Thinking about a conversation I was having with an acquaintance years ago. He was a friend of a friend and we were talking about food. I forget the exact phrasing but I brought up loving avocados. He said “what’s that?” I was a bit surprised and explained. He responded “OH thats crazy I thought that was one of those made up words”. The statement was like a flashbang I had to contemplate for a few minutes. PERSONAL STORIES ONLY, DO NOT INCLUDE A STATEMENT FROM A CELEBRITY OR POLITICIAN.

  • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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    My aunt was offended that I said I have heard her spread hateful misinformation about transgender people. She sent me some unhinged messages that I spread hate and I support Disney even though it’s run by pedophiles and that transgender people are shooting up schools. And she doesn’t understand why I think she spreads hateful disinformation about transgender people.

    She also said McDonald’s has aborted fetuses in their burgers. She has also, in past conversations, repeated other insane myths about transgender people lopping off six-year-old’s penises and queer people conspiring to reduce the population

    This woman just has no awareness of what comes out of her own mouth. I believe there is a disconnect in her brain. She simultaneously preaches acceptance and inclusivity while also somehow believing every bit of hateful misinformation you have ever heard about queer people. Just repeats whatever she’s told while accusing everyone else of being sheep.

      • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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        She’s nuts. She preaches about how we all need to tune out all the hate and negativity in the world, seemingly unaware that she’s contributing to it with constantly repeating hateful misinformation

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    I need to start by stating the fact that I have a perfectly normal nose in a perfectly normal face. At 18 I was a pretty young woman.

    Ages ago, first day in university, first lecture. 400 students listening to the professor. A random girl is staring at me for most of the lecture. Afterwards she runs through the crowd in the hallway, catches up to me and says: “Just had to tell you that you rock. You’re an inspiration to me. Looking so happy and carefree, with that nose of yours! I don’t know how you manage.”

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      What the fuck. What a bitch. Do you think she was being mean/manipulative/evil?

      • MarieMarion@literature.cafe
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        30 years later and I have absolutely no idea. As I rubbed shoulders with her (small department) for the next 3 years I could tell she was self-centered, vain, and sure of her own wonderfullness, but it still doesn’t compute. Well. My nose and I only remember her when somebody ask a question like OP’s.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Alternate explanation:

      She was basically a tsundere, and attempting to flirt with you.

      She insulted your nose because either:

      A) She is very vain and hates the idea of finding another person attractive and thus had to work some random snide comment in there, happened to be your nose.

      B) Basically the same, but she was actually particularly fascinated by your nose, she found it quite appealing, and being a vain tsundere, specifically insulted it, because she is jealous of it.

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    I’m traveling through Portugal at the moment, and an Australian guy struck up a conversation with me on the train yesterday. He and I start talking politics, and he starts talking about how illegal immigration is a massive problem. He’s supportive of mass deportation, and generally likes how Trump is handling things. We debate this back and forth, and then move on to other subjects.

    Later in the conversation he reveals, without a hint of irony, that his visa in Portugal has expired while waiting on residence paperwork. I just stare at him for a moment, and then ask him if he realized he was an illegal immigrant. He doesn’t really see the irony. Absolutely stunned.

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
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      That’s what makes me really angry lately. It seems there would have been a lot fewer Trump voters if people made the connection that rules apply to them.

    • blueamigafan@lemmy.world
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      That’s the trouble it’s always ‘them but not me’ the best example I know of is the protest march a bunch of fellow Brits did in benidorm, against immigration to the UK!

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    A neighbor told me that all foreigners should be deported from Germany.
    She clarified (after I asked) that when someone is born in Germany to parents who immigrated legally, never visited their parents’ home country, only spoke German, and had a job here, they’re still a foreigner and should be deported.

    She was born in Romania and had immigrated 5 years ago.

