue, but I very much appreciate your contributions and consider you a regular at the bar, as it were.
posted by corb at 3:40 PM on July 17 [10 favorites]

This is turning into a bad comedy act. "Office people say things like ______, while laborers are more like ______" holy shit do people really think that there is so much homogeneity in demographic groups?
This is very true and definitely not funny. People communicate in lots of different ways and it has fuck all to do with how they earn their living.

I definitely don't fit in here, i'm not part of "the community", and i can't imagine that i ever will be.
You're definitely part of this community and someone that has contributed a lot over a long time.

I think people can always be more thoughtful about how they comment here, but it's not viable to spend a lot of time thinking about how every person reading a comment might feel about what they think you meant by it. We can both be thoughtful about what we say and not assume bad intent from others.
posted by dg at 4:42 PM on July 17 [10 favorites]

My understanding is the academic practice of eschewing meta-language in writing and speaking was the result of modernism and Enlightenment values. A bunch of writing professors decided students should be taught to write this way to improve clarity of writing. Not only that, by forcing the writer to commit to an idea it required they then analyse and defend their assertions and thesis paragraphs. You couldn't hem-and-haw your thoughts (called hedging in writing manuals) and feelings and get out with weasel-words and vague meta-bracketed statements (there are books and papers explaining this and giving examples for students to practice on). That's the rationale for this kind of clarity and concision in writing--to make the writer responsible for scientific and scholarly rigor.

The problem arises is in a casual context such argumentative writing can be construed as clinical or arrogant. Or worse you could have "educated" people using rhetoric to talk down to others (or argue unconstructively with their peers) in a classist way.

So in my understanding there's both benefits and drawbacks in these stylistic practices. They are just tools, rules of thumb. There's no set rule, e.g. some people naturally prefer writing in 1st person and others write in 3rd person. Maybe what can help a bit is greater basic awareness of what these stylistic practices really are, and the fact that we as readers and writers have choices and can adapt according to the situation. A bit of play and trial and error can help too.
posted by polymodus at 5:25 PM on July 17 [7 favorites]

I feel like efforts to move people to use comforting language when genuinely disturbed about something are likely to fail, if for no other reason than people who have been disturbed by an event that just took place are not in that mindset.

I understand that people may look at something like the thread about the attempted assassination for reassurance that things aren't as bad as they fear. This idea may not be a good one. First, no one knows that. And second, few people are going to respond to an event like that in real time to reassure everyone that everything will be okay. I feel like respondents to such a thread will either be people who are freaking out, or people who are trying to determine what is actually going on, and whether it's something they should be freaking out about. Everyone else will be looking at a thread about something else, probably because they're trying not to freak out about it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:05 PM on July 17 [4 favorites]

>>I understand that people may look at something like the thread about the attempted assassination for reassurance that things aren't as bad as they fear. This idea may not be a good one. First, no one knows that.

Yes, but by that token, no one knows things really are that bad either. Again, no one knows anything at all about the future.

>>And second, few people are going to respond to an event like that in real time to reassure everyone that everything will be okay.

Wouldn't attempting to calm nerves and proposing solutions or empowering actions be a good thing? (except, of course, for accelerationists)

>>I feel like respondents to such a thread will either be people who are freaking out, or people who are trying to determine what is actually going on, and whether it's something they should be freaking out about. Everyone else will be looking at a thread about something else, probably because they're trying not to freak out about it.

Avoidance is a fair response and can sometimes be healthy, but I'd venture that those avoiding the discussion aren't relevant here.

Maybe freaking out might be self-soothing catharsis for certain individuals, but individuals freaking out might not soothing or cathartic for a given community.

Some people might feel like they're preparing for the worst-case scenario simply by feeling like they predicted it. Other people might feel like they're preparing for the worst-case scenario by looking for a silver lining anywhere and using that hope (?) to fuel them as they do everything possible to avert it.

Saying "we're fucked" might be taking the place of saying "help me from feeling helpless" for some. Others hear "we're fucked" and hear paralysis or defeatism, so they might answer with "we're not fucked. stop that." or "Not if we all do something like X about it".

If doomsaying or prognosticating the worst isn't a symptom of paralysis or defeatism, what does defeatism look like to that first group of people?
posted by donttouchmymustache at 7:46 PM on July 17 [4 favorites]

I'm not suggesting that this is what's happening in all the cases, but I think some people feel a certain relief by prognosticating the worst so they can feel their burden of responsibility lightened somewhat. That is, I think defeatism can be cathartic to some, whether they're aware of it or not. But again, it seems to me that defeatism is a type of luxury, and it certainly doesn't help a community or a team theoretically fighting against that defeat.
posted by donttouchmymustache at 7:59 PM on July 17 [2 favorites]

Maybe freaking out might be self-soothing catharsis for certain individuals, but individuals freaking out might not soothing or cathartic for a given community.

I think you really have to ask yourself what you expect to see when you open a thread about a hot button topic. If you're disappointed that you aren't seeing calm, measured conversation that takes everyone's emotional well-being into account, I guess my question is, what in your experience has led you to expect that in a moment of crisis? Literally nothing in my experience has led me to expect that. If anything, as crises mount in frequency and intensity, I feel as though the average person has only gotten worse at dealing with them. There was a time when "look for the helpers" seemed like good advice; "if you see other people, get away from them" is probably what I would now do if I were on the street when some calamity took place.

In any case, I don't think this is guidance that is likely to be followed. If had a dog, and my dog hated loud noises, I would not take my dog to a Fourth of July gathering. Practically, it makes more sense to just take my dog somewhere else than to try and fundamentally change the nature of fireworks so that they won't bother him.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 8:10 PM on July 17 [6 favorites]

Literally nothing in my experience has led me to expect that. If anything, as crises mount in frequency and intensity, I feel as though the average person has only gotten worse at dealing with them. There was a time when "look for the helpers" seemed like good advice; "if you see other people, get away from them" is probably what I would now do if I were on the street when some calamity took place.

Kittens for breakfast, then why are you seeking out these threads when crises hit? Do you want to be around other people, in a community? If so, for what reason?

I’ve been in a number of crises in the past few years and your experience has clearly been wildly different from mine. I’ve also been participating in multiple communities across this particular crisis and in none of them has it been such intense waves of despair, even though one of them is e.g. a local LGBT group in deep red country while Trump speaks in the county over.
posted by brook horse at 8:53 PM on July 17 [11 favorites]

No offense, brook horse, but I'm not especially interested in psychoanalysis. Why are any of us here, etc. Please see above for the point I don't think I can make any more clearly than I already have. I'm done with this.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:12 PM on July 17 [2 favorites]

I was speaking to the distinction between the two attitudes that EC mentioned. Basically, I don’t think there’s anyone truly feeling “we’re fucked” without also being scared and unsure. Insisting that they spell it out for you just strikes me as a very uncharitable way to be reading your peers.

