#discourse is the mindkiller

[notaplaceofhonour]

“it’s hypocrisy for people who celebrated the idf killing sinwar & nasrallah to be appalled by people celebrating luigi mangione killing brian thompson; either you care about sanctity of life no matter what or you’re okay with celebrating killing terrible people”

as someone who isn’t really celebrating either, but is more worried about the latter than the former, I would like to present another option.

there is a fundamental difference between:

killing a member of a military structure as an act of war VS. extrajudicial vigilantism and murder against another citizen

a terrorist organization that exists to destroy a country & slaughter its civilians directly carrying out a massacre with clearcut genocidal intentions VS. a healthcare company that exists to both provide coverage for care to its customers and profit to its shareholders making decisions that indirectly lead to death through a failure to provide care when they prioritize profit over care

an agreed upon military action by official members of a structure that has (ostensibly, or at least is supposed to have) a means of oversight/accountability VS. one rogue person serving as judge, jury & executioner with no oversight or accountability

a military attack that deals a significant & strategic blow to a structure that exists to cause harm VS. a lone act of violence that leaves the injustice structure intact and at most disrupts the means to provide healthcare coverage within that system

on multiple levels, the situations are different. this isn’t saying there isn’t severe injustice in how healthcare coverage is provided, or that Brian Thompson was in no way responsible for his part in it, but there are shades of bad, and in every aspect, they’re multiple steps removed in ways that severely change the dynamics.

yeah, if you squint your eyes until all details blur away and boil everything down to “bad person gets bad thing” they start to look the same, but that is a fundamentally unhelpful & childish way to look at the world.

should powerful people who make unjust decisions & have a larger share in the diffuse responsibility for terrible injustices receive no consequences just because they’re not directly masterminding it, or it’s an indirect consequence of other goals, or “it’s not personal; it’s just good business”? no, of course not. but there is good reason that we as a society have a concept of criminal negligence, and we recognize the difference between manslaughter versus murder. they’re just fundamentally different things.

no, intention isn’t everything, but it isn’t nothing. passively allowing violence isn’t not violent, but it is still categorically different from actively engaging in violence or directly commanding it. indirect responsibility isn’t no responsibility, but it isn’t the same as direct responsibility.

it can absolutely be helpful to build a fence around certain offenses—“don’t do x because it’s adjacent/can lead to y”—to make it less likely that the worse offense will occur or to keep people from abusing gray areas and claiming plausible deniability. but there is a limit to how far you can take that before it starts to do the opposite.

when we keep expanding the criteria of guilt to include more and more steps away from direct, intentional harm as equal to the direct/intentional version of that offense, and we lower the criteria for who metes out justice to just any guy with a gun, and we put the power of judge jury & executioner all in a single person’s hands and we allow the maximum sentence (execution) for even indirect/unintentional systemic harm… we’re creating a powder keg just waiting to explode into mass, unchecked, open violence and throwing matches at it. and that’s not even getting into all the people chomping at the bit just waiting to use this permission structure to attack Jews and queer people

I don’t know when we, the three opinions people, started embracing this dualistic extreme black-and-white thinking where things had to all always be x or y way, but we need to do better. cheering on the expansion of vigilantism into extrajudicial execution for untried alleged criminal negligence & corporate manslaughter is a significantly different beast to crab raving or dancing in the streets when a guy who directly masterminded massacres, ruled a totalitarian regime, or dedicated his life to final solution 2: electric boogaloo gets hit as part of a war.

[windvexer]

Today I too shall let someone be wrong

[mashivan]

While the manosphere is toxic and hateful, it at least gives a path forward for men to better and improve; it has a positive and aspirational view.

The misandrist feminism popular here on tumblr (and I imagine in real life, though the people I interact with are normal) only has a negative view of men. There's nothing a man can do to cleanse himself of the original sin of being born, and is only tolerated if he acts like a doormat.

For a man who hates himself and his position in the world, only one offers any chance of acceptance. It's a cynical and exploitative acceptance, but it's acceptance.

[birdiedotjpg]

truly can’t believe i had to read “the queer community has a groom/ing problem” in the context of SHIPPING DISCOURSE

[acapellas]

i can't believe people are arguing that the toxic lesbian situationship with a body count show is not centered around alicent and rhaenyra's relationship and characters.....wild inability/refusal to engage with the basic premise of the show

[thebisexualwreckoning]

i must not tumblr discourse. tumblr discourse is the mindkiller. tumblr discourse is the little death that brings total obliteration. i will face my dash and the absolute rancid take that somehow made it's way on there and permit it to pass over and through me. and when it has gone i will turn the inner eye to see its path. where the realisation that getting into tumblr discourse is never going to convince anyone or lead to healthy conversation and will only continue to harm my own mental health and safety has gone there will be nothing. only i will remain

[atopvisenyashill]

oh god key 5 people still exist?

they are absolutely still yapping about that yes despite grrm saying that he was annoyed the original outline got out because he's departed so much from it at this point. it is as always used to cut sansa almost exclusively out of narrative importance (but tbf, sometimes brienne and catelyn/lsh and notice this is only used as a cudgel against women. love these hypocrites lol).

