It's been around a year since a lot of us quit Reddit, myself included. I'm happy with Lemmy, but I still feel a bit lost online since leaving the old site. Discussion?

Yeah buddy fuck you too

You're not exactly putting out a "convince me otherwise, I'll consider what you have to say fairly"-feeling energy yourself.

My experience has been utterly different from yours, in fact your initial comment there is one of the least "cordial" comments I've seen. I'd posit you're seeing a response to the way you write your thoughts. People aren't interested in engaging with stone walls, but they will try to take a sledgehammer to the ones they think are in the way.

And that's before I address you suggesting there's a "middle ground" in the lgbtq+ debate. There is no "middle ground" when it comes treating people like people, and treating them in the way they need. That is, a way that doesn't make them want to end themselves.

"As is mine" is a harrowing line in your initial comment. You are not under attack. In any way whatsoever. You are not being asked to give up, a, single, thing. The core argument is that people want to exist, and they want to be happy. That costs you nothing, at least in terms of "identity".

It displays a seriously concerning lack of understanding of the changes that the sane people in the debate want enacted, or more charitably, that you've mistaken the insane ones for the ones that are considered reasonable.

If I ask for water so I can live, you don't respond with "but how much do you really need". You give me as much as I fucking need.

I will agree that there are lgbtq+ individuals on the fediverse that are far away from reason, because the world has severely damaged them with what they've been put through. And there's more of them here because the fediverse has several corners that caters to them.

Remember, this is the group of people that has the highest suicide rate among any demo. Even among the ones that are alive, a lot of them are not gonna be ok. In response they can have overconsructed coping mechanisms, strenuous relationships with reality, etc. They can go off at the most innocent things because when the whole world feels like an enemy, its easy to assume that every person that gives you trouble, also wishes you dead. Even when they really, really don't.

Hence you can't look at these people and interpret all your interactions with them in aggregate. A lot of them are angry, but not really at you specifically. They have very good reason to hate "normal" society, because by default normal society treats them in a way that makes a significant portion of them choose non-existence over bearing it. And then people like you walk in and mention a "middle ground" like this isn't an immediate matter of life and death, that needs solving ten years ago. Yeah. You're gonna get some shit thrown your way.

Lgbtq+ people are being hurt all over the world. The ones that aren't, almost certainly have been, and are still healing. But no-one who is thinking clearly is asking you to take their every word as absolute truth, or throw them a perpetual pity-party. If they are, they are almost certainly among the hurting.

Obviously no-one can demand the whole world treat them with special coddling, but it's also not at all weird to see people who have been treated unfairly their whole lives, have trouble with finding where the line of "fair" actually lies. Or need a bit of extra kindness because they are in a place where they'll interpret disdain even when none is intended.

When someone who can't tell an actual enemy apart from someone who is just trying to change their mind on something they are wrong about, it's better to just make sure they know you aren't malicious. For someone like that, it's more important to show them not everyone who disagrees with them about something, also wants them dead. In fact it kind of has to happen in that order. For your point to get through, they first have to trust people enough not to close up and stop listening the second they sense trouble. One way people become like that is when words have been used to hurt them, a lot, and often.

And honestly, reading your wording, you don't exactly seem innocent on that front. To me, you read either intentionally unkind, or carelessly dismissive.

Fair enough.

But you can't know whether someone has a salient point if you don't at least read, and even more importantly, make the effort to comprehend, what they have to say.

100% my experience on lemmy as well.

empty angry phrases... no actual substance on these issues. and no specifics. no meaningful discussion about how policing should be done... just 'police are bad and should not exist and crime will magically disappear without them!'

You're the one polarizing the discussion. You're literally the only one actually drawing a definite line, thereby excluding the possibility of you crossing it. So, if you aren't a "racist bigot" why engage in this self-deprecation? Why lament the inability to engage in good-faith discussion, by actively doing the opposite? You could be being "the bigger person" by ignoring any perceived fallacies. Instead, you're throwing a tantrum by being the most condescending person in the "room".

It's not anarchist bullshit. The point of ACAB is to pull attention to the fact that if there were lots of good cops, they should be doing something about all the bad ones. But they aren't.

Hence the solution needs to be far more drastic than most precincts and politicians are prepared to consider. That's where ACAB leads.

It is not for the public to invent the solution. That's literally what leaders and legislators are supposed to be doing. All we can really do is keep rejecting all proposals that won't actually solve the severely entrenched systematic problem.

Hence: ACAB.