I have direct experience with people who consistently and repeatedly say that we or the US are fucked, who are not particularly personally impacted. In fact, that’s the majority of my in-person experience with such commentary. Context: I’m an American who moved to Canada, and there are some power dynamics issues between the US and Canada where many Canadians worry about or are negatively impacted by the cultural and economic hegemony of the US. But the common response of erasing all political and power differences within the US doesn’t help anyone. Friends and family back in the US (of whom I have many) also report feeling similar with some of their acquaintances, however. Maybe these people in my and my friends/family’s personal experience are also scared and unsure, but not as much and they are primarily dumping into the onion/circle, not out - following the sexist or other -ist cultural practices of cis het white men seeking emotional comfort from those with less power than them. Given that is almost exclusively my in-person experience and the in-person experience of those I know personally, and given that folks in this MeTa thread seem to be saying that their inconvenience in having to think an extra moment about their phrasing is more important to them than not sending other people into anxiety or depression spirals or, in the most extreme cases, triggering others’ PTSD, why would assuming that “we’re fucked” is being said in a defeatist way be uncharitable and not, by exactly the same arguments as those making such pronouncements, merely realistic? That is, why do you get to impose your uncharitable assumptions on me, yet scold me for supposedly (based merely on your assumptions and not, as far as I can tell, on what I and others have repeatedly been saying in this thread about the impacts on us) imposing my uncharitable assumptions on you?

That way lies division and infighting. How about we all try to be more compassionate to each other. But not the one-sided compassion and unity that establishment Dems are calling for in the wake of the attempted assasination on Trump - which is kind of what it feels like those who are arguing against my MeTa post suggestion are saying (“no, we’re fine, you should do all of the accommodating”). How about, as I suggested in the post, we talk about small mutual accommodations that could help everyone? Like, ok, you (in the generic sense) have posted your fears as if they are objective prognostication because that was your first reaction and you are too stressed and at heightened anxiety state yourself to pause and think about your actions before opening Metafilter on your device and navigating to a thread on the topic and reading the discussion so far and then typing in your thoughts. Ok, it happens. So make a second post afterwards saying (EXAMPLE ONLY, NOT PROSCRIPTIVE PHRASING) something like “Thanks for letting me get that out of my system.” or “Sorry for raising other people’s anxiety with my last comment.” Or something. Anything. Be a human and indicate at least some smidgeon of care for fellow Mefites who maybe process things differently from you.
posted by eviemath at 4:40 AM on July 18 [5 favorites]

So this is not a rhetorical question: what is something that those of us who are harmed by the doom prognostication (I’m talking the stuff without analysis or informative links or anything, without even asking others for comfort or to share in your worry: the posts that are just getting your feelings out, with all of the rest of that being implicit and unspoken) can do, (i.e. say) in thread, that would help those of you who feel you need to blart the doom prognostication out without anything else before or after, that would help you feel heard or otherwise help you move to an emotional place where you could reciprocate and have the emotional bandwidth to also extend a similar courtesy to our emotional needs? (‘Cause not-doing and just remaining silent - the “just toughen up, buttercup” approach that some in this MeTa thread appear to be advocating - doesn’t seem to be effective at helping such fellow Mefites get into that place where they can also care for those who have different emotional responses to them, or who are harmed by their way of getting their emotional needs met.)
posted by eviemath at 5:01 AM on July 18

"as if they were objective prognostication"

Is that not what people have been saying they *aren't* doing? This feels like yet another thing that is going to drive down participation - the knowledge that if I don't perfectly qualify my comments, up to and including adding *further* comments to clarify that I'm not actually a god, in order to prevent the worst possible assumptions being made.

This feels like it's getting to a point where the goal of Metafilter is a that of a self-help group, with people trying to get others to certain emotional states, to make them "similarly courteous", basically to pre-soften what you're saying based on a very nebulous set of rules.

And, again, even if everyone is qualifying every comment with "IMO, I'm scared right now, please guide me to a place where I can be courteous to you, obviously I'm wrong and need to be proven so", I think there'd still be a lot of commenters coming back and saying that it's the mere presence of negative predictions that's the problem.

It feels like what's being asks for limits the expression of sincere, negative emotions to a pretty extreme degree, and assumes a very particular experience of Metafilter-as-space-for-making-others-grow that I don't think is universal or desired.
posted by sagc at 5:30 AM on July 18 [6 favorites]

Is that not what people have been saying they *aren't* doing?

People are saying that, and I believe you that that’s what you mean in your head. I’m talking about the comments where that detail is missing in the actual text. I don’t want to make assumptions about what other Mefites mean. Especialky, expecting me to make assumptions and fill in what is not written based on some criteria that you have in mind that I don’t know ahead of time and that isn’t within my personal experience is… unproductive, to say the least. So I’m asking Mefites to use their words, on this text based website, to tell us what they mean directly and without the need for assumptions. And then the other Mefites, such as yourself, won’t have to repeatedly say “isn’t it obvious?”, and I and others won’t have to repeatedly say “no, it isn’t to us”, and then you or others start thinking that we’re making negative assumptions about you, when what we’re doing is not making any assumptions and asking you to clarify.

And, again, even if everyone is qualifying every comment with "IMO, I'm scared right now, please guide me to a place where I can be courteous to you, obviously I'm wrong and need to be proven so", I think there'd still be a lot of commenters coming back and saying that it's the mere presence of negative predictions that's the problem.

Talk about taking people’s words out of context or assuming the worst.

If and when that becomes a problem, we can have a MeTa about it. You also seem to be reading more into my words than is actually there. I’m not asking anyone to not express worry or doom. I’m not asking anyone who doesn’t find solutioneering comforting to change and get comfortable with it and ask for solutions. Having solidarity in one’s worry can indeed be comforting, as I’ve consistently acknowledged, and other posters here have consistently acknowledged. No one is this thread is saying that there isn’t a place for that. Enforced positivity also does harm and is not something that I want, and is something that I know many of the other folks asking for some small concessions to those of us who also find the opposite extreme harmful have spoken out against. There is a middle ground. We’re asking to also make a place for the rest of us who live there.

