474 sats \ 4 replies \ @elvismercury OP 29 Dec 2023 \ parent \ on: A request for non-correlated inputs mostly_harmless
I know it all too well. I struggle with how to handle it when people say something like:
And I'm sitting there as a person who believes X or likes Y. It's not that I mind that people disagree / have another perspective (as I've repeated on SN ad nauseum) but the person presumably likes and respects me, and so I feel obligated to say something like:
But do you really want to have that conversation when you're at somebody's house for dinner? Ugh.
Siggy, you tease! What are some examples?
Oh, I'm indiscriminate. I'll watch or read all kinds of stuff. One example did occur to me, though. I'm pretty much a libertarian hard money kind of guy, but earlier this year I read Debt, The First Five Thousand Years. I almost stopped reading immediately. I'm thinking to myself "this clown is a commie." But I forced myself to stick it out and I got a lot out of it, although I never agreed with his criticism of capitalism. Later, when you did the book club on Broken Money, I discovered that Lyn addressed many of his arguments. If I had stayed in my libertarian lane I would not have been aware of his perspective.
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I was also triggered by Graeber at first. I find myself leaning in when I get triggered probably due to some kind of insecurity around later learning I've been operating on wrong info.
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Great example. You see the world differently after reading that book, for sure.
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These dumbassess believe X / like Y.And I'm sitting there as a person who believes X or likes Y.
This reminds me of a situation I had recently with friends. We were talking about finances and someone said "As long as you don't put it all into bitcoin it should be fine." He laughed, all others laughed and I laughed, it was fun. Then I said: "I am laughing as if I didn't do exactly that." Then silence for a few seconds. Then someone brought up a different topic and the conversation continued to flow naturally. So it wasn't a big deal.
This experience made me a bit more open regarding being open with what I think, even if it's controversial or confrontational. You don't have to go all the way immediately. Just "dip your toes in the water" first and check how people react.
However, since this post, I would even say that I like to be confrontational now. It's funny to see how some people react. It became kind of a sport for me to say or do something that people don't expect.
For example, a few days ago, I walked into a small store that sells used phones and is probably run by a single person.
That single person in the store however seemed to ignore me. He didn't look up when I came in (at least I didn't notice) from his apparently very important call with someone. It was a language I didn't understand so I couldn't even tell if this was a call related to business or just a private call. It seemed more like a private call for me though.
I patiently waited in front of him, constantly looking at the phone I wanted to ask him about because there was no price tag on it. For me, it must have been obvious that I am waiting to ask him something. But he kept ignoring me. I expected that he would put the other person on hold for at least a moment so I can ask my question and he can give me his answer and then he can continue to ignore me as long as he wants. But he didn't. Then I looked at my phone (making sure he could see this if he would pay attention) as if I am only impatiently looking at the clock. But I started a timer (he didn't necessarily saw this). I kept looking at the clock ticking my life away for another 45 seconds of no reaction from him. I think I was already in the store for at least 2-3 minutes, waiting for him to acknowledge me. Then I turned around and left.
I noticed from the corner of my eye while I was turning around how he suddenly looked up. But I was already out of the store - as mentioned, it was a small store. All I thought was:
Hey, if someone shows up at your brick and mortar store - which might be kind of rare nowadays and for which you might be paying a good chunk of money for rent in this location - at least fucking acknowledge that person? If I want to get treated like shit, there are tons of other stores out there to which I can go. So FUCK YOU for wasting my time and I am very sorry that I was interested in buying something from you. I hope you tell your friend or whoever this is what just happened so he can shame you for your behavior because it must sound extremely stupid that you just lost a potential customer because you were too fucking arrogant or dumb or whatever to put him on hold for at least a second. Or don't tell him which means you already know that you should be ashamed of yourself.
I hope he got the message. But I will probably never know since I don't intend to go there again.
As you can see, I just need to make sure I don't become an asshole with my newfound confrontational nature, lol
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