The Utopian Myth

At that party the other night, where someone was complaining about the Vegan Freak Forums, I suggested that person join the Vegan Represent Forums instead.  Someone else pointed out the various faults with those forums and some people on there.  I won’t go into those alleged faults here, because I don’t do that sort of thing.  (Notice a pattern here?)

Here’s the thing with the Internets and with all the other ways humans organize themselves: we’re human!  We’re going to fuck up, make mistakes, disagree, upset each other, get pissed off, have misunderstandings, and not always like each other.  It’s a part of being alive.  We shouldn’t expect to find a utopia, on the Internet or IRL.  They don’t exist.

Like I said before, if you really think you can do better, start your own online community.  Eventually, if you’re successful, you’ll have to make hard decisions, and some people won’t like them, or you.  You will be called a nazi, fascist, authoritarian, or just plain mean.  You cannot make everyone happy, all you can do is try to keep some order.  The Internet is full of trolls, attention whores, and idiots.  Their behavior should not be tolerated.  Not everyone agrees on what behavior qualifies as trollish, and sometimes people make mistakes.  Sometimes trolls have the best intentions.  Sometimes things that are seemingly unoffensive to the poster reflect that persons insensitivity or ignorance to the plight of others.  Whether or not the cause is ignorance or malice, it shouldn’t be tolerated.

There are no utopias.  We can only do our best in the communities we have, for now.

Internet communities revisited

I know I’ve ranted about this before, but after the potluck I was at Saturday night, it’s worth repeating.

I would have had a lovely time at the potluck, were it not for the fact that there were some disgruntled members of the Vegan Freak Forums there, who felt it appropriate to spend the entire night complaining about how the forums are run, how the mods are Nazis (Godwin’s Law), etc. etc.

The people who run the forums are providing a service, of their own good free will, and they have no obligations or duty to do so.  It is up to those people to run it as they see fit.  If you don’t like it, you have no obligation to stay there.  Start your own forums, or find a community that better suits you.  If we ban someone, that’s our discretion.  If you don’t like our decisions, go away.  Honestly, why is that so difficult to understand for some people?  Why do all these people feel entitled, like we owe them an explanation as to how we run things?

People need to grow up.

On the other hand, why should I give a flying fuck what these people think?  I really don’t.  They just wanted to vent about decisions we’ve made; so be it.  I’m not going to read too much into what people say at a party after having a few drinks.  I don’t think, in the case of some people, it was necessarily a personal attack.  (Okay, the Nazi remark is, but so the fuck what?)  I’m not going to read too much into this, as the complaints say more about the complianer’s sense of entitlement than about anything we’re doing.  And the fact of the matter is, we’re still a vibrant and active community.  So we must be doing something right.

With all due Christian love and respect, all I can say is fuck the haters.  They can go play elsewhere.

RANT: We’ve forgotten how to argue!

This is such a prevalent problem in modern society that I’m not even sure where to begin. (In other words, expect this to be a long and rambling rant.)

First, if I disagree with you, and show that your position is not logically sound, no matter how attached to your position you are, no matter how much you like your views or how many years you’ve spent “thinking about it,” my disagreement with your position is not a personal attack on you. My disagreement is not a personal judgment against you beyond the obvious fact that I am judging you to be wrong on that issue.

Second, my disagreement with you does not entitle either of us to resort to ad hominem attacks. Do I really need to say more on this issue?

Third, your credentials, your experience, and your intuition, are all useless against logic. Your experience is not a universal. Your intuition is not infallible. Furthermore, my insistence on the importance of an argument being logically sound (that is, both valid and true) does not mean you can dismiss my argument as vanguardist or part of the “academic patriarchy.” Such dismissals are, by nature, anti-intellectual and do not directly argue for your case or against mine.

Fourth, your opinion is of no use to me or anyone else. If I’m ordering a pizza, I’ll ask for your opinion. Your opinion has no place in rigorous debate.