Maybe this is an ask vs guess culture thing after all? I’m asking folks to add to their comments context so that I don’t have to guess; and I’m not making you guess at your impact, but telling you what it is so that, now that you know, going forward you can add to your comments something that ameliorates the harmful impacts currently being experienced if you happened to be one of the commenters in the original thread who was posting “we’re all fucked” with zero additional parts that indicate concern for fellow Mefites.
posted by eviemath at 6:28 AM on July 18

So I’m asking Mefites to use their words, on this text based website, to tell us what they mean directly and without the need for assumptions

They have already? I imagine some meant, "We're fucked." Which is their opinion, meaning, "I believe we are fucked." It's not that deep, to me. It's a difference in communication style, that's all, and that's normal. It won't be hashed out here or in any online space.

And the further point being made is, I believe, don't make assumptions. There is never a need for assumptions.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:04 AM on July 18 [1 favorite]

^ or what is above my comment - best assumptions only! I'd love to see that on MeFi, honestly.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:05 AM on July 18

It seems to me that the doomers have been asked to do something very small and specific: just qualify their predictions of future doom with an "I think" to soften them slightly.

They are tactically exaggerating that request into a much larger request that they qualify absolutely everything they say in order to have an excuse not to do even that very small thing.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:24 AM on July 18 [10 favorites]

back to assumptions and negativity, carry on

(Sorry. My above comment was dumb, not editing away. I want everyone to express themselves, but the accusations are heavy here).
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:49 AM on July 18

I don't think that this is really an issue of "I" statements or framing.

My question about kittens for breakfast's participation was not about an existential "why are we here" but trying to determine the purpose of participating in a thread (particularly in this manner) if your perspective is that you should get away from people in a crisis, and that you would not expect to see any sort of reassurance or support from your community in a crisis. This suggests to me a fundamental difference in the understood purpose of a community which is the actual problem rather than specific words used. That seems integral to figuring out how we communicate in a crisis but if kittens for breakfast doesn't want to discuss it further that's fine, I just have no idea how we can move forward from that as someone who is still a strong "look for the helpers" believer. If anyone else wants to weigh in they're welcome to.
posted by brook horse at 7:55 AM on July 18 [3 favorites]

Look, I’m telling you folks that “just make different assumptions when you read the statement” isn’t a useful suggestion because I’m not making negative assumptions to start with. You’re suggesting a solution to something that isn’t the problem, instead of listening to what is the problem, and listening to what I’m telling you would help. You are repeatedly making incorrect assumptions about what I’m saying, not even in the absence of detail but contrary to the detail that I have been repeatedly providing.

Think of it this way: another actually effective solution would be to put content warnings on the types of comments in question. An example of this for illustrative not proscriptive purposes would be:

“CW: doom




We’re all fucked.”

Heck, that would even make me laugh, causing positive impact instead of just avoiding harm.
posted by eviemath at 8:05 AM on July 18 [2 favorites]

Eviemath, I'm sorry, I'll bow out, because I really don't understand from what you said earlier. There is no need for assumptions, I agree. Without asking anyone to make qualifiers.

. I don’t want to make assumptions about what other Mefites mean. Especialky, expecting me to make assumptions and fill in what is not written based on some criteria that you have in mind that I don’t know ahead of time and that isn’t within my personal experience is… unproductive, to say the least. So I’m asking Mefites to use their words, on this text based website, to tell us what they mean directly and without the need for assumptions
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:11 AM on July 18

I really don't understand from what you said earlier.

Mentally adding an implicit “I believe” to “we’re all fucked” is an assumption on the intentions of the speaker. It may feel like so obvious or natural an assumption to you that you don’t even notice that it’s an assumption - an implicit hypothesis of the theorem, as it were. But I’m telling you that other experiences and perspectives exist where that can’t be taken for granted, highlighting that assuming the person writing “we’re all fucked meant it as their opinion and not objective fact is, indeed, an assumption.”

But I’m not trying to bully you out of this thread, and I also don’t need you to understand - it’s great for you that you haven’t had experiences that would cause you to see that as an implicit or hidden assumption, and that you aren’t feeling harm from the comments I’m referring to! I don’t want more people to be experiencing harms from the US politics threads! I’m asking you to believe that the small change will make a difference for me, even though you don’t understand why or how, and to care enough to work on making that small change or not getting upset when you inevitably forget and someone (politely) reminds you. (I mean, if they go full on yelling at you that you’re a terrible person, that would be different, though I haven’t seen that happen at all in the past.) It’s like with pronouns - the trying shows that you care, and it’s the showing care that is the piece that has been missing here (for me).

If you do still want to understand: a large part of this is because there is a real possibility that Trump will take the US election and that he and his team will subsequently be able to capture the structures of government enough to enact a de facto dictatorship, and what will keep those of us for whom that is a danger relatively more safe in that eventuality is communities and care. Adding an “I think” or something along those lines is a small token that shows care for other Mefites. Folks not only not expressing care proactively, but arguing that asking them to is an unfair imposition, heightens my fear because it is a concrete demonstration of my vulnerability, or the vulnerability of people I care about - if even adding two words to a Metafilter comment is too much to do for others, how likely will such a person be to help unarrest someone or otherwise take action if whatever US modern version of pogroms comes to pass? You may know that you would take the latter action even though you don’t take the former action, but I can’t read your mind so I don’t know that. Doing the former doesn’t necessarily imply that someone will do the latter, of course - eg. someone like Biden would say the soothing thing without any prompting or request but almost certainly not take any significant or effective action. But my experience, which includes relevant background from the whole Satanic Panic, is that, in every single case I’ve ever seen or heard or read about, people who don’t do the small care acts also won’t take the larger actions. Does that help my concern as well as my insistence or the level of urgency I’m bringing to this topic - why I’m talking about harm and not just feeling bad - make any more sense?
posted by eviemath at 8:41 AM on July 18 [5 favorites]

They have already? I imagine some meant, "We're fucked." Which is their opinion, meaning, "I believe we are fucked." It's not that deep, to me. It's a difference in communication style, that's all, and that's normal. It won't be hashed out here or in any online space.

And the further point being made is, I believe, don't make assumptions. There is never a need for assumptions.

I think I must define "assumptions" differently from others. To me, every act of communication is only possible because of compatible assumptions on the part of the communicators. For example, to believe that "we're fucked" is equivalent to "I believe we are fucked" is, in my framework, an assumption!