anon sent an ask like two seconds later that says: wait sorry about the last ask, one must banish the discourse from the mind, it is the mindkiller, et cetera et cetera. Have you read His Dark Materials? any thoughts on what daemons various asoiaf characters might have?

lmaoooo.

i read the first book in grade school and watched the show as it was airing, so if there's any errors here, no there aren't lol. i don’t know if you MEANT for me to take this as “imagine asoiaf but with daemons” but it’s a little hard NOT TO when everyone and their mama is associated with an animal. like what animal is joffrey? i mean he is a lion aksksj. i know daemons are supposed to represent your ~true self~ but at the same time so many of them attempt to model themselves off their sigils, with some characters even identifying AS that animal or being heavily associated with animals of their house (like even the tullys, they’re fish, that’s not a fearsome animal but when edmure gives that “fish swim even black ones” line you’re like DAMN. these bitches are SLIPPERY ya know? anyways ajsjd)-

robb stark - eastern direwolf. it’s the bigger direwolf irl and it’s the one that prefers a more lush habitat (like the riverlands)

jon snow - sorry i can’t just can’t see ghost any different!! i think it also fits his story, the idea that catelyn is waiting to see his daemon to get an idea of who his mother is and it’s JUST a direwolf.

sansa stark - okay so i wanted to make her like a modern relative of direwolfs to show that even if she looks different, more domesticated, she’s still a direwolf but it turns out direwolves are not related to gray wolves (even tho they look remarkably similar) but DOGS. i feel like there’s some symbolism here but idk what. anyways. i thought a wolf dog hybrid would fit here - my instinct says the Volkosob wolfdog because of their friendliness towards humans.

arya stark - ATLANTIC WOLFFISH. they are freaky and kinda mean looking but they don’t attack humans unless provoked and they’re integral to the health of their habitats. also imagine the stress of the only stark looking cat kid and she’s got a fish as her daemon.

bran stark - 😭😭 can i give a wolf wings. i do believe there are mythological winged wolves and it would be fun if he’s had like, normal animals all his life then his finally settles on a form right as he wakes up from his coma and it’s a mythical creature.

theon greyjoy - ngl my first thought was like, a duck, for how sexually violent they are as a species aldjfskd but that's not fair because allll the iron islands are like that. i was thinking some sort of salamander, which theon would think is cool but the ting about most salamanders is that while they're born in the water, once they reach maturity, they go to land. i was thinking a tiger salamander - whether they go through metamorphosis is completely up to them.

ned stark - a husky. i know huskies aren’t wolves my mom has them and i know for a FACT those bitches are all Just Smart Enough to have anxiety but not smart enough to do anything else. ned is smart enough to be depressed about everything but does he solve a single problem he has? well.

catelyn stark - orca. are orcas fish? no they’re dolphins lol BUT they are one of my favorite animals, and they are hugely family oriented, and viciously protective of their pods, with a bit of a sadistic streak (which isn’t to say cat is sadistic but she DOES have a known temper that fits with the grudges orcas tend to hold).

joffrey baratheon - obviously i want to say joff is a lion but if cersei’s kids 3/3 settle in as lions, that could be proof of A Problem bc now i’m like “what are the political ramifications if all your children have daemons that represent their mother’s house but not their father’s house. do u just pray all your kids get random non house themed daemons.” i was trying to find infamous killer lions but it doesn’t seem like it’s really a specific species that gets vicious, you just sometimes get a handful of brothers who band together and go WILD on some territory. anyways i was picturing more north african, they tend to be bigger, the more typical lions you think of and i would want joffrey’s daemon to look like The Epitome Of Lions.

tommen baratheon - love the idea of tommen being a doe.

cersei lannister - hmmmmm. can i say white lions (not completely white, mostly white) bc they only exist in captivity?

jaime lannister - nemean. why? it’s funny.

tyrion lannister - i want him to be one of those lions with black manes, to make him stick out from his siblings the way his eyes do. not even his daemon is a golden lion!

robert baratheon - i would love robert to be a moose bc of how vicious they are but i think they’re too funny looking so he gets to be an elk. i like that elk can become invasive species if they’re not checked bc they’re Too Adaptable. the idea that robert is the sort of person who can adapt to any situation, not for his intelligence, but simply bc he is too good at violence. something fun here.

stannis baratheon - he’s a moose for sure. goofy, big, and mean as fuck.

renly baratheon - renly is a peacock and he thinks its kinda funny

brienne of tarth - i'm feeling some sort of beast of burden, like a horse. loyal, fearful, but always charging straight into danger, always carrying the heaviest load of the group.

dany targaryen - i'd love the idea of dany having a wyvern as her daemon, a sort of nod to barth's theory that wyverns were used to make dragons.

[nathanielbuildsatesseract]

I think a lot of the terrible discourse I see about dating and relationships stems from treating "men" and "women" as primitive categories. Many of the people doing this are obviously smart enough to know better; I assume they are some combination of mindkilled and incapable of communicating nuance after years on Twitter. Nevertheless, the outright sexism (pro and anti, in both directions) is really grating.

