And I don’t mean things you previously had no strong opinion about.
What is a belief you used to hold that you no longer do, and what/who made you change your mind about it?
I was a big ‘offend everyone’ dweeb, with a side serving of “free speech”.
I grew up in structure where etiquette and taboo were abused and hated them. Like the chilidish little maximalist I was, I applied that hatred to everything. Slurs were particularly hilarious, I thought people were ridiculous with how they tip toe around them and delighted in their discomfort when I’d just come out and say it. They were just words, why be scared of them?
In my mind, I clearly didn’t hold any bigoted views. Particularly with homophobic ones - I’m queer, I’ve been beaten for it, I’ve been beaten counter protesting “actual” bigots. I’d ask critics “what have you done?”, before calling them a fa-
Well, you get the idea.
At the end, I was also a sort of community figure. An extremely minor one in the grand scheme of things, but I still had attracted a small audience. This included a large number of younger men who were impressionable. The thing is, they attract their own audience too.
I noticed an increasingly amount of what I considered, back then, to be “actual” bigoted stuff being said. Usually from older men trying to sway those younger men. I saw them buzzing around my peers too, encouraging them to say things for them, dropping bait in chats and pulling aside the younger male audience members to try to recruit them, more or less.
I tried a couple of times to call it out, but they’d fall back on “it’s just a joke”. They’d point to all the bullshit I’d said over the years and the obvious hypocrisy. I’d given up any credibility I had and bred an environment where these people could thrive. It also became clear that plenty of my audience had taken me seriously, and were imitating what they thought I was doing.
It made me reevaluate things. I’d alienated people, good people, by acting in this way. I’d hurt people I never had any intention of hurting with my callous disregard for their feelings. I’d convinced people to be worse in ways I’d fought against, destroying far more progress than I’d ever made.
So I stepped away from the spotlight and stopped. As a side note, working it out of your vocabulary is a truly frustrating progress. I’d trained myself to use slurs to mean the most basic things. Getting sober was more difficult but at least it was quicker. It took literal years of diligence to kill the impulse to call someone who is being annoying a fa-
Anyway.
Afterwards, a surprising number of the people who distanced themselves from me reached out. More than I deserved. I hadn’t told anyone I’d had a revelation, or made some grand apology to try and absolve myself of the sin or whatever. It is telling about how bad it was that people took notice just from it’s absence. Many of those shared stories of how it’d hurt them.
The one that broke my heart the most was a transwoman who I had stood up for when others tried to push her out. She had been lonely, and I’d given her just enough acceptance for her to get trapped in a toxic community. My bigotry she rationalized away, and it desensitized her just enough to try to fit in with the broader community around me. She internalized the horrific transphobia that was being said. I think it goes without saying what that did to her mental health and the places it lead. I had caused deep harm to not only someone I liked, who had looked up to me, but someone I had tried to help.
It’s not just jokes, the intention doesn’t change that.
This is a really impressive story. Thank you for sharing it - for me, it seems that you have come quite a long way.
Being antivax.
I grew up in an antivax house and I never questioned it, especially since me and my family used to be healthier than most people around us.
There would be vaccine days in school and we would have to go and refuse them. only when the corona hit and suddenly there was all this discussion about the importance of vaccines and I started to actually research it, given I was still young at the time so I don’t blame myself for not doubting it up until that point.
To this day I’m still wary of vaccines and I do have this deep feeling that I don’t want to be vaccinated but I do get my vaccines after researching them and proving to myself that the data makes sense.
I also can’t ignore the fact that there is a conflict of interest for these companies to release these vaccines and them maybe not being as safe as possible but I try to follow the data especially from independent research that isn’t related to the company that made the vaccine.
It’s really crazy how childhood beliefs can hold you so strongly even when you logically get through them and realize they are wrong.
I’m glad my childhood beliefs are that Xmas cards should go out on December 1st and that you never directly refer to money someone gave you in a thank you card, but thank them for the generous gift.
Good for you, it does take a lot to overcome some beliefs on our own and without help from those around us. There can be a lot of social pressure involved and other factors.
The McDonald’s hot coffee incident.
It’s a trivial example, but it reflects all sorts of issues in modern society.
I had bought into the McDonald’s PR, believing it to be a symptom of an overly litigious society, people blaming all of their issues on others, etc.