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.today
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      i have had similar arguments, in the US. I welcome immigration. One of my grandfathers was famous for fighting the western expansion and our tribe is famous for being the only people to make the US Army sign a declaration of defeat but the killings of people on the Oregon trail was our failure. People with purpose will always move and fighting it is welcoming disaster. finding ways to coexist is what we should be focusing on. Trying to relieve suffering is what should be our end goal.

      so when people tell me or other native Americans, we should go back to my country. We can’t, it’s gone. the rez isn’t a country. it’s a small safety net to hold off the erasure of our culture. there’s just the US now and we have to make it more welcoming for those that need to find a place.

      only death and suffering will come from closed borders and isolation. stagnant culture and ignorance. hatred of the outsiders. it’s just a losing battle and the Lakota won their fight but they lost the battle because they didn’t understand the numbers of people who were willing to brave the risks of immigration

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        I’ve never understood the anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. Except for the indigenous, everyone is a product of immigration.

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          Not just that, but think about how boring life would be if all we had was the white bread world that MAGA imagines. No more interesting food, music, dance, literature, etc., but also science and medicine, and also basic manual labor. And that’s besides the fact that it’s more interesting to share a beer with a neighbor friend who hasn’t had the exact same life experiences as me.

          Immigrants add color to our lives, and for some reason that scares the shit out of some people.

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          I suppose it depends on if you count colonization as immigration, but the cutoff there gets murky anyways.

    • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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      Your answer should be “be the change you want to see in the world, go back to Romania then maybe you will inspire others to do the same”

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      I have a migrant co-worker who shared his opinion that migrants should be deported back to their home countries.

      I don’t want him to explain.

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      The mind boggles, my co-worker is always going on about foreigners coming over here and taking British peoples jobs,…he’s polish

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    Years ago I was talking with a pregnant coworker about our families. We got onto the subject of how quiet I am. She said “I would hate it if my daughter turned out to be like you.” I was just stunned tbh. Like damn, I can’t help it that I’m quiet. Why is that such a bad thing?

      • ViatorOmnium@piefed.social
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        What happened with the lockdowns and immediately after made believe being an extrovert is the result of failing to fully develop a working theory of mind.

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          I’m an introvert but even I struggled with quarantine. Everyone needs at least some degree of human interaction.

          It didn’t help that I was already pretty isolated before the pandemic, so most of my human interaction was from the checkout counter in stores, cafe baristas, or wait staff at a restaurant. I kinda depended on those little micro-interactions to get my social fix. And I didn’t have friends to hang out with on the porch or meet at an outdoor spot. I didn’t have an online chat group to rely on either.

          People who have those things really take them for granted. Like, yeah, I get it, introverts don’t need to be surrounded by people all the time, in fact that would be torture. I’m that way too. But I can’t be completely alone all the time either, I wind up too depressed to even feed myself.

          Getting a cat has literally saved my life, given me a reason to live, helped me stop talking to myself like a madman (literally insane ramblings), helped me find my way to some semblance of a reality that’s anchored in more than just one point within my own perception, some degree of consensus reality even if the only other being sharing that consensus is a cat.

          It’s not perfect, my cat can’t stand in for every social/psychological need for human interaction. But she can stand in for some of those needs, and for now it’s enough.

          rant:

          It has to be enough, because I don’t have any other option. I can’t just choose to be accepted by society. That’s a lie told by the “self-help” grift community. We are not the masters of our own circumstances, everyone depends on others for their degree of social acceptance or lack thereof.

          That’s why it’s so toxic to tell young people “don’t be cool, you’ll regret it later in life.” No, you’ll regret not being cool when nobody likes you and you can’t find a job because most positions are filled by personal relationships and networking, not by fairly considering qualified applicants. What defines “being cool” is what matters. Different people have different ideas of “cool.” It’s not about “don’t be cool” it’s about teaching what’s cool and what isn’t.

          Growing up, I internalized that “don’t give in to peer pressure” thing a little too much. I made it a point to never conform to any social norms, and I thought that made me better for everyone else. It was a badge of honor that no one liked me. Until I became an adult and it dawned on me that it’s impossible to get anywhere in life if literally no one likes you.

          Some amount of peer pressure is a good thing. It’s what maintains social cohesion. It’s what makes people internalize a common set of values (and yes, everyone has personal values, even if yours are different from others’ or the mainstream, you do still have values, and if you share them with others within a subculture then they are socially enforced, just like any other). Peer pressure teaches people “right from wrong,” and “acceptable from unacceptable” behavior. Without it, everyone would be deviant and ego-centric.

          So the problem isn’t “don’t give in to peer pressure,” it’s teaching “what peer pressure to follow, and what to reject.”

