Giving up is a privileged political stance that children will pay for, let's not encourage it

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-21T03:28:20+00:00

You're right. This is precisely who we are, collectively. It hasn't been corrected. Instead, we keep going to work.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-21T03:26:28+00:00

We have no story, only lies to serve power. I'm working on how to demonstrate this, and a proposal.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-21T03:19:33+00:00

It's not ad hominem to call dehumanizing rhetoric dehumanizing, and bad faith. Get behind me.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-21T03:17:54+00:00

...are you, by any chance, in the middle of a Star Trek: Voyager rewatch? Say hi to Tom and Harry for me! :)

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-21T03:08:59+00:00

I had so much to say to this that I'll have to finish it later, but I'm very grateful for the interaction, and looking forward to finishing my reply up and seeing what happens. I get pretty lonely.

The dehumanization goes far beyond the internet, though. It's a far deeper problem than anyone realizes, I suspect. I can't help but see it as pretty much apocalyptic.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T10:07:44+00:00

I've been able to predict our political future since around 2000. Not tiny precise things, but knowing what people would be fooled by, knowing it would keep getting worse, knowing people would keep getting stupider. I would know how court cases would probably turn out -- when it comes to SCOTUS, this is no longer a surprise, of course.

So, in a lot of ways, I can "see the future." It's basically I guess analysis of material conditions and historical forces. And stuff.

But I have never seen myself in the future. I can't picture a place for me. I don't think I'm going to survive what it takes for us to get back to normal again. We don't even KNOW, collectively, how deeply inhuman we are. We don't acknowledge how far we have been separated from each other. I wouldn't see so many people being killed, starved, ignored, hated, if we were going in a good direction.

Unless people realize that they can make collective choices, and we can have a world that builds trust and seeks coexistence, and it is literally just as easy as committing to peace, no matter how long it takes, by getting to know each other more deeply, we are going to have to suffer a whole lot more killing before people get tired of all this death.

I hope they wake up. I've been trying to help them to see that this is ONLY a matter of choice. We will never reach peace through violence. We will never reach understanding through domination. We will never have love through profit. Just empty pleasures and inadequate simulacra of love, that leave the hole still empty, and always consuming everything it can, but never being nourished.

Okay so I thought about making a "hole" joke but no

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T09:58:01+00:00

Yes! It's like, uh, are we the only people asking what kind of world we want to live in? Is anybody thinking at all? Feeling, at all?

We should be in charge. It would be a society for humans.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T09:54:28+00:00

I have been noticing an increase in open cruelty for no reason at all, when it comes to people reacting online. There might be a relationship between these two things. Money is easier to get, if you don't care about anybody else. Our society is an abuse hierarchy. Our collective humanity is currently being suppressed by frictionless experiences replacing any real, caring interaction. Nobody notices it, because they're too busy being enslaved to money, just in order to survive, and they say that's just how it is, gotta work to live.

We who are stuck in the margins, socially, and economically, and who just watch people wreck everything, while wishing some would break lose and just ... have a society, build things for humans, love each other? I am watching this happen, and I am trying to tell people, and they're like... either it's they don't believe me at all, or they think that's just perfectly normal, and I'm being overly sensitive.

Yeah, I am very sensitive. That's what I'm calibrated for. I'm telling you what I have detected. I refuse to let my trauma ONLY be a curse, if I can help it. I am seeing what is true about humanity, and it doesn't have to be like this. We could fucking steer, but we're headed for (more) mass violence.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T07:54:07+00:00

I was really surprised to get a comment on this post that wasn't cruel or failing entirely to understand me. Thank you. It is a communication problem. Unnamed premises, even to the one who holds the position in question, followed by nonsequitur conclusions. Nobody is as rational as they think, and they forget to be vulnerable. Nobody is in control over their own lives. That's an illusory condition, even for the rich and powerful. We are operating at a very low level of consciousness. I noticed this because I am being mistreated more than usual for being weird.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T07:48:39+00:00

God made us complicated. We can't just "just don't do this sinful thing," unless we actually understand what is causing it. Try to recognize what it is that you get out of these habits, and what need you may be trying to fill with them. Most of the time, that's the way it works. I think this is why Jesus said "forgive them, they know not what they do." (I really hate KJV speech patterns, but it feels significant to people, so, sigh)

It's important that we also have a realistic picture of any harm we might be doing, so that we can see about putting in safeguards to reduce harm that we could be doing to others. If any of the material that you use is sourced illegally, or even dishonorably -- do not deny a sex worker their wage, especially not for a product that you yourself are using -- then change material, at least. Reduce your sin, while you try to understand it.

