awayyyythrow

7 years agodiscuss

Alexander is known for being a bit...chicken. There are very few positions to which he's willing to firmly commit beyond "don't get mad" and "don't be mean", for fear of antagonizing his rather...politically diverse audience. The charitable interpretation is that as a psychiatrist, he's been daily confronted to some of the worst aspects of human life, society and personnality and still learned to sympathize with his patients whatever they might have done. The less charitable interpretation is that he's terrified of conflict in general.

awayyyythrow

7 years agodiscuss

There are no rational arguments for my cause if it involves whether I should exist or have rights. I want rights because I want them. How would a rational argument even work?

awayyyythrow

7 years agodiscuss

One of Alexander's better stories. However, I'd say it reeks of what I'd call Alexanderness:

-The idea that arguments and debates are the most important thing in the world and everyone should do it as much as possible (possibly due to his being terminally online). In real life if you say something other people find abhorrent they'll first go "that's wrong wtf", then if you insist "sure alright go off" then "please stop talking to me". Most people are not, in fact, in a perpetual crusade to prove opppnents wrong. That's because the real world isn't Twitter.

-The idea that both sides have a point and trying to rule out one side is anathema to a well-functioning society. In other words, why can't everyone just get along? Well guess what, sometimes one side is unambigiously right and the other unambiguously wrong. Some disagreements can't be resolved other than through power struggles, such as e.g. when one side's position implies the negation of the other side's rights, identity or existence. We can't have a rational, dispassionate debate about whether I should have rights. I can't argue for my existence, I want it.

-Equivocating all controversial statements as equally controversial. For instance, design decisions about a codebase vs. religion issues vs. presumably something even deeper ('so hateful and disgusting'). Some fights are worth having, some are not.

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