          I’m on my soap box because part of the reason I’m such a maladjusted adult is because as a kid I was sheltered and isolated from a “sinful world,” and never learned the social norms that most people do, that come so naturally to most people that by the time they reach adulthood they don’t even think about them. I’m just expected to know certain things, certain social scripts and faux pas, and if I don’t or it’s not so intuitive that it’s just my default subconscious reaction, then people view that as “immature” or “deviant” or “deliberate misbehavior,” when the fact is I’m doing the best I can, I tried for decades to learn how to be normal, but no matter what I do or how many times I analyze patterns or try to emulate the behavior I see, it’s never enough, it’s never quite right, there’s always something wrong with it because there’s always another layer or detail or nuance that I don’t understand. I can literally never make up for those formative years of social development that I missed growing up, because the adults in my life were trying to “protect” me from the outside world…

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Yeah, the lockdown was enlightening. I lived alone through the entire two year shutdown. I still saw coworkers (because I was working for the government and forced to come into the office) but that was the entire extent of my in-person socialization. And I was perfectly content with that. I’d hop on Discord with some friends after work, and would socialize all night long. On the weekends, if I was playing a single player game, I could easily go two and a half days (Friday evening into Monday morning) without saying a single word.

        But extroverts lost their goddamned minds. Half of them were power-walking in the overcrowded local park, even though they had never visited the park before. They just wanted an excuse to leave the house. The other half were ripping their houses down to the studs and completely rebuilding the interiors… Because they never spent any time at home until that point, and suddenly small annoyances about their living areas built up to major complaints. Half of them were rallying against masks, just because conservatives were promising a return to normalcy.

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          I’m sorry, but comparing yourself to actually physically isolated people while you were seeing people in person at work is wild. Humans are social creatures! I too loved the privacy and peace that came with covid, but if you saw people live and in person at work, you have no idea what it was like to actually quarantine at home with only screen people for companionship. It messes with your head.

          • fatcat@discuss.tchncs.de
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            Ehh, I think it depends on the person. I saw basically no one in person for weeks and it didn’t bother me a lot. Humans are social animals, but we are also all very different.

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        It does seem like a lot of the world is still paying for that though. (“the world is a little safer if you wear a mask” -> votes far right to protect their freedom)

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      Quiet people serve as a mirror to people who can’t shut up. That becomes uncomfortable for people who don’t like what they see.

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      That reminds me of a time I was in a small party. I said something to my friend and a girl suddenly excitedly said “YAY! You speak as well!” That shut me up for the rest of the evening lol. I didn’t know how to respond to that, I didn’t even finish saying what I was saying to my friend.

      I’ve always been the quiet one. I’ve always been fine with being the quiet one, I kind of like to listen to people. But when she said that, I got very confused and it sort of bothered me for a bit. Not for long though, I decided that she was the weird one.

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        My response to that has always been, “Yeah, but I don’t blurt out whatever stupid shit rattles around in my head.”

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      sounds like that coworker likes to be center of attention. its definitely a passive aggressive statement, shes basically saying a “loner with no social skills, probably a wierdo because you arnt social, and saying her daughter wont grow up to be a loser”. its the same as saying “no offense” but say something offense to you.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      Malignant narcissist.

      At this point I’m convinced this is functionally a heritable trait, either directly via genetetics, or by way of conditioning, generational trauma.

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      I mean you can help it. We humans got to where we are because we can literally adapt to any situation. If you really wanted to, you could practice speaking and also initiating to speak and then do it, removing the “quiet” label from you.

      Disclaimer, I’m not saying that this is a worthwhile goal or that being quiet is a problem in any way. If someone likes being quiet, then they should be allowed to be quiet without a judgemental asshole saying such things like they did to you. As long as you’re a kind human trying to be good, I’d want my children to turn out like you :D

    • blarghly@lemmy.world
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      Edit: ITT: Lemmings in denile that their personal problems are mostly due to their lack of social skills, not capitalism.

      Because being “a quiet person” almost universally indicates some kind of problem that is or is going to hold you back in life. It usually indicates that you have social anxiety, poorly developed social skills, have a negative outlook and disposition, have little confidence in yourself or your opinions, are just plain dumb or dull, some other weird thing, or some combination of the above.

