Trash Blog

You all hate me and my longsword and full plate armor

literally what is your problem

I am NOT learning Spanish in order to talk to people. If that happens it’s just a side effect. I’m learning Spanish for two reasons.

1. Eavesdrop on people in the library

2. Learn the things that everyone who speaks Spanish knows that I don’t know so I can walk around like an alien doing the equivalent of “hey have you guys heard of this band called The Beatles?”

Every day I’m like woagh what’s this this is so cool and Spanish speakers are like sir that’s a carrot

Went to a craft fair today. Just felt like bragging.

I bought a pretty neat dreamcatcher and I wanted to look the guy up I bought it from and link his store but he doesn’t have an online store so I guess if Whitehorse Lost Arts wanders through your city take a look at his dream catchers and beadwork it’s cool stuff

Went to a craft fair today. Just felt like bragging.

I bought a pretty neat dreamcatcher and I wanted to look the guy up I bought it from and link his store but he doesn’t have an online store so I guess if Whitehorse Lost Arts wanders through your city take a look at his dream catchers and beadwork it’s cool stuff

i wish my friends reaction to my parents probable divorce was “oh i’m sorry that sucks so much i’m here for you” but instead they keep coming to my house and home and saying things like “tell me when your mom is single so i can shoot my shot”

@gay-mormon-wizard I think this deserves to be on the post

He's so drunk.

bugs is…. shrimp????

Changing people's minds on major things is actually a very long and difficult process for both parties. I didn't actually believe that pedestrian-centric city design would be better for people that drive cars until I spent almost a year living without a car and watched hours of youtube videos explaining the issue to me. Turns out that traffic actually does go down and driving does become more pleasant if you make it harder to drive a car and easier to walk. I just straight-up refused to believe that for years. Because people just talked about it like it was obvious. But it wasn't. Because I had spent my whole life in a car-centric city going around in a car and also I was an English major in college who did not study urban planning. You can't expect me to change my entire mindset around transportation all at once. I did reach a eureka moment like two weeks ago but that was after like three years of getting exposed to these ideas periodically and living without a car for 11 months.

And yeah this post is about my big dumb animal brain accepting the science behind narrow roads and the evils of certain types of zoning laws, but it's also about stuff in general. If you don't know why someone isn't changing their mind on something, it's probably because the information they're getting hasn't reached a critical mass in their monkey brain yet. Whenever you hear stories about people changing their minds on things or leaving a certain ideology the story never goes "A person on the internet did a slam dunk on me and then I changed my mind."

It's usually a long process that happens over the course of months or years. Seeds planted here and there that coalesce eventually into a new thought or ideology over the course of years or snap together or send someone down a new path after a certain event. Same with me about pedestrian-centric cities. For me the tipping point was finding this video, which isn't necessarily super special or the best and the guy who runs the channel, in my opinion, isn't the most qualified or the most sympathetic towards every city in every situation, but it was the feather that tipped the scales in my brain to "Oh, wait. Maybe everything I thought I knew about how cities work is wrong actually." But that video alone didn't change my mind. With the amount of stuff and people that have gradually and gently been giving me information over the past couple years, something else was bound to eventually change my mind.

People on Tumblr yelling about abolishing the car, if anything, slowed down me changing my mind. Every time I saw a person saying that driving cars is stupid and that cars are bad I took a step back into my old way of thinking in defense. Because I grew up only ever using a car to get around. Rhetoric like that felt like a direct attack on my family, who I know to be loving people who care about other human beings and who drive cars literally everywhere.

And you might say, posts and videos like that aren't actually an attack on people that drive or have to drive. Okay then. Why are they phrased like that? Because that makes you feel good? Because you're angry? Alright, your anger at how it's currently impossible to get around if you don't own a car and how people who don't actually want to drive are being forced to drive is reasonable. And now I understand why it exists. I'm kind of angry too now that I get how this stuff works. However, is calling the people you're trying to convince stupid to their face and immediately bombarding them with your most radical ideas that might be completely detached from their reality and how they understand the world really the most productive way to channel your anger?

What about a guy with a knee problem that lives in rural Appalachia? Do you think he is gonna be convinced by your angry rants about bike lanes? No. He lives on a mountain that he can't climb or bike up because he's disabled and has only ever known getting around in a car. What about a person who overheats easily living in a suburb in the middle of the desert? Do you think she is inspired by your green lush pictures of trolleys running through parks in The Netherlands? No. If she leaves her house for too long without ice water she could literally die and you're going on about getting rid of, in her mind, the only thing that lets her go to the grocery store and not faint.

