there is a style of tweeting that for lack of a better word i'll call "stating honest beliefs that undermine other people's coping mechanisms" and i feel more conflicted about it now than i used to
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most of the time when you do this you'll just produce resistance and inoculate people against the belief in the future and sometimes you might produce existential despair instead idk it's tricky business
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has "load-bearing beliefs" as a concept / meme spread around these parts yet? it's a really useful handle. very vivid imageery. conflicts between opposite load-bearing beliefs are a major source of online tension, maybe the primary one idk
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hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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that's the idea a lot of the time when people do it. it's a bit of a tantrum and affecting others is like a "haha gotcha" dig; it's not a honest attempt to change anyone
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some people just have different enough world views where their pillars are the sledgehammer to yours; others will deliberately learn how to don the demolition girl outfit and start swinging because they learned it affects
sometimes it's both, often the latter is not consciously
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I feel better about this sort of thing than I used to. I think resistance is probably better than never hearing a contrary view, especially if it's punching up. There's enough existential despair going around that avoiding it is a pointless goalpost.
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I do think it's tricky bc resistance kind of nucleates its own antidote, to be unpacked when they're in a safe environment to do so. That env might not contain you - you can't force them to unpack it, but hiding it seems a disservice.
Is there always a better way?
I'm not sure.