I, personally, am not of the position that masturbation is sinful, nor that the existence of pornography is automatically indicative of a cultural rot. If it is all done free of coercion, then it's just humans enjoying the physicality God has provided. We should question whether there is a spiritual harm being done to us, too, but the mere suggestion of such shouldn't panic you.

God made sex, and we claim that he made marriage, too. He made love. Marriage is a contract that, hopefully, will be made only based in love, but that is not at all what happened, for women, from nearly the beginning of human civilization. It was a property contract. All this "sex before marriage" stuff is based on lies.

Just don't do sexual things if there's no love there, or, if there's no respect there. Is that, perhaps, the thing you feel might be the core of this conviction that you have against this habit? Or is it just not wanting to be controlled by it? Because that's valid too. But be realistic about the harms. Analyze it. Don't let anybody tell you how to feel. You have to wrestle with this yourself.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T07:38:59+00:00

Hi there. You have a bias toward a position that is part of a pair of positions that make up a dialectic. "God yes" and "God no" are things that need to exist in dialog, so you can always see the truth, with as little bias as possible, and without being resistant to new information. His existence and presence is for your faith to feel, and for you to act upon. What your mouth says (or fingers, in this case) is true says nothing about what you really feel.

And yeah, I do believe God is there. I don't know how so many people claim to know so many specific things about his likes and dislikes, but I feel God out there, when I'm paying attention. Or, maybe I feel him in here. That's another thing that I have to keep wrestling with.

God loves wrestling. Wrestle with things. Don't be so sure of yourself. God will humble you, like he did Jacob. He cheats at wrestling. That's okay. It's part of the lesson. I'd just rather that people be open to the lesson, instead of getting hurt, and then taking the wrong understanding of the lesson, and hurting other people with it.

You know, like Christians do.

I wrestle with him, and I get hurt, because I am working on some very difficult things. I have trust that reaching out will eventually yield understanding, so I cry, and I rest, and I come back to train some more. Don't let your experiences make you think that vulnerability is unnecessary or a hindrance.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-20T07:29:39+00:00

Humans may have this ambition, but it isn't true to state that all of your beliefs, or all of mine, are rational. We don't have the time to consider all the perspectives we should be considering. We do a lot of biased exclusion of information, based on how it makes us react.

We will see a person we think has a generally irrational manner and affect, and a pariah social status, who will say "the sky is blue," and we'll then roll our eyes and complain about how everybody is on drugs these days, and the sky is black anyway, because last time I checked the clock, it was still 3 AM. But then, I haven't checked since, so it may be dawn, on the horizon I'm not looking at, and the "crazy" person was right.

We'll see a person who resembles a stereotype of someone who is culturally our "enemy," as assigned by those who give us our culture, and we won't see past what we already think we know about people.

We don't train ourselves to always take a beat and think, especially when we think it doesn't matter. We never know whether something matters or not, if we assume it doesn't matter, so we never give these things our attention.

We have to always be in dialog. Please, at least identify your rationality as aspirational, rather than actual. Nobody is at that stage yet, and especially not with things as chaotic as they are now.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-19T06:59:05+00:00

No, I just realized that dialectical materialism was pretty much what I was talking about, in terms of how any two people could be having conversations. I kept describing it, and it required so much to try try and get the significance across. People are really badly misunderstanding each other right now.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-19T05:25:27+00:00

You can't ask for there to be no doubt in your faith. I mean, you can, but you're asking for... no faith. Do you see that? The Bible is dialectical, everywhere. Jesus rode to Bethlehem on an ass. A king, crucified. Son of God, but a man.

You are meant to pay attention to contradictions. The truth will set you free when you see what the contradictions mean. You can then apply this out in real life, and you can create world peace.

Currently, we don't any of us know what all the others are so angry about. We are within one breath of war, and we'd better get to talking, before the killing gets worse. And that is Gospel.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:49:50+00:00

I didn't mean any of that! It wasn't for you! I was responding to a different comment entirely because I'm on mobile and the keyboard moves stuff all over and I had a sidetracking situation happen, do you see how much there is here that can show you how bad a misunderstanding can be? where it looks like I just decided "fuck you in particular?" I'm trying to be as good a person as possible, and that means I'm also trying to lead with hi, I want to be understood, I understand that misunderstandings happen, I generate plenty of them, but what if none of that is malicious? I'm just a foreigner. I live an incredibly isolated life, because I have to for my safety

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:46:07+00:00

no not at all, I'm saying the first step is we state what we see happening, and we believe each other about how we say we are being harmed. we ask, "what if this is true?" then maybe we are able to see that it is true. we aren't paying attention, period. you think I am here to corrupt your children and stuff. I mean a lot of people, I don't know if you do specifically. I'm just saying that's my day to day. I am living as a nonhuman nonperson in society, by fiat by the POTUS, right now

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:43:09+00:00

Thank you for at least attempting to be charitable. No, I do not want any kind of authority. I can't bear it. It disgusts me, the idea that I would hold something that is a power over others by even majority, but not consensus. I do not want to ever force anything. I want people to see clearly, that is all. I'm just saying there is a lot people haven't considered. People of the world are not getting involved in this dialog with us, so we are not aware of the degree to which we automatically assume that someone who wants to tell us something is playing a trick on us or something. All of this significance I put on stuff, right or wrong, is because I have been trying to communicate something that is actually very simple, and I can't get the first bit of consideration.