Finally, I will never “agree to disagree.” If I’m right, I will not concede for polite society or for the sake of others’ feelings. If I’m wrong, then I hope I’m humble enough to admit so, learn from my mistakes, and move on. I’m human; I’m bound to be wrong sometimes, but that is no excuse for being slothful in the pursuit of the truth, or for clinging to a comfortable lie.

I’ll return to this, expound on it, and build it into a full article. I just had to get some things off my chest now.

Internet communities

The Internet can be a wonderful resource for information, exchanging ideas, or just viewing naughty things. I find that 99% of the time I’m online, I’m usually level-headed.  Instead of blurting out what I’m thinking, I’ll take time to cool down, post a balanced reply, and leave it at that.  (The other 1%, well, I’m only human and I do lose my cool sometimes.  But when I realize that, I back off instead of continuing to read and become more irritated.)  If I feel I don’t fit into a community, I’ll leave.  If I do leave, I do not crawl over to other places on the Internet and bitch publicly about how stupid/annoying/fascist/elitist/dense/etc. people on such-and-such forums are.  As a moderator on the Vegan Freak Forums, I’ve been truly amazed by how many of our former users have left to go on to bitch about us.  I won’t name the individuals, blogs, or Internet communities in question; if you’re really curious, Google it.  Some have left on their own, others have been banned.  People have said all sorts of nasty things about us, most of which simply isn’t true.

I’m quickly learning to ignore what people say online.  It’s really not worth the frustration to take it seriously, and I have better things to do with my life.

Too much net-surfing, not enough time

The Internets are ruining my life. I’m on sites I never dreamed I’d be on. I’m on friggin’ MySpace, FFS! I’m also on other forums and networking sites. I spend way too much time wondering why people haven’t responded to friend requests yet. It’s so silly, I forget that people have better things to do, including myself.

I went to yet another church last Sunday, this time it was a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The service was nice, albeit a little boring. They had a fellowship dinner following the service. I explained I’m a vegan and don’t go to any meals where meat is served. So I went home. I can’t stand to be in the presence of people as they’re eating flesh. I can barely stand to be in the presence of vegetarians as they’re eating eggs or dairy. Why do people find it so difficult to extend basic compassion to those outside their own species? I think most people would go vegan if they had to do the dirty business of “food” acquisition themselves.

My PC is on the fritz. I need to replace the heatsink. It’s easy enough to do once I can get around to getting the replacement part. In the meantime, I’m on an old Mac iBook. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so slow and the touchpad wasn’t so friggin’ sensitive. Every time I’m typing something, the cursor will jump to wherever the pointer is, and I get annoyed.

Christmas day I’ll be flying back up North to see my friends and family. I haven’t seen them since moving down here in August. It’ll be nice to see everyone, but I’m going to miss my husband, who is staying home because he can’t handle the cold.

I’m a heartless bastard.

I have no soul and I’m cursed with one hundred years bad luck. I also will never find my soulmate. (In spite of the fact that I’m happily married to the man of my dreams.) I will never be able to find employment again, and I’m sure I’m going to die in a freak accident any day now. I know all this because countless e-mails that have been forwarded to me have told me all this will happen if I “break the chain” and don’t pass on the message to everyone I know.

What pisses me off more than the sappy trite that people forward to me, is the occasional jingoistic, brainless, if-you-don’t-forward-this-you-must-hate-America garbage people sometimes send me. Sometimes these e-mails play on the emotions of people by referencing 9/11. They are typically racist, discriminatory against Muslims, non-English speaking peoples, and immigrants.

What follows is in response to all the garbage e-mails I receive, and the random garbage that’s floating around elsewhere on the Internets:

I ‘m currently living in a part of the United States where a good portion of the population speak Spanish. Because of that, I’m going to start learning Spanish. I’m not going to insist that people learn English to live in “my” country. This country is as much theirs as it is mine.

The vast majority of devout Muslims are not terrorists. The ACLU is not out to destroy religion. Being critical of our president, our government, the war, and the actions of troops serving in those wars, does not a terrorist make.

I have better things to do with my time than read and propagate garbage. Please keep it out of my inbox.

Hello world!

I’ve decided to move my blog from the painfully buggy Blogger site to here. Yay!