For the example which prompted this: there's this comeback people love to use of "do you even like wo/men?" when someone complains about...literally anything, honestly. It seems really strange to me, because there are billions of adult female humans on this planet. That's billions of unique individuals, covering an absurdly huge variety of ways of being a person, most of which are not going to be romantically compatible with any arbitrarily chosen adult male human! It seems to imply that wo/men are interchangeable in a way that strikes me as obviously, inherently sexist.

Put simpler: I don't want to date "women". I want to date (and eventually marry) one woman. Those aren't the same thing!

[enderdoesthings]

[through a stuffed nose] responding is the mindkiller. engaging with discourse is the little death that brings total obliteration.

[fipindustries]

i think everyone has their wrestling. what do i mean by this?

one of the biggest surprises to me was when i discovered what wrestling really was. it seemed, from the outside, like just a bunch of silly fake fighting for no real reason but to make spectacle i guess. but then i learned that, wait, actually there are like storylines and shit. there are characters, there are character arcs, there is lore and the poeple who follow it have been following this rich tapestry of complex story telling for years and this is why they get so invested in it.

there are thousand examples like this, it doesnt have to be wrestling specifically, it can be V-tubers, it can be forum drama, it can be wikipedia intra editor fights. in my specific case, its politics streamers.

i tried to be more discreete about this in the past. politics is the mindkiller and i get the feeling political streamers fall near the bottom of respectable human beings. it might genuenly be a bit less cringy if i was into big brother or some other reality tv show. but whatever, this is one of the things im obsessed with, this is one of my main hyperfixations, ive been into this shit for years and im going to start being a bit less coy about it.

i want to bring up one some such example of the things ive seen in that side of the internet.

to this day i maintain that the entire mr. girl/destiny saga is one of the most fascinating, disturbing, most interestingly written and weird stories ive seen in my life. imagine if a pathological narcissist, with a history of manipulation, emotional abuse, and overall being a giant creep tried to do his whole song and dance with a popular streamer to get clout and popularity but it just so happens that the mark he chose turned out to be a cold sociopath who cannot be bullied or manipulated moved by emotion or human conection.

it was truly some death note level shit, it was L and light all over again, the most fucked up game of cat and mouse that i followed breathlessly for months. it was delightful to watch this strange, disturbing creature try to sink its teeth on what it thought was just one more person and finding out the other guy was even more fucked up and distrubed than he was.

the ensuing discourse had everything, abuse, rape, pedophilia, weird opinions about the movie cuties, faux psychoanalizing, grooming, nazi apologia, people crying, people very much not crying when they probably should have, sexting, homoerotic obsession, manifestos, fanart.

it was the worst and i loved every second of it

[oodlenoodleroodle]

I will not engage in discourse, discourse is the mindkiller!

[runedscope]

Discourse is the mindkiller

[causalityparadoxes]

wheres that discourse is the mindkiller post i just had the stupidest online conversation ive ever in my life

[manlethotline]

I don't even consider myself an activist but I am pretty politically active irl and the whiplash between talking to people in person who are already stretched so thin. haven't had a single weekend in months where they weren't protesting or doing on the ground mutual aid or making care packages or whatever. on top of working and feeding themselves and all that day-to-day human stuff. and those people talk about feeling guilty for taking their birthday off to see friends. or not being plugged in for even a few days.

and then going online and watching people who are literally just being asked to stay informed and maybe call their reps talk about how they need a mental health break. idk. I know internet discourse is the mindkiller. no-one is going to be on 100% of the time, and I'll always say it's better to act within your abilities than to push yourself and hit the wall hard.

but I guess always ask yourself if you are acting to the limits of your abilities, or to the limits of your comfort.

activism fatigue is very real but you have to actually do activism

[rynnaaurelius]

Someone explain to me using small words why every time I see a person talking about how The Dangers Of Applying The Word Queer To A Community And Misappropriation of Slur Reclaimation, every time, without fail, I check their blog and see "DNI if you believe X Identity is real"

Like. How does your brain work.

Anyway, if I haven't made it clear before, this is a safe space for he/him lesbians, bi/pan lesbians and gays, pansexuals, the ace and aro spectrums, and any other "contradictory identity".

We don't welcome crypto-TERF talking points in this house

[finitevariety]

The mental gymnastics this person went to imply you said not going to school made you inferior (when it didn't even came up in the conversation) and that point being racist bad bigoted ?

And they work on mental health yikes

I was truly...like, I don't mean to UNO Reverse here, but to equate the idea that it's important to try to be accurate and careful with being classist, ableist, and racist is quite literally to be all of those things! By presuming that it's not possible to be in certain classes, have certain disabilities, or be certain races and at the same time be able to value accuracy and constructive dialogue, OP was telling on themselves.

Everyone can and should strive just as hard to be understood as they should to understand. And, man, I gave it my best shot on both fronts--but I clearly failed.