It might help that, for example, kittens for breakfast spells out that an "I believe that..." can be assumed to be an implicit prefix to whatever they say. Making assumptions explicit may help us understand each other better, at least on an intellectual level. I would guess that it will take time for those understandings to percolate into different emotional reactions to one another, though.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 8:42 AM on July 18 [2 favorites]

Ok got it so you believe both parties are assuming. I don't follow that, because I think that someone stating something that is unknowable, like an election outcome, is clearly their belief, without qualifiers. Agree to disagree on that.

’m asking you to believe that the small change will make a difference for me, even though you don’t understand why or how, and to care enough to work on making that small change or not getting upset when you inevitably forget and someone (politely) reminds you.

I believe that, but unfortunately I don't see how you'll ever see a sea change on that when it's a natural way many people speak. It's a fair ask, but not one where I hope you expect to see results on this site. I don't think its inherently wrong for someone not to put "I believe" or qualifiers on their opinions. Again, agree to disagree.

But my experience, which includes relevant background from the whole Satanic Panic, is that, in every single case I’ve ever seen or heard or read about, people who don’t do the small care acts also won’t take the larger actions

That is a huge assumption to me, and better abandoned, because it's very uncharitable towards other MeFites.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:17 AM on July 18 [3 favorites]

After reading this entire thread, I would propose that if it soothes your anxiety to post blanket doomer statements, type it up but don't post the comment. The effect will likely be the same on your emotional state and you won't be subjecting dozens of strangers to your strange coping mechanisms.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:44 AM on July 18 [3 favorites]

Threads about angst and panic do better than threads about community in action. Compare any US politics thread with one about what we can do for ourselves and our communities (today has a great example) and you can see which side MeFites would rather enthusiastically participate in. Full tilt boogie negativity and anger or reading about how people helping out others?

A post about mutual aid or getting involved: 8 comments

The most recent US politics thread re: Biden on Supreme Court reform: 93 comments

A most recent thread about US politics and Tenacious D of all things: 144 comments

It's not hard to see that fear gets more participation than possible hope.
posted by Kitteh at 9:56 AM on July 18 [13 favorites]

Why is everyone getting so stuck on the false concept that everyone is being asked to add “I believe” or somesuch to every comment? That was one suggestion for one strategy that might help lead to better understanding.

But the understanding I seem to be coming away with is that at least some people feel the need to post their expressions of despair without any particular goal other than screaming where others can hear them. While I understand and sympathize with this motivation, I think in the end (and try not to be offended by this) it’s a kind of shitposting. Like reflexively posting “first!” as the first comment in a thread, it doesn’t add anything to the conversation besides drawing attention to yourself. And if you don’t want a response, why the attention grab? When people attempt to soothe you or themselves from your existential wail, and then you or others push back that nothing can be soothed and everything is ruined forever (and I say this with love and embarrassment because I’ve said the same to my wife when I am catastrophizing), it derails the conversation. This has become common and predictable.

Are people really saying, “this is not a problem”? If we want to solve it, it will take both sides making an effort. People can try to avoid making comments that are just a cry of despair, and people who are bothered by those comments can try to be less reactive to them (when I am catastrophizing, I calm down quicker if people ignore me).

Does that seem like something people can try without taking umbrage?
posted by rikschell at 10:08 AM on July 18 [13 favorites]

But my experience, which includes relevant background from the whole Satanic Panic, is that, in every single case I’ve ever seen or heard or read about, people who don’t do the small care acts also won’t take the larger actions

I don’t think I or dysk or moggies or any of the other people in here who don’t agree with you are destined to become fascist collaborators. At a minimum, because most of us are significantly more marginalized than you are.

It’s very frustrating to have everything be couched in this kind of extreme rhetoric while being lectured to about how rhetoric can cause harm and we’re not sensitive enough to that.
posted by knobknosher at 11:37 AM on July 18 [8 favorites]

I’m asking folks to add to their comments context so that I don’t have to guess;

Eviemath, I think I would benefit from some ways in which you would appreciate context being added that don’t sound like opinion hedges. Is there a way people can be direct and forceful about their opinion while still being kind, that would address all concerns?
posted by corb at 12:52 PM on July 18 [2 favorites]

Is there a way people can be direct and forceful about their opinion while still being kind, that would address all concerns?

Yes

Like, ok, you (in the generic sense) have posted your fears as if they are objective prognostication because that was your first reaction and you are too stressed and at heightened anxiety state yourself to pause and think about your actions before opening Metafilter on your device and navigating to a thread on the topic and reading the discussion so far and then typing in your thoughts. Ok, it happens. So make a second post afterwards saying (EXAMPLE ONLY, NOT PROSCRIPTIVE PHRASING) something like “Thanks for letting me get that out of my system.” or “Sorry for raising other people’s anxiety with my last comment.” Or something. Anything.

a few

Think of it this way: another actually effective solution would be to put content warnings on the types of comments in question. An example of this for illustrative not proscriptive purposes would be:

“CW: doom




We’re all fucked.”

Heck, that would even make me laugh, causing positive impact instead of just avoiding harm.

ways

”… I would appreciate {select one or both of: ‘acknowledgement of my fear/anxiety’, ‘knowing that I’m not alone in this fear/anxiety, and that other people share it’, ‘solutions or suggestions for action to avoid or mitigate the negative outcomes’}.”

I can see that the variety of options that would work for me, personally, or the ultimate underlying issue of demonstrating care were not explicitly front and centre in my original MeTa post. Thank you for requesting clarification.
posted by eviemath at 1:35 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]

And, like, please suggest others and ask if they would fit the bill! I obviously am coming from a different perspective, so am not the best placed to suggest options that also meet your needs. Let’s work together on this.
posted by eviemath at 1:37 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]

I'd like to suggest considering whether "This is really fucking scary" is what you really mean by "We're fucked" and if so, consider using that instead. It's easy to default to language that elides or externalizes our emotion processing instead of acknowledging the fear we're facing. Saying "I'm scared" actually takes a lot of courage and I understand why people don't do it, but... if it's true for you, maybe think about whether you could say that.
posted by brook horse at 1:45 PM on July 18 [14 favorites]

for me it's as simple as saying, "I'm afraid we're fucked" vs "we're fucked."

When I see an admission of fear in there, I know I'm dealing with someone who's conscious of where they are emotionally. When I don't see it, I don't quite know what I'm dealing with. The fear is obvious but is it blind panic (a la Aliens guy), profound hubris driven despair (a la Denethor), or just someone not thinking there's a need to be more specific, because ... maybe the timer on the stove just went off and gotta go ...

