Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain’t dead. Remember, don’t downvote for disagreements.
I’m generally leaning towards progressive or left-wing ideas, but with a few exceptions.
- While I support the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, I believe that DEI initiatives are highly susceptible to exploitation because of the widespread and largely uncritical public support of the concept (or even just the abbreviation) with little regard to the implementation; and by tokenizing ethnicity, gender, and identity, it is at risk of doing what it was meant to prevent.
- I believe that law enforcement is a deeply flawed system to say the least, but ultimately necessary because the alternatives are lawlessness or ineffectual systems. This is of course colored by my European perspective where guns and driver’s licenses aren’t handed out like candy.
- The “tolerance is a social contract” mentality is hurting society. A person who experiences rejection and exclusion from progressive communities for voicing “intolerant” opinions will not be interested in reconciliation, and will inevitably fall in with a more radical group where they experience acceptance and belonging, where they will never be exposed to different ideas and their views will never be challenged. Integration should be sought whenever reasonable.
The last point is especially important to me. I grew up in a fairly conservative environment, and it took me a lot of conscious effort to un-learn my prejudices and learn acceptance. But whenever I get downvoted and shouted down for voicing an opinion that aligns with conservatives, or simply isn’t “leftist” enough, it makes me want to distance myself from “leftist” ideology and adds to my disillusionment.
There is an option in your settings so you don’t see upvotes or downvotes.
Lemmy (AFAIK) doesn’t even show you your total upvotes (karma… whatever it’s called) by default either. None of these imaginary points matter.
(Lemmy is rad)
As someone who was in a supportive relationship with a transgender person for 3 years and who personally struggles associating with my own gender (masculinity was never my thing lol), I never really got into the stating my gender pronouns.
I get why it’s done for the times it matters and can do so in a sensitive space, but I get the sense it’s usually done as public compliance (like a cis neolib as an email sig), which can lead to shallow support or worse, resentment. What we ultimately need is more genuine contact with people different from ourselves because that helps reduce “othering” a group.
Oh, but I do tend to default to “they” out of old internet habits. Always disliked the assumption all gamers are men.
Ima be honest. I just don’t fuck with pronouns. I’ll typically use they even if I know what their preferred ones are. That or whatever feels better for what I’m talking about.
You are describing intentional misgendering. That’s against our instance rules, so make sure you use preferred pronouns for folks who display them.
Can using neutral pronouns be misgendering? I was always under the impression that they’re universally applicable regardless of the other person’s gender
Consider the scenario where you meet a man. You know his name is Bradley (either through mutual friends or whatever), but he introduces himself as Alex. You can call him Bradley, and it would be technically correct, but it would be slightly rude when he has explicitly given his preferred name as Alex.