There are a lot of people who demand you be empathetic and nice so they can railroad you with it. Learning this was particularly hard and disquieting for me. I still mourn having lost that innocence.
I mean, it’s true. Historically when I’ve found people like that I just refuse to engage. It’s hitting a point where I’m becoming afraid of not engaging because I’m afraid of them.
I completely understand. I have those days, and then I have days like today where I'm just an all-out asshole, somewhat proactively, as a strategy against it. It's sad.
I’m kinda comforted by the idea that these ppl are operating on principles that I genuinely believe are not sustainable for a flourishing society, and over an iterated period they’ll fail due to severely broken norms. That makes the threat more tolerable I think.