      Being “introverted” is a typical excuse quiet people use. But the actual definition of introversion just means you have a greater affinity for alone time - not that you rarely speak in social situations. Being quiet is corrolated with being introverted - if you have a larger affinity for alone time, you will likely practice socializing less frequently, leading to less confidence, leading to a greater aversion to social situations, which can become a viscuous cycle. But this is a skill issue, not an intrinsic character trait, and people with greater introversion can and do excell in any number of social situations all the time.

      Meanwhile, being a “quiet person” will hamstring you in basically every aspect of life. Humans are social animals, and being able to socialize effectively is one of the biggest advantages you can have.

      Want to get good grades in school? Well teachers are more willing to give you a break or extra help if they know you because you talk to them. Other classmates are more willing to form study groups with you. You’ll have a better chance of forming a team with the smartest kids for class projects.

      Want to excell in your career? It helps if you are a chatterbox who interviews well. It helps if you love meeting new people in your industry and form a big network of people who like you. It helps if you can have a fun conversation with your boss, or your boss’s boss, or your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. So you really still believe, in this day and age, that if you quietly keep your head down and get your work done better than everyone else, that you will be first in line for raises and promotions? No! Your ability to perform useful tasks quickly means that you probably won’t get fired - but mostly because it means that they expect that they’ll be able to save on the budget, since you’ll never have the courage to ask for anything more than an inflation raise. And being promoted is mostly about giving you authority over others - and who the fuck is going to respect the authority of someone who never speaks and can’t hold anyone’s eye contact?

      Want to have friends? A large and diverse social group who can support you in times of need? Help you fix your car, give you a couch to crash on, give you career advice, invite you to join in fun new hobbies, give you a sense of warmth and community, and be your emotional support system when your whole life goes sideways? Well guess what? Most people only really care about someone else if they know that person, and the primary way you know a person is by listening to them talk about things. Sure, as a quiet person you will probably gain a small group of close friends who you actually can speak freely with - but someone who speaks freely with everyone will have 10x the social connections or more. A quiet and reserved person can lean on their circle of a half dozen friends in time of need. A social, charismatic person can get help from someone they met once, ten years ago, in a different country. And even if the quiet person truly loves their small circle of friends - life happens. People get busy with jobs, or kids. They move to different places. They change their priorities in life. People die. Friend circles which aren’t consistently adding new members tend to dwindle over time, and you could very easily end up completely alone if you never developed the skill of meeting new people and developing relationships with them.

      And dating? I don’t care if you want a white picket fence and a golden retriever, or want to blow your load on a different pair of titties every night of the week - quiet people get fucked in dating. Wait. No. The opposite of that… Yeah, they typically aren’t getting fucked. At least not by the people they want. Forget about any talk of “game” or charisma - the biggest factor in dating success is literally just the number of attractive strangers you say “hi” to. If you have a hard time going up to a stranger and saying “hi”, if you join a conversation by entering the circle and then never say a word, or if you rarely show up to social events where there are new people present, then your pool of potential dates will be extremely limited solely because you can’t end up dating someone that you never say a word to. And beyond playing the numbers game - hey guys, what do women want? Everyone say it with me - CONFIDENCE. Okay, so how is any given woman going to know you are confident? Probably by the fact that you walk into a social situation smiling and eager to talk to people, because you are confident that people will like you, and you are confident that meeting new people will be fun. And girls - ya know when you see the guy who shows up to the party and everyone cheers when he walks in? The guy who has amazing hair and a hot body and who spends his weekends taking disadvantaged urban youth on backpacking trips? Sure, maybe he’ll take a shine to you and have a fling, and maybe that will turn into something long term - but if he’s looking for a girlie to be a long term partner, who is he getting obsessed with? Probably the girl who is dashing around the room squeeling with joy every time a new person arrives and giving them a huge hug, the girl who is excitedly talking about her hobbies, job, or emotional revelations to a circle of smiling friends and acquaintances, the girl who is grabbing people and dragging them onto the dance floor to get the party started. Sure, statistically everyone finds someone, eventually… but the people who are having a good time and getting compliments from their friends about their amazing new partner, are going to be the people who talk a lot to a lot of people.