But then I actually looked into it, instead of taking it at face value. The face that was created by a very interested party (most notably the defendants in that same lawsuit, but also right-wing pundits pushing a narrative)
When I did, I saw for the first time the claims made by the plaintiff. These were never included in any media coverage. I hadn’t considered that the coffee was abnormally hot, and to a significant level (industry average is about 130F, this was around 180F). I had no idea about the 3rd degree burns in 7 seconds. The words “Fused Labia” had never been seen together. The multiple other similar lawsuits. The offers to settle for medical expenses. And so on…
And the worst part (in my mind), that forced me to take a 180 on the issue?
The entire reason for the coffee being that hot was to save money. This had nothing to do with personal responsibility, or a free payday. This was a megacorp selling a known dangerous product, selling pain and suffering, just to put a few extra pennies in their coffers. This had more in common with the lead/cadmium mugs (also McDonald’s) and tobacco than anything to do with freedom.
I’m not going to say it radicalized me, but it was definitely an Emperor’s New Clothes moment.
This is interesting. What do you mean industry average is 130F? When coffee is filtered the water needs to be just a few degrees below boiling or the infusion doesn’t happen properly. In order to serve coffee at 130F they would either make a bigger batch and store it in a thermos, keep it on a hot plate, or alternatively the customer would need to be kept waiting untill the coffee has cooled enough before serving it to them.
I agree that near boiling hot coffee is too hot to drink and even after it has cooled down a bit it’s still too hot for anyone to properly get to taste all the aromas of the coffee but personally as I like to take my time with it I want it served hot because if they give me 130F coffee and I cool it down further with some milk I’d basically need to chug it right away or else it’ll get cold before I finish it.
130F is (was) the typical serving/holding temperature, rather than brewing. This has climbed substantially over the years since I last looked. It now seems to be 150-175, and the cynic in me suspects this is for the same reason that McDonald’s did it (albeit higher) in 1992.
However, it can also be explained by changing consumer tastes. Back then, coffee was coffee. It was often consumed black, or with just a splash of (often room temperature) cream. With the rise of Starbucks and the like, coffee is now frequently used as an ingredient in coffee-flavored milkshakes. If these are to be served hot, either the starting coffee needs to be hotter or it needs to be heated after.
As for needing to keep it warm on a hot plate, all commercial coffee makers I’ve ever seen (plus every single home drip machine, which were based on the above) have at least 1 hot plate, sometimes called a heating pad. In fact, the model I see most often has 2- one on the bottom while brewing, and 1 on top for the existing pot. Your home models usually don’t have an option to set the temperature, but commercial models do. Or at least they have a setting that’s been designed for its use in restaurants.
Side note: Try making cold brew sometime. It’s a very different experience, but one that actually works better with cheap coffee.
I replied to another user below but the same reply would apply to this message aswell. I’m not looking for an argument but I just struggle to understand what the desired outcome here would be.
I apologize if it came across as argumentative. Serving coffee that’s too hot to drink saves money on refills, since the customer has to wait for it to cool.
As for an ideal world, it’s worth keeping in mind that McDonald’s (etc) very rarely brews the pot just for you. It’s usually been sitting there for a while. Simply adjusting the hot plate temperature resolves it. It’s also something that other places have solved. While I don’t frequent Starbucks, I hear they have “kids temperature”, which is served around 130F. I presume this is another pot kept at a lower temperature, but it could just be ice. But even above that, you don’t need skin grafts when you burn yourself on 150F coffee.
There’s a safety regulation, but the mcd manual almost said outright to ignore it. And there had been numerous incidents before, and even court cases. They were finally fined something like half a days’ profit from the sale of coffee. Only the scale of of mcd makes it seem like more than what the paperwork costs anyway. Personally, I think someone in the C-suite should get jail time for ‘gross bodily harm’, or whatever.
I’m reading the wikipedia article on this but can’t find any mention of safety regulations relating to the temperatures at which hot beverages must be served. It says that “… McDonald’s required franchisees to hold coffee at 180–190 °F (82–88 °C) … coffee they had tested all over the city was served at a temperature at least 20 °F (11 °C) lower than McDonald’s coffee.”
Only mention of 130F was made by McDonald’s quality control manager Christopher Appleton who “… argued that all foods hotter than 130 °F (54 °C) constituted a burn hazard, and that restaurants had more pressing dangers to worry about.”