Am I saying I always need to know where somebody's coming from emotionally? No. But when we're talking about doomish stuff -- it would help.

also what brook horse just said.
posted by philip-random at 1:47 PM on July 18 [4 favorites]

As a libertarian no longer affiliated with any political party since the Libertarian Party got taken over by the alt-right, I really don't understand the hopeless doom mongering. It drives me crazy that I spent 20 years busting my butt to help LP candidates max out at 4% of the vote, and then I look at you guys ready to just give up on a very achievable win because "phone calls scary" or whatever other mental block that's stopping most of you from doing something productive about it.

The only reason that it seems like Trump is "sure" to win after the assassination attempt is that his supporters are now extra motivated to vote. But Trump supporters are still a minority. If every adult citizen in the US voted then Democrats would win most elections in a landslide. This has been true for 20+ years.

Republicans still win elections because of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and being very good at identifying their supporters and getting them to vote. The Democrats seemed to figure out the latter briefly in 2008 -- Obama's GOTV campaign was a thing of beauty -- but have since forgotten.

Ugh I am so frustrated by watching you guys ready to give up when all you have to do to win is get your GOTV shit together that I am this >< close to volunteering to help phonebank and/or textbank for the Democrats myself. (Can't doorknock because of disabilities, plus I live in a solidly blue state so reaching out to voters in other states would be more effective.)

If everyone commenting in this thread spent some time volunteering on supporter identification and GOTV campaigns targeting swing states, we could collectively turn out tens of thousands of additional votes. If some of you also have the time and skills to recruit and train more GOTV volunteers, it could be hundreds of thousands of votes. Just from us here on MetaFilter.

Less time online, more direct one-on-one outreach to voters in swing states. Identify supporters, make sure they're registered to vote, motivate them to follow through and actually vote. It's a lot of work but it's very doable.

Fuck it, I'm calling my local Biden/Harris campaign office tomorrow to find out how to get set up to phonebank and/or textbank to swing state voters. AND I DON'T EVEN LIKE MOST OF THEIR PLATFORM, so I'll be cringing inside the whole time as I parrot their scripts. But if that's what it takes to defeat Trump, so be it.

If I can hold my nose and do it, then all y'all whose own ideology is much closer to their platform have zero excuse. Get your shit together, Dems.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:19 PM on July 18 [21 favorites]

Wow, the Dems' online volunteer intake process for textbanking is a shitshow. I guess the upside of the Libertarian Party being so small is that everyone knew to refer textbank volunteers to me (I ran the Presidential campaign textbanks in 2016 and 2020). Like I've spent 30 min and clicked a bunch of links and gotten nowhere other than filling out a form on my state party's website, which, per Google Maps reviews, they're not very responsive to. So far every attempt to find a textbanking volunteer sign up form for the Biden/Harris national campaign has redirected to a donation page or a "this event has ended" message.

Okay I understand the hopelessness a little more if they're making it this difficult for a motivated person who used to run textbanks as her actual job to help. When I was running the LP textbanks, someone who had put in a similar amount of effort would have already downloaded the app and automaticallly been sent a link to training materials and chat room by now. All they'd be waiting on is for me or one of my assistants to assign them a contacts list, which we did multiple times per day.

What the fuck, how are the Dems worse at this that the Libertarians? Like holy shit, all y'all really are determined to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. The things I could have done with your resources. Grrr.

I will just walk in to the local campaign office tomorrow and talk to a human face-to-face and find out what the actual process is, then report back here so that everyone else can sign up too.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:12 PM on July 18 [8 favorites]

Jacqueline, a lot of smaller advocacy groups seem to be doing a ton of phone/text-banking. I know SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) has been texting me constantly to get me to phone/text-bank.
posted by lapis at 7:33 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]

Yeah that it seems to be split across a zillion little independent groups is one of my frustrations. That's so inefficient.

Textbanking has tremendous economies of scale. I was the sole paid employee for the LP textbank and was able to manage 400+ volunteers sending millions of texts, because I used the same textbank we used to contact voters to efficiently recruit, train, and mobilize volunteers.

Why are progressives and leftists divided into a zillion different orgs each with their own textbanks? If the end goal is to get people to vote for Democrats then why not run one big textbank via the national party or Presidential campaign?
posted by Jacqueline at 8:32 PM on July 18 [2 favorites]

Dunno, but you’re very much right; I did some knocking for signature curing in the days after the 2020 election, and boy was it a mess; most of the doors that actually answered had been contacted multiple times that day already. None of them were marked that way in the app for the org I was volunteering for, because there were who knows how many different orgs trying to do the same thing.
posted by nat at 8:44 PM on July 18 [2 favorites]

And that is more why I don't do the phone/text-banking. (I'm doing lots of other things, mostly at a more local level, to improve things. I'm not sure harassing voters in Ohio is actually helpful.)
posted by lapis at 8:52 PM on July 18

(I mean, unless you live in Ohio. Then you should harass Ohio voters.)
posted by lapis at 8:53 PM on July 18 [1 favorite]

I live in AZ, so I should find a good way of harassing AZ voters, but I just had Covid last week. You know what, lemme ask a askme about this.
posted by nat at 9:45 PM on July 18 [3 favorites]

eviemath: I would still like to dig into what this is about: "Using the context that I know about you, that you are British, puts that in rather a more negative light than my general default assumptions would." It doesn't sound like kindness.
posted by biffa at 4:37 AM on July 19

Yeah that it seems to be split across a zillion little independent groups is one of my frustrations. That's so inefficient.

we're deep enough in the thread that i feel okay being off-topic: i just wanted to report that i got a genuine chuckle out of a former libertarian party activist bemoaning a lack of centralised coordination
posted by busted_crayons at 4:45 AM on July 19 [17 favorites]

Biffa, it's pretty clear to me that the poster has a more negative view of British people assuming cultural supremacy because [World History 1600-Present]
posted by Jarcat at 9:43 AM on July 19 [3 favorites]

Americans and British people are on par when it comes to assuming/imposing cultural norms. Beyond that, though, it’s not great behavior to drop ad hominems like that. At this point, the level of patience people are demonstrating in response to repeated insults is pretty impressive.
posted by knobknosher at 9:49 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]

like, please suggest others and ask if they would fit the bill!