      This isn’t to say that quiet people can’t be happy, can’t have friends or partners, or can’t succeed in life. And maybe someone will say that this whole analysis is shallow and misguided, and that pursuing any of these things by opening their mouth and speaking more would be a betrayal of their deep inner self or something. But this is kind of like choosing to be homeless because getting any kind of job would be a betrayal of the cause of overthrowing the capitalists and creating a utopian society. Like, if you really feel that way, I guess I can’t change your mind - but its not the life I would choose for myself, and I can understand why someone wouldn’t want it for their child.

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          This is basically a masturbatory defence mechanism - claiming that an obvious flaw is actually an asset. I’m not saying you should just vomit out every word that comes into your head. But this kind of statement implies that there are the oh-so-very-smart-and-thoughtful quiet people, stoicly listening in their wise wisdom, and then the loud, vulgar idiots who endlessly blather on. They probably eat fast food and watch reality tv, too.

          But… no. Being thoughtful and choosing your words carefully, being kind, understanding what other people are saying before you speak. That’s all great. That doesn’t mean you’re “quiet”. Thoughtful people will still interject with their own views, ask followup questions, or push back on things they disagree with. All of which require speaking - and so if you do these things regularly, you won’t be “that quiet person who never speaks”

      • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
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        This comment is my submission to this thread, lmao. You rarely see someone spew out so many words and get so little right.

      • BurgerBaron@piefed.social
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        Completely accurate no notes. My introversion has nothing to do with the social anxiety that cripples my social life.

        Still, pretty tactless to blurt that out to OP.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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        I’m an extrovert and while some of what you’ve said has merit you’re really overstating it. I’ve had plenty of quiet people in my life who are more successful than me. Meanwhile my mom and I with our shared ability to chat with most people and keep talking for hours on end have faced plenty of struggles due to our shared difficulties with not doing that.

        Though I will concede you are right in that it’s really good at getting you laid.

        Also it’s just rude as hell to tell someone you hope your kid doesn’t turn out like them.

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          I mean, knowing when not to talk is a skill, too.

          And (supposing we’re talking about income or wealth as the metric for success) I’m not saying no given quiet person can be more successful than a talkative person. But all things being equal, the person who is more confident and at ease talking to others and making connections will be more successful.

          Also it’s just rude as hell to tell someone you hope your kid doesn’t turn out like them.

          I don’t disagree

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        excuse

        People don’t need an excuse to not want to talk to you, which incidentally is itself one of many “great” ways to learn to be quiet. As an example, I once had a roommate who was on some kind of medication for social anxiety, and he was one of the most irritating people I ever met. Failing to overcome his inhibitions was clearly not the main problem, those inhibitions were totally rational, and could have been a stopgap to avoid stepping on people’s toes despite not having any intuitive understanding or intrinsic interest in how to do that.

        Probably the girl who is dashing around the room squeeling with joy every time a new person arrives and giving them a huge hug, the girl who is excitedly talking about her hobbies, job, or emotional revelations to a circle of smiling friends and acquaintances, the girl who is grabbing people and dragging them onto the dance floor to get the party started.

        And maybe someone will say that this whole analysis is shallow and misguided, and that pursuing any of these things by opening their mouth and speaking more would be a betrayal of their deep inner self or something.

        I think something that people who are casually socially successful often don’t understand is how important it is to that success to have the correct emotional reactions to other people, and how difficult it is and how wrong it feels to fake those. That is a betrayal of yourself. You should strongly resist approaching friendship as an instrumental goal or a puzzle to be solved. For this reason it isn’t well described as a skill, because the most important factors are not skills.

        and you could very easily end up completely alone if you never developed the skill of meeting new people and developing relationships with them.

        Solitude really isn’t the end of the world, it could be a lot worse, despite how challenging it is to face. It does no one any favors to think of this as a high stakes game with solitude as the punishment for losing, that’s not actually how it is.

        If you want quiet people to talk to you, the main thing would be helping them understand that it is genuinely safe to do so. If you want quiet people to talk to other people, that’s probably none of your business.

      • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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        really feel that way, I guess I can’t change your mind - but its not the life I would choose for myself,

        therein lies the rub.

        reading that it seems you’ve mistaken confidence for competence, a connon enough mistake.

        The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell

        “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pascal

      • Mac@mander.xyz
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        it will hold you back in life

        not to say they cant be happy and successful tho

        ok

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          5 days ago

          All things being equal, someone who is able and willing to converse normally will get more of what they want out of life than someone who is not.

      • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        I feel like this analysis is serious enough to warrant a bigger response, but as I am short on time I will just say that sometimes I simply don’t have much to add and would rather mostly observe.

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Yeah, I mean, everyone does that. There’s a difference between not feeling talkative because you are tired or sad or the conversation doesn’t interest you, and being “that guy who has said 3 words in the last 3 months”

  • chunes@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I can’t remember the context, but a coworker said “I shouldn’t have to care whether the moon gives off light or reflects it.”

    I remember being stunned…

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      TBF there’s a logic to this one. It’s basically a science fact, and is unlikely to ever be important to someone’s personal goals.

      That’s maybe not a person most of us would have common ground with, though.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        For whatever reason, a significant number of flat earthers also believe that the Moon is some kind of a fake hologram and/or emits ‘cold light’, or something like that.

    • moonshadow@slrpnk.net
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      I am going to find your coworker and make them care whether the moon gives off light or reflects it

    • NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Technically all things give off blackbody radiation, of which almost none of which is in visible light at normal temperatures.

    • osanna@lemmy.vg
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      the moon is actually a mini sun, that’s why gives off light.

      (/j if it wasn’t obvious)

      • BoosBeau@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        The moon is made of cheese and, like all cheeses, emits light under a low enough temperate (space is so cold it doesn’t even have a temperature - it’s just “cold”). The REAL mindbender, is why the space dust particles make the light all bright instead of dirty yellow, like how i like my cheese

  • SneakyWeasel@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    I have 2 from the same person.

    1. “Why is it when hockey players stop on the blue and red line. The lines dont disappear”.

    2. “The reason why there are train conductors is because they turn the wheel at the front of the train so they dont fly off the tracks on corners”.

    Maybe not as crazy as some but it definitely made me think twice about other things she knew.

    • stringere@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      2 is almost, sort of, kind of, technically true, from a certain point of view.

      Not by way of steering, but by way of slowing down to take turns at safe speeds, which is done by some form a control mechanism, which may be or resemble a wheel.

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    5 days ago

    I’m having a conversation with a family member. Somehow the topic of firefighters comes up. She pauses, looks very thoughtful for a moment, then asks, “Do you not like firefighters, either?”

    “What? Why would I not like firefighters?”

    “Like how you don’t like police.”

    She knows me well. I boggle at how my distaste for cops could be this misunderstood.

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        FWIW, some become firefighters because they enjoy lighting things on fire. The correlation between firefighters and arsonists is very strong. But even then, nobody (except maybe some cops) has ever seen firefighters roll up to a scene and thought “well my day just got worse.”

      • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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        True but this can be acquired. I love watching fire marshals whetting their moustaches with glee before they shut down some stupid dangerous event.

    • Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      It’s easy to understand once you realize that most people think police is only about “being the one to call in an emergency when a bad guy tries to hurt you”. In that line of thinking it’s the same as “the one to call in an emergency when a fire is trying to hurt you” or “the one to call in an emergency when an injury/disease is trying to kill you”.

    • kamen@lemmy.world
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      Can’t not think of that George Carlin quote: “If crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight?”

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      I boggle at how my distaste for cops could be this misunderstood.

      Emergency response is emergency response. Tell us how you hate ambulances upsetting the commute.

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      I’m sorry if that was upsetting to you to hear, but that’s actually sick as fuck and a way cooler reason to be atheist than just cuz religion is implausible

      • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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        Oh, no worries, I was more incredulous than upset. We had talked about religion at length over the years and even managed to nudge her away from organized religion at this point (thank god). I thought she understood where I was coming from, and then out of the blue, she tells me this on the rare occasion we argued, and I’m speechless.

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      WOAH what a thing to come out of one’s mouth. Like…abusers always have mountains of justifications but something like this…it seems like it’s gotta cut through all the delusion…that’s not a thing a good person can feel, let alone say! Like…realizing you feel that way about someone should be a huge wakeup call that you’re a monster and need to do some serious work on yourself. Saying it out loud…wowee

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    Many years ago I worked tech support for a software company. I had one caller who could not conceive that our software couldn’t print to two printers at once. She didn’t want to print to one then the other. She just kept repeating “this is the 21st century” whenever I tried to explain.