I struggle to understand what the optimal resolution to this would be. You need boiling water to brew coffee. That’s a fact which any coffee snob can confirm. While it’s not a technical impossibility to serve coffee at lower temperatures, a regulation like this would make it near impossible for coffee shops to serve fresh coffee and this applies to tea aswell.
Yeah, but they didn’t serve ‘fresh’ coffee, the whole point was to make a giant urn of coffee and sell coffee from that all day. I don’t know what the boundaries of those rules were, it’s entirely possible it’s different if you serve it in an open steaming cup, but this was Styrofoam take away cups.
Their customers had had problems before, but they didn’t care. I think that’s what got them in the end.
I used to identify as Libertarianian. Resented taxes, overreaching, infiltrating my life, all about independence, don’t want to be interfered with.
Then I became homeless. Realized how the social services, ssi, Medicare are important. Sure there are lazy people, but also those who genuinely need help, who want to get back on their feet. Care a lot more now about wanting to live in a society that actually cares about the people in it.
I was raised Mormon, am now atheist. Regret every conversation I had in high school about gay marriage. And evolution.
High five my friend. Also got out. Clear and strong memories of advocating Prop 8 in CA
Trigger warnings.
I used to think they are for overly sensitive people, then life happened and now I have my own triggers and would like a trigger warning for certain topics.They still are for overly sensitive people.
Nah I think it’s pretty clear that reading a post that describes rape in detail could be triggering for someone who is dealing with the trauma of rape.
For me personally it’s anything that talks about children in hospital. My son spent his first 10 weeks on a ventilator and almost died many times.
Even typing that out I can hear the machines beeping, smell the hospital and feel the doctors and nurses running around faintly in the back of my mind.
PTSD is nothing to fuck around with.
Aren’t you saying the same thing with different wording? You had some trauma, now you are more sensitive.
I heard my father die because his throat cancer was blocking his airways, and the 10 weeks after, everytime someone’s breath sounded raspy or non-optimal in some way, I would be reminded of his final moments. Is that a trigger or am I more sensitive to weird breathing noises? Or is that pretty much the same?
I wouldn’t call it “overly sensitive”. That is implying an insult 100%
I think my sensitivity is totally justified given what I went through.
not trying to insult anyone. To me that is overly sensitive. If you need trigger warnings you are overly sensitive. Its not a bad thing to be overly sensitive. I think if someone feel like they need trigger warnings what they actually need is therapy. Trigger warnings are not possible outside of circle jerking groups, get tough or get therapy until you can deal with your life without getting rekt because someone mentioned rape or whatever is your trauma. Best of luck.
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They are for people that have been traumatized one way or another.
If that is not the case for you, I’m genuinely happy for you.Duh doy! That’s the point of them! They let people know who’s experiences lead them to be over sensitive to things so they can choose whether or not they avoid media. And that’s a good thing! Trigger warnings hurt no one and if you can’t spare literally three seconds at the start of something to protect someone else’s peace, you’re selfish and probably not a good community member.
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how, how is it possible for me to know each persons triggers so i can warn them? even this discussion could be a trigger, did u preface ur comments with a warning? Its arrogant and only for spoiled privileged people to ask for trigger warnings. It takes 0 efford to stop talking or listening to what “triggers” you. just because ur entitled ass thinks that you are the center of the world and everyone should care about ur silly sensitivities doesn’t mean its going to happen. I swear only rich (relatively to the rest of the world) first world people have these arrogant and entitled demands.
Let me put things in this perspective.
It’s not realistic to expect to be able to put trigger warnings for a large population of strangers on the internet. You’re right; when putting it in blanket terms like that, it is silly.
However, there are two things where you could be mindful of others. The first are talking about highly prevalent and violent topics in detail: rape, csa, domestic abuse springs to mind. Things where you probably either know of, or have heard of, someone suffering long term as a direct result of the trauma these events inflict.
But if that’s still too broad for you, then you should keep your close friends and family into consideration and talk to them if you know one of them has gone through an extremely difficult life event. If nobody in your personal circle has experienced such things, then like the other commenter said: I’m very happy for you and them. If someone has, then even just saying “Hey do you want a heads up if this topic comes up in our group chat?” is enough. Maybe they’ll say yes. Maybe they’ll say no. But now you know what their wishes are and can act accordingly with respect to that.