So I think one thing I struggle with is knowing whether my statements are doomy or not. Like, what makes something doomy rather than just bleak? I am also wondering if it would help if I tried to assign confidence levels to predictions? I’m not saying I would remember to do it all the time, but it’s a CBT trick that helps manage anxiety about bad outcomes that might be helpful for others, like so instead of saying:

“I think Trump is going to win now”

Saying, “Unless circumstances radically change, I think it’s an 85% likelihood that Trump is going to win the election.”
posted by corb at 10:17 AM on July 19 [3 favorites]

If we're talking about site policy wherein certain comments can be flagged as being too doomish (or whatever) and appropriate action taken, I suppose the adjective I'd attach is "recklessly".

so yeah, flagged as "recklessy doomish"

My old Webster's New World dictionary (currently mostly in use as a doorstop) defines reckless rather simply as "rash, heedless", so I guess we're speaking of an action taken which doesn't give a shit about consequences, hasn't even bothered to consider such. I don't see how that level of doomism helps anybody.

Specific to corb's comment, I'd say “I think Trump is going to win now” isn't even that bad insofar as it allows me to politely reply, "I think otherwise." Whereas something like "TRUMP IS GONNA WIN NOW WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" isn't really inviting any response. Not from me anyway beyond an equally brash "FUCK YOU, YOU'RE WRONG"
posted by philip-random at 11:15 AM on July 19 [1 favorite]

Note: "fuck you" at another user is directly against site policy.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:34 AM on July 19

I’m not the OP, but have been assuming this is just an ask/discussion, not a policy thing.

For me, it’s not about the exact statement. It’s about the way a doomsday scenario or a possible negative outcome is stated as fact and also gets hammered either via volume or via people actually responding over and over.

Imagine if in the thread that’s an example, a bunch of people said “this will unite the left” or “this is sure to result in gun control” over and over. I think if you flip a statement to something like “Trump will lose now” you can see why that kind of declaration can come across like insisting on an emotional tenor and a reaction as well as a crystal ball.

Or not. I have to admit what I’ve learned from this thread is that my feeling that participating in doom-heavy threads by sharing more positive thoughts or information is likely to result in people just insisting on the doom over and over, is probably more correct than I thought. I already avoid climate change threads for that reason.

I’ll admit this sense is informed by the fact that a statement that reads as suicidal intent has 25 favourites right now, which makes me just really sad, and makes me think of very dark discussions where people later insist they weren’t serious.

I’m sad the microaggression aspects got buried, but maybe we all agree on those. I hope. That is more a moderation issue.
posted by warriorqueen at 11:51 AM on July 19 [8 favorites]

Biffa, it's pretty clear to me that the poster has a more negative view of British people assuming cultural supremacy because [World History 1600-Present]

Hate speech then?
posted by biffa at 12:40 PM on July 19

No, I'm actually a fan of speech thanks for asking
posted by Jarcat at 1:42 PM on July 19 [4 favorites]

FYI the ask I posted about GOTV work as a few good comments now, I’m trying some of those, in case anyone else here wants some suggestions.
posted by nat at 3:35 PM on July 19 [6 favorites]

I already avoid climate change threads for that reason.

Climate change is kind of my big interest, and there was an interesting study I wanted to post about this week, but I literally could not see how the discussion would go well at all. It's about a little scientific finding that has an interesting outcome that isn't in itself, like, the end of the world--but if I post "hey look at this interesting thing climate change is doing" and it's followed by comments about how everyone will die in famine and flame, I'd be kinda disappointed in the reception.
posted by mittens at 3:58 PM on July 19 [9 favorites]

Damn, mittens, I’d really like to see that post, but I can see why you wouldn’t make it. I hope you do, but if not I hope you’ll pass off the link in a LinkMe so someone can.
posted by nat at 5:25 PM on July 19 [2 favorites]

In my experience, corb, you’re pretty good at noticing reactions in comment threads. For me, if, when you notice that the tenor of a doomy thread is negatively impacting others and you’ve contributed to that, you say something after the fact to show care for those negatively impacted, I would find that helpful in the way I was thinking of (even though I didn’t think of that option when I first posted the MeTa). Some folks aren’t as good at noticing their impact, and if that concerns them and they want to be kinder to those of us who are struggling with the doom-focused threads when we want to stay informed about current events and get multiple perspectives or analysis; for them, a more proactive approach would be more effective at that goal.
posted by eviemath at 6:27 PM on July 19 [1 favorite]

Americans and British people are on par when it comes to assuming/imposing cultural norms.

Since around the mid 1940s or so, the US has certainly been working hard at catching up to Britain/the UK in terms of cumulative hegemonic impact around the world. I also call out my fellow Americans imposing their standards on threads about non-US politics. The thread that this MeTa post is about happens to be a US politics thread, so US norms are relevant and not an imposition in this case. Regardless, it’s a moot point here since Dysk corrected my assumption and clarified that they are not in fact British.

(* Notice that is “moot” in the American, not British, sense.)
posted by eviemath at 6:34 PM on July 19

Omg, someone just posted this nonpolitical thread, and 2 of the 6 comments (33%!) are just full on negativity. The first comment is just dismissive speculative negativity.

This is site culture. It’s not gonna change.
posted by rhymedirective at 6:25 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]

Or how about the only comment on this nonpolitical thread?
posted by mmoncur at 6:48 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]

On the other hand, this thread isn't negative or dismissive, and the subject of the FPP itself contains a very good reflection on the kind of people who need to make shitty comment on everything.
posted by phunniemee at 7:03 AM on July 20 [7 favorites]

My understanding of MetaFilter: First, be civil. This covers a lot of ground. Though their rules are the same, differences in nuance govern the Green, the Blue, and the Gray. My opinion is based on MetaFilter's Prime Mandate of Civility, from which other guidelines flow.

I recognize the opinions of those who don't need an extra burden of angst just now (or, well, ever). I respectfully suggest that not everyone has the appropriate rhetorical tools to subtly expose their deepest anxieties or that stuffing them down below the threshold of screaming into the void is even a good idea. We are all snowflakes on this bus. I have certain triggers; for example, Christmas time has generated several beasts in my closet. I get depressed, and certain images from many years ago link themselves in a feedback loop intense enough to make it hard for me to sleep. I avoid Christmas cheer as much as I can. MeFites may think it unreasonable if I ask them to just hold down all that fucking Christmas cheer a bit. And Don't Get Me Started on That Merry Little Elf, Santa fucking Claus. I am not making this shit up.