And again, this post is about my inability to comprehend walkable cities, but it's also about everything else you might ever want to convince someone of. The way you talk about things with your in-group that knows exactly what you're talking about should not be the same way you talk about that thing with people that you're genuinely trying to convince of something.

The way you talk about things with your in-group that knows exactly what you're talking about should not be the same way you talk about that thing with people that you're genuinely trying to convince of something.

hey, i've done a few courses in science communication, which basically just teaches you how to emotionally manipulate people into believing science, and OP is spot on here!! a few extra summary points i want to highlight because people tend to overlook them but they’re so, so important when you’re discussing things like this:

so how do you change a belief? here are a couple of tips! for proof of concept, i once used this method to convince my uncle climate change was real.

(terrifyingly, this is also exactly how QAnon works - they tell you to “do your own research” and then flood search engines with fake anecdotes. if someone’s trying to reset your beliefs, always check where the resources they’re giving you come from.)

that’s literally it. be kind to people, tell them stories, and give them a book or a video to go on with. don’t get impatient, and don’t get mad if it doesn’t work. the fact that  no one on the left knows how to do this is why we’re such a fucking trainwreck 99% of the time. also case in point why cancel culture literally creates bigots.

im a very autistic person and have some questions about this

to me reading this whole thread feels off (i'm a person with a very much reality first, fact first autistic wiring, for further context)

this whole approach feels extremely disingenuous? it feels so faked and forced trying to play with someone's emotions to change their mind about logical things

like this is not the first thing i would think of to do at all, and if someone did it to me i would feel condescended to honestly

trying to emotionally manipulate me into changing my mind as the person above suggests wouldn't work at all cuz i can tell and i'll just view you as a shady, underhanded person trying to play with me and will write you off as being smart enough to have meritorious points if the only way you can present them is through emotionally loaded babble (because that, to my autistic brain, is perceived as a waste of time, i don't care about how you public transport was faster for you that one time when you probably just got lucky it doesn't prove anything, give me the real facts that are actually tested and proven already)

the only way to appeal to me at all IS exactly that strict, no nonsense, fact based approach where we get straight down to the relevant point at hand and only exchange resources and facts regarding that point and nothing else so we're not wasting time and wasting words

and that's how i approach other people as well, because it's how i want to be approached, i don't care about feelings, yours or mine, i care about the reality and the facts at play

now onto my questions

is this really how you have to talk with allistic people? like they're toddlers in need of coddling so they don't throw a tantrum over being wrong? (i know that metaphor sounds insulting but this is genuinely how i perceive this post, and i'm trying to be frank here so the reason behind my confusion is clear)

is this why presenting them with facts how i do it doesn't work?

I will attempt to make this to the point then, though I have been known to ramble so my apologies.

If you want straight facts, it seems to me that holding onto the idea that stating facts to people’s faces will change their mind is a belief you have. That’s a belief that a lot of people have. It’s not a belief based in facts. The fact is that facts don’t change people’s minds most of the time. I could be wrong, but that is the impression I get.

I don’t see this as emotional manipulation. I see this as adjusting an approach to match how most human brains work. Now, not all human brains work exactly the same. You have pointed out that you have autism. This approach may not work for you.

However, when people approach trying to change your mind like this they do not view you as a toddler. If they are a decent person and you are an adult, they know you are an adult. They are treating you how they would like to be treated the same way that you are treating other people how you would like to be treated.

However, not every person wishes to be treated the same way. In most cases the method outlined above is the gentle effective honest approach. Still, it will not work with everyone. The issue with “treat people the way that you want to be treated” is that everyone is different. Sometimes all of us in general may have to change our approach depending on who we’re talking to. However, people are also not mind readers. They can’t know just by looking at you what method will be most effective to help you see facts in an ethical manner.

Social interaction is unfortunately quite complicated. Persons who are not autistic and autistic persons who don’t think the way that you do usually go through life under the impression that facts will change their mind. Usually they do not. I don’t know you personally but there may be things you’re not aware of that you have rejected based on belief. If you are still holding onto the belief in your mind that speaking to other adults like this is like speaking to toddlers even after I tell you with full honesty right now that it is not, emotional adults are different than toddlers, then you are not as strictly fact based as you claim. I have no way of knowing if this is true however. I can’t know what you’re thinking or how you’re thinking at any given moment. That’s what makes communication so difficult. Even those of us without autism struggle with this.

I’m not usually the type to get frustrated about how streamers and lets players play video games but when people don’t read instructions that are right in front of them and then spend an hour trying to figure out how to do the thing I start smoking at the ears

“How do I open the box?” for twenty minutes when it said right on screen to right click to open the box is enough to drive anyone insane I think.