Honestly that’s all people really want, I think.
i am someone that has had a very traumatic experience when i was 8, i don’t like going into details but it was one of the topics u talked about. I understand how it feels because i am feeling it.
I believe that shielding yourself inside a bubble is never a good idea and its analogous to hidding under your blanket when you are scared, if someone got into your home, staying under your blanket might comfort you but ultimately it could get you killed. But in the end it’s your life so you are entitled to live it the way you choose as am i.
What grinds my gears about “trigger warnings” is the way it’s beeing used lately where everyone has triggers about stupid things even though a lot of them never had any real serious trauma but they like the attention and playing the victim, hopefully you understand where im coming from.
if something actually happened to you and you are just feeling too weak or not ready to deal with those feelings or fears then its understandable and we have all been there one way or another, its still not the right choice in my thinking but temporarily i 100% would do anything you asked until you were ready to move on. But you can’t be afraid of words forever that’s not something i would ever support.
The issue for me is that for a lot of people getting triggered is not a temporary weakness but a way of life…
I am sure im not getting my point across very well and i apologize for that. From your response i see you are trying to understand and im grateful.
Hey thanks for taking the time and trying to clarify. I don’t have much more to add to this conversation I think so that’s where my commentary ends but I did want to reach out to say I’m sorry you have been through some pretty terrible stuff–sending a digital hug your way. Hope you have a good rest of your day.
Bernie Sanders woke me from my Libertarian slumber.
Elon Musk.
Sure, I thought, the guy’s probably an ass hole considering the amount of exwives he has. A rich cunt billionaire. But Steve Jobs wasn’t a nice guy either, but without his… Uh… “special” nature certain aspects of computers would’ve been decades behind.
But then I started listening to engineers, ones who could see through the hype that Elon Musk seems to create for everything he does, because they understood the numbers behind everything he claims and promises.
And I realised, Elon is full of shit. He’s not doing anything that manufacturers didn’t already know how to do, and he’s selling it like he invented it.
This realisation came well before he bought twitter. When he did buy Twitter and started using it as his own… Plaything, I realised he’s actually an immature idiot.
Back in 2015 I was in high school and we had to do a senior project which was a 15 page paper and then a 10 minute presentation too graduate. I did mine on Elon Musk and was fully onboard the Musk train for a while after that. I remember being kinda bummed realizing that this dude who I had thought was gonna revolutionize the wolrd was just a snake oil salesman. I still have a video of me practicing for my presentation which I just stumbled upon on an old harddrive a few months ago.
I think he made a lot of aerospace engineering students depressed.
I mostly don’t talk about it, but it’s Russia. Before the war starts, I sympathised with the russian people and disliked the hate against them. And I don’t mean Russia = Putin. This guy was always a bad guy, I mean russians.
Since the war started, I always believed the people of Russia would be against this war and get furious about it and would burn the political elites down. But nothing happens, a lot of people over there even support the war. And this really destroyed my opinion about them.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug. I suspect that if you were fed an exclusive diet of their state media, you would have a different opinion of the war.
I have no idea how they would react to a more diverse media landscape. There’s obviously a history and culture there that I don’t understand.
“[Susan Sontag] was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.” https://inthesetimes.com/article/susan-sontag-and-arthur-miller
Off the top of my head, I used to think that economic growth of a country equals wealth growth for its people and equals good leadership is steering the country policies.
Turns out that good leadership and economics are rather loosely correlated and also a large inertia allows bad leadership to reap what others saw
Turns out that good leadership and economics are rather loosely correlated
Leadership and economics are very closely linked, but not in terms of economic growth like GDP. Rather the economic measure of a good leader should be stuff like wages, CPI, wealth gap, unemployment/homelessness statistics, etc.
Yeah, that’s the real thing: “the economy” is how well the country is working for rich people and corporations. Look at average wages, actual buying power, etc. What’s in the hands of the worker. That’s the actual measure of how well a country is doing. Grotesque inequality is a condemnation, regardless of what the stock market is doing.
I used to hate chocolate as a kid and teenager. Turns out I hated Americanized chocolate like Hershey’s.
Butyric acid, same compound is found in vomit. That’s why it tastes like that.
I always felt that way about Hershey chocolate! Glad to finally have confirmation that it literally tastes like I just threw up.