While Commenters ought to be aware of dog whistles (and use them wisely), Readers are responsible for what they choose to read. A thread's theme may invite strong emotions.
posted by mule98J at 9:11 AM on July 21 [3 favorites]

we're deep enough in the thread that i feel okay being off-topic: i just wanted to report that i got a genuine chuckle out of a former libertarian party activist bemoaning a lack of centralised coordination

Also, thank you Jacqueline. You're the best. I'm a natural catastrophist with a whole boatload of (Dianosed!) anxiety, but even if the doomers are right, I'd rather go down trying to help than saying I told you so.
posted by thivaia at 11:03 AM on July 22 [3 favorites]

huh wow i am quite the opposite of a doomer; i am an absolute pollyanna about what we could collectively accomplish and also an absolute pollyanna, evidently, about my neighbours' capacity to have actual feelings, and hey look there's a ghoulish mod-enforced orthodoxy of doomerism disguised as celebration. real danse macabre energy in the us politics threads.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:25 AM on July 23 [3 favorites]

brunch macabre
posted by busted_crayons at 4:26 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]

postprandial macabre
posted by y2karl at 2:45 PM on July 23

i just wanted to report that i got a genuine chuckle out of a former libertarian party activist bemoaning a lack of centralised coordination

The Libertarian Party has never had enough people or resources to split up into a zillion little groups each doing their own thing.

I'm also beginning to suspect that I'm simply an exceptionally good textbank manager. Because I finally overcame the Democrats' terrible volunteer onboarding system and signed up to text voters in swing states only to discover that they're using technology that is 8+ years out of date, their training materials are bad, etc.

All this time I'd assumed that the Dems had to be waaaaay better at everything than me because y'all have so many resources and people, but it seems that being chronically under-resourced forced me to get good fast.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:33 PM on July 24 [1 favorite]

That is similar to the experience that I had moving from a small company (50-55 employees, single location) to a huge global company (200+ employees in the US; 40,000+ worldwide). I thought I was moving up to the big boys and the systems and technology would be amazing but lololololol was that super wrong. I think the bigger ones suffer from too much inertia that they can’t keep up with the times or change processes since you need a committees to form the committees to decide what to do next.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:18 PM on July 24 [4 favorites]

> [content note: content notes]
> what is doomerism? / > how am I supposed to not doomsay?
"there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic that the future will be better — if we make it so" [vox]
cf. knowledge, situated

Speaking as one of the commenters whose (deleted) comment sparked this MeTa: i do not believe that the people talking about I-statements will actually be satisfied by them.

What I said in the other thread, which was deleted, was:

"Oh, Biden is SO going to lose."...

as Biden stepped aside, this thread moot...afilter, imo
posted by HearHere at 9:30 PM on July 24 [1 favorite]

as Biden stepped aside, this thread moot...afilter, imo

Now there's not enough doom in the threads.
posted by mittens at 6:56 AM on July 25 [6 favorites]

That specific and certain prediction of doom, that Biden would lose, wasn't moot, it was an objectively wrong statement.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:59 AM on July 25 [1 favorite]

We don’t know if it was wrong or not, because it will never be tested: thus, moot.
posted by corb at 9:09 AM on July 25 [2 favorites]

No. The doomers were wallowing in misery and self-pity over Biden's inability to beat Trump. But then Biden took a deliberate action: if he couldn't beat Trump, he'd stand down in favor of someone who maybe could. Action beat doom.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:27 AM on July 25 [3 favorites]

yeah, damn those "doomers" for...not being able to control whether Biden resigned?

this is just a weird hill to die on, the people commenting in these threads do not have the same power as Biden obviously...
posted by knobknosher at 3:16 PM on July 25 [3 favorites]

Reading through all these comments I think it's fair to say that different people use this site in different ways, and that it might be worth checking yourself when you find yourself going "Well, obviously the purpose of Metafilter is x and it's unreasonable to use it in y way"

Some people post comments without expecting or wanting any reaction. In fact, that approach kind of supported by the general ethos of "don't get too chatty" and "don't derail". It's not an unreasonable way to behave.

I personally don't use Metafilter in that way, but I can understand how that would work for others.

I'm also a bit disturbed by the apparent assumptions about working class vs middle class? The "working class salt of the earth say it like it really is, middle class are ephete eletists out of touch with reality" is unfortunately a trope beloved by fascists and I'd love to see less of it here.
posted by Zumbador at 11:53 PM on July 25 [3 favorites]

The "working class salt of the earth say it like it really is, middle class are ephete eletists out of touch with reality"

Did anyone say this? We talked about speech patterns, and I posited that mefi can be somewhat unwelcoming to people who aren't middle class (like most of mefi) but nobody claimed any group is better or worse than the other. No group is the salt of the earth, we're all just people, but we do all get equal claim to exist and take up space.

Like, this is some next-level tendentious reading.
posted by Dysk at 1:03 AM on July 26 [1 favorite]

A better example of doomers being wrong is all the folk who were certain the election was now in the bag for Trump the moment of the assassination attempt.
posted by Klipspringer at 6:14 AM on July 26 [3 favorites]

Doomer rationalizations are hilarious.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:49 AM on July 26 [1 favorite]

Colonizer projections would be hilarious if they weren't so ubiquitously damaging to just about every sphere of influence they come into contact with.

'Biden was going to lose' was so objectively wrong that Biden himself agreed with it enough to take action.

Liberals and hyperbole when it suits them, "objective" headcanon when it doesn't, name a more iconic duo.
posted by CPAnarchist at 9:59 AM on July 26 [2 favorites]

I'm a mixed race Guyanese / Indian. Not exactly hilarious but mildly amusing that a pompous white guy is calling me a "colonizer".
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:45 AM on July 27 [6 favorites]

Biden still has the unexpected option to resign and make Harris president. This is rarely championed as a strategy, but it fits with a leading prediction rubric of victory.
posted by Brian B. at 9:29 AM on July 27

”Trump just won” always had an implicit “if things continue on this particular trajectory/context” attached that was quite obvious to most readers

Source? It was most definitely not obvious to me.
posted by eviemath at 4:57 PM on July 27 [3 favorites]

moggies, just because you disagree with the way several of us read your comments, does not mean our explanations are in bad faith.

To simply ignore the data we have presented about our own interpretation is a weird choice. You have the option to make a better one.
posted by nat at 6:56 PM on July 27 [4 favorites]

I have a strong (bordering upon unshakable) personal faith in the idea that most readers had a suspicion

Yes, speaking of bad faiths, the fact that this belief you hold about your fellow Mefites is based in faith and not responsive to what people are telling you about their actual experience is a problem.
posted by eviemath at 5:22 AM on July 28 [1 favorite]

🤦‍♀️
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:11 AM on July 29 [1 favorite]

I'm a mixed race Guyanese / Indian. Not exactly hilarious but mildly amusing that a pompous white guy is calling me a "colonizer".