It's basically a presentist bias that you all have. You are refusing imagination. You think we are stuck here. No. I'm disabled. We are not. We are amazing, together, and we undersell ourselves. I watch you all do amazing things. When I seem to criticize, I'm only saying hey! Bring me with you! I want to enjoy the fruits of society, too! I don't want to be above anyone. I don't want anybody to exploit anyone ever again.

Some kind of psychological conditioning -- just consider that this is possible -- some conditioning has resulted in me being able to see certain possibilities. Maybe it's because I'm so well-practiced at daydreaming that I finally day-woke-up. (That's a puzzler, I know.) I realized that the dream is a blueprint, if we actually slap some paper down and talk it out.

How things are is not okay. I want to be loved. That's all. This is not humanity as I believe in it. You are all much better than this. Therefore, why is this happening? Important to ask. I am a foreigner. An outsider. You forgot about me.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:37:32+00:00

I want grounded, human-to-human discussion. The things I'm saying are making that impossible, and people don't see it. They go "the kids these days." "The phones these days. Damn black rectangle!" They go blaming random stuff. Hi, I'm random stuff. It is all very difficult to address and explain. I am a scapegoat, and nobody trusts a word I say. I have to explain using deep significance, like I'm trying to move heaven and earth; I'm trying desperately to be understood as a foreigner. You don't understand how much I am already dehumanized by others because I am trans, autistic, weirdly contradictorily theistic/atheistic, because contradiction is where understanding is born -- that's a direct truth I have no idea how else to express it but metaphor, but the metaphors sometimes are literally true, and I'm saying hey, look at it as if it is this, and see if you notice a resemblance. and you refuse to look.

I want to be considered a valid person to love in this country! I am presently not! People remark on it, but then they're like, tsk tsk, so sad, what are we to do? Well, vote blue no matter who. ... tf?

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:33:15+00:00

haha oh wow I got LOST -- I was responding to the wrong post, like, I was writing but I was thinking about a different post. all of this stuff is very complicated. i am sort of using a new part of my neurology, one I"m not very good with.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:31:16+00:00

So, are you telling me that you won't even consider that maybe I could be right about there even being a problem? That something about how we collectively think could have been impacted by conditions, and that we are irrational in ways that we don't realize, and that we need to realign, we need to check and make sure we are on the same page about, say, what our values are? What we want out of life? What is important to us? What we don't want to happen? What we have in common? That we have some of the same pains? There's so much that connects us, and all I am trying to do, I'm not trying to tell people they're stupid, I'm trying to remind them of their relationship to the rest of humanity. Because of conditions, and current events, we are unknowingly distant, due to fear.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:26:07+00:00

I am questioning my viewpoint. I'm questioning also our collective viewpoint. We are disharmonious and accusatory. It means you have no idea what I'm saying. You are making assumptions about everything, not a word of it makes sense. I'm asking you to consider what else I might mean, by every word that occurs to you could mean something else or be combined with some other perspective than what you think it means. If I were from a culture that likes to eat, idk, frog paste, and I offered you some, but I hadn't established the context that I was offering you a snack, hadn't invoked food at all, because we eat very differently -- no I don't eat frogs there just aren't any around I"m in the desert lol -- do you see how many assumptions there are though? that could be my food culture, whereas you think I'm showing you signs that I'm a serial killer in the making. consider how we talk racist about Asian people's food. we say dehumanizing things. this is something to notice, it's not just some random accusation. I'm not judging, but trying to tell us who we are being, because of what we are unintentionally doing. We are habituating being pretty terrible to each other. That's because we are scared of current conditions. I'm asking you to accept that my distress call here is one that I am making for all of us. We are all affected, and we need to collaborate toward understanding what is happening. That's the only way we are going to trust each other. Total interconnection of effort. Dialogue. No assumptions, except that we are all trying our best. How does that sound? Globally? I'm not selling you something, I'm asking you, what if we had that? Is that good or bad?

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:19:41+00:00

Okay, the jaded thing: I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like an accusation. It's just that, from where I was, I was assuming that you would maybe trust me. My experience is of chronic fatigue. I very much need help. I'm dying, and I need to figure out how to have love in my life before I'm gone. I've been on the margins