I think in growing up I’ve become less prone to looking at everyone else in the world as an idiot. You know how when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you’re driving around flipping everyone off because you think everyone around you is an idiot and a know-nothing.
The older I’ve gotten the more I realize most people, most creatures in fact, are just bopping along trying to survive and get what they can from life. I guess I’ve gotten less judgmental and more empathetic, seeing most problems as a process problem, and not necessarily the result of a confederacy of idiots out there trying to ruin my life.
I often think that we just happen to live in very large communities that are more or less the same as they’ve been throughout the history of our entire species. It’s made me feel a lot more connected to everyone around me because they don’t feel like strangers anymore, they feel like extended family, in a way.
But I still love flipping people off, I just don’t mean much by it. Like a gesture that says ‘wtf are you doing you idiot’
I used to (love flipping people off) but the older I’ve gotten the less ‘good’ it feels. Partly because, as you get older, you develop a really good thick hide that things slide off of more easily - I mean nothing really bothers me the way it used to. That’s one benefit of getting older.
I’m in my late 20s and I’m on the same boat. Especially when it comes to politics. People are often much more than their politics. Unless they’re in the extreme horizontals of their beliefs.
That nice barista at the coffee shop? Could be a liberal. The dude at the office who held the elevator for you? Could be conservative. That’s just the way it works
Everyone is coming from their own unique set of experiences. And really, as long as I still get my coffee at the coffee shop, and someone is holding an elevator door for me, what does it really matter in the long run. In less than a century, all of us now will be dead and gone, and no one will recall if were liberal, convervative, happy, sad, mean or nice, or even remember that we were here.
Keeping that in mind I try to help other people when they need it and be more sympathetic - life is struggle for everyone.
Yeah i kinda feel the same way, people like politics but they are not politics. Lifes alot more fun if you just dont care what politcal party people are.
Sounds like your growth is your realization that people aren’t intending to harm you. That, yes, they are just people bopping along trying to survive. That their indifference to you isn’t malice. A great life lesson.
However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t also idiots.
Not so much that people aren’t intending to harm me but just that they are self-involved and don’t intentionally mean harm most of the time. Yes they’re still idiots, but to them I am also. We all are, really.
I was (or at least I thought I was) Libertarian when I was younger. I liked the idea of being left alone to do what I wanted as long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. I still feel that way, but I’m a Liberal now, so first and foremost I want to ensure that everyone has an equal start and that everyone is taken care of.
Libertarianism is used by the privileged to rationalize their position in society. Having gone through the same progression myself, the realization that not everyone starts on a level playing field destroys the whole philosophy.
Was a hardcore Libertarian till I finally read theory and realized how much Propaganda i had soaked up to think that Socialism was bad and unfettered Capitalism was good. Cringe so hard thinking about it now that I am a full blown Socialist.
Social liberalism is better than what we have atm, in the States, however it sounds like a half measure that could easily be rolled back with Conservative Propaganda against that status quo. I would prefer Gay Space Communism like Star Trek.
The Star Trek universe isn’t resource constrained.
Tea Earl Grey.
Gold watch Rolex.
Used to be atheist when I was young, after I read religious books I changed my perspective about it and now I am agnostic.
Now I believe atheism it’s like a religion also
All these comments about people going from religion to atheism getting up votes, and you answer the same question but get down voted for not being atheist enough. Kinda reinforces your point.
I don’t think it’s far fetched to call non-religion a type of belief but to compare them further than that is missing the point of atheism.
At some point I realized atheist people are just non-religious fanatics, just as obsessed as religious fanatics but sometimes they are worst, trying to convince everyone around them.
In my humble POV both sides are very toxic people.
So your issue is with shitty people not atheism or religion.
Saying that atheism is a religion makes as much sense as saying that theism is a religion. Neither of them are religions, they’re precursors to religion. I consider myself an atheist, but simply stating that I lack a belief that there is a God doesn’t itself become a fundamental part of my personality. Sure, there are people out there who get obsessed with the philosophical and social aspects of atheism, and they let it consume their whole personality, but I wouldn’t call fishing a religion just because somebody has an aberrant proclivity for it.
What books did you read?
What are you looking for exactly? Which kind of book?
You wrote this:
after I read religious books I changed my perspective
Which books?
Principally the bible(old and new testament) and the quoran.
I am into philosophy and economy too.