Mildly amusing because, after you projected for multiple comments, laid down "objective" truth, and the sock puppet comment was deleted (which def wasn't you), you still felt compulsively compelled to give an inaccurate description of someone as an ad hominem?

My words describe your actions. Yours describe your assumptions. You don't have to be a colonizer for your actions to be such. Though shitty actions do make you a shitty person when they pile up.
posted by CPAnarchist at 5:34 PM on July 30

So: i've been trying to use "I statements" in the Kamala Harris thread, and as i predicted, people are still shitting on me for being some sort of no-fun horrible human being with no sense of whatever. Go figure!!!
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:53 PM on July 30 [2 favorites]

Well, your statements definitely read better to me. But obviously I can’t represent anyone else. Alas.
posted by nat at 12:01 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]

I’m sorry, adrienneleigh :( I think there’s a different dynamic in that thread that makes my request in this MeTa less applicable(*), but I have also noticed and super appreciate your efforts. And I do think it has positively influenced the level of discussion in that thread, despite the resistance of some other commenters. (From what I’ve read anyways - I haven’t been following the thread closely, so see some mod comments alluding to deleted posts still.)

(* While I, personally, find Biden and Harris relatively equally centrist and my approach to voting hasn’t changed with the candidate, the overall tone in the Harris thread feels very different from the overall tone in the older Biden thread. I’m sure many people are still quite anxious about the election, but there also seems to be a sense of relief among many of our fellow Mefites that I think changes the care dynamics a bit.)
posted by eviemath at 6:08 AM on July 31

And as far as i can tell, none of the people who want me to be on Team Harris give a single shit about actually "pushing her left", they all just want me to shut the fuck up until after the election, at which point they'll happily go back to brunch.

It's stuff like this that veers from a personal statement. I get you're angry, but it's clear some people are going to think you're talking about people in the thread, and not, like, your personal life.

And maybe you are? But no one said "shut the fuck up" so to me it reads like an escalation.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:20 AM on July 31 [4 favorites]

This thread referred to using I statements for proclamations that xyz is definitely going to happen re: the election. It’s not a panacea for all frustrating/hurtful behavior. I haven’t seen people go “shut up doomer” about stating opinions about how the election will go (in that thread), but I have seen pushback on the not voting conversation and dismissal of marginalized people in America which is an entirely different topic.
posted by brook horse at 6:22 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]

So much of this, for me, bears relevance to the concept of "stay in your lane." Or, be mindful when you are in a shared lane.
Going back to primary school language education, sentences have a subject. What is the subject of your statements here?
You are the world's expert on your experiences, opinions, priorities. For these to be the subject of your sentence is perfectly valid, even if they're doomy. (I think Trump is going to win)
The world we share, though? That is shared. Making statements with the shared world as the subject carries some more responsibility. (Trump is going to win)

That's not an entirely fair or compassionate assertion to put on our co-created world.

It's not necessarily the responsibility of the reader to rewrite your sentences for you to explicate/reassign the subject of your sentence. Some of us do rely on grammar to grab meaning, especially in a place where the principle of do-what-labor-is-yours-to-do is openly championed, especially as too many things in life add to the cumulative effect of people putting their labor into other people's responsibility baskets.
posted by droomoord at 9:03 AM on July 31 [1 favorite]

FWIW I tend to avoid "I think", "I feel", "I believe" statements because they're redundant and unnecessary (of course, obviously true because these are my words that I'm saying after all!).

That said, I've found IRL there are a number of times where people would have received my message much better had I softened it with such statements, i.e. not so declarative.

I think communication is complicated.
posted by mazola at 9:08 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]

I'll go you one further. I think communication is complex.
posted by philip-random at 10:09 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]

Now I think communication is complex.
posted by mazola at 10:26 AM on July 31 [2 favorites]

FWIW I tend to avoid "I think", "I feel", "I believe" statements because they're redundant and unnecessary

And if you’re just among people of similar opinion, you do you.

But that’s not the case here on Metafilter. In particular, these are not redundant or unnecessary additions to me.
posted by eviemath at 10:38 AM on July 31 [3 favorites]

Well, yes. I realize that.
posted by mazola at 10:41 AM on July 31

Ah, thanks. You might perhaps have thought that was implied at some point, but it was not heretofore clear to me (for basically the same reasons).
posted by eviemath at 10:53 AM on July 31

trying to determine the purpose of participating in a thread (particularly in this manner) if your perspective is…that you would not expect to see any sort of reassurance or support from your community in a crisis. This suggests to me a fundamental difference in the understood purpose of a community which is the actual problem rather than specific words used. That seems integral to figuring out how we communicate in a crisis but if kittens for breakfast doesn't want to discuss it further that's fine, I just have no idea how we can move forward from that as someone who is still a strong "look for the helpers" believer. If anyone else wants to weigh in they're welcome to

brook horse, i send as much support for your work as i am able. i have appreciated your writings here, so i am writing to weigh in.

when i initially commented on this thread, i hadn’t read the other thread being referred to. I tend to avoid threads which connect to politics for all the reasons people have mentioned. that particular one also went on for a while. there were almost 1200 comments when i finally clicked on it!

although initially worried, based on some of the comments in this thread, i was happy to see that there were comments in that other thread which were helpful/helpers. I will share a few:

a connection to a resource on media literacy especially focused on breaking news:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-pdf/, advice for someone encountering the situation, kindness to fellow mefites, & possibilities for constructive acts

many people spoke with with ‘I’ statements & several other comments were helpful. having now read that entire thread, i feel like i need to take a break for a while!!

i will say that i do strive to be helpful when writing here. if that's not possible, reasons i participate in threads include: the topic is interesting/intriguing &/or it seems fun/somehow brings me joy. in that spirit, i sign off with a response to my favorite comment from that other thread:

I mean, if you're not sobbing in the shower with your clothes on, why on earth are you repeatedly listening to Nothing Compares 2 U?

this
posted by HearHere at 1:11 PM on August 2

Sorry for blowing up in here, y'all. Reactionary identity politics caught me off footed. Add the misgendering and I was over it.

My apologies, especially to y'all having productive discourse.

Hope y'all are well.
posted by CPAnarchist at 10:05 AM on August 4 [4 favorites]

The Grouch has been strong in this thread.
posted by y2karl at 3:32 PM on August 6