    Eventually I told her it was a question for her IT and she went away.

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    Okay fine personal one’s first:

    • I once overheard someone saying it was hard to go left on a round about because the entrance slopes right…. As in they were not using a round about like a round about. (Tbf the round about in question was originally an intersection that was poorly modified into a roundabout)
    • I had a psychopathic roommate who, when I called him on it, flat out admitted that given a choice between killing himself or thousands of others he’d choose the mass murder option. I also once asked him if he thought slavery was morally acceptable and his response was “if it would benefit me then yeah.”
    Famous Quote I originally put because I didn’t read the whole post before commenting lol

    “Darwin realized that animals are far less likely to reproduce when they’re dead” -Philomena Cunk

    Stunned because I was expecting nonsense, but ended up hearing what is now my favorite description of evolution ever. It just makes evolution seem entirely obvious, like it’s stupid we took so long to make that realization.

    • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.org
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      given a choice between killing himself or thousands of others he’d choose the mass murder option

      First of all, that wouldn’t be murder. If the only other option was your own death, it would be self defense.
      Not saying it would be the moral choice, but it wouldn’t be murder.

      Secondly, most people would choose that option, when given those choices.
      I’m sure about this, because normal people are put in that situation in war, and I’m not aware of many known cases where a soldier simply refused to fire their machine gun for moral reasons, when thousands of enemy soldiers stormed towards their position.

    • owsei@programming.dev
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      The evolution one is stunning precisely because it’s so good. Evolution finally clicked for me when I asked why reproduction mutations (like colored feathers) mattered instead of only survival ones, my teacher just said “The ones who reproduce, reproduce, the ones who don’t, don’t.”

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      I love philomena and can’t believe I haven’t heard that one, do you know offhand where it’s from so I can fix that?

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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      . I also once asked him if he thought slavery was morally acceptable and his response was “if it would benefit me then yeah.”

      he has that in common with John Patrick Henry

      Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not — I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct. - John Patrick Henry US Founding father

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    My boss, her boss, her boss’s boss, the big boss (who reports to the CEO) and I are on a meeting last week.

    At the beginning of the meeting there were some pleasantries being shared. The big boss shared her kid was going to be featured in some large chess tournament

    My boss replies “that’s great. What kind of chess does he play?”

    I was shocked because there is only one type of chess just like there is only one type of checkers. Yes I know there is 4-d chess, Star Trek chess, and chess game variants. But typically there is only one type of chess.

    The big boss answers “You know chess. He is a grand master.”

    My boss replies “Grand master. Does that mean he is a performing magician?”

    I sat there looking at my screen in shock. My boss had not idea what grand masters are.

    The big boss had to explain the chess grand masters to her.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        There’s also chess960, where the positions of the pieces are randomized (with constraints). I like it because it removes memorization of positions as a factor.

        • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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          That’s interesting, one of the reasons why I don’t like chess at all is that it’s usually a memory game so you either need to memorize lots of plays or you will always lose to someone who has.

          • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.org
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            It starts out with a handful of standard movements which you have memorized, but the interesting part of the match isn’t about memory at all.

    • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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      I was giving your boss the benefit of the doubt for the first statement-- you could call the different time controls “kinds of chess”. No idea what would possess someone to say that second one though.

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    “I am very sure my husband has no heart attack. I am a homeopathic and this is clearly not a heart attack. You don’t know what you are doing.”

    I am a paramedic for 24 years, a critical care paramedic for 16. The husband had such a “myocardial infarction out of the book”-ECG it almost looked twice. He literally almost coded on us twice. And this lady walzes in (funny enough: They were in the process of separating) and after 60 sec. decides she knows what’s up.

    Homeopathy therapists here have no formal training. Just a state exam that makes sure they don’t kill someone too often.

    The husband barely made it,personally I think mostly out of spite for her. Had a cardiac arrest twice while in the cathlab,but survived without neurological issues.

    It’s really really rare that I am out of words and don’t have a comeback. But that woman in that moment?

    (For the medical folks: Massive STEMI accross 3 leads, massive contractility issue visible on POCUS, later on become pressure dependended, had VF arrest during PCI, needed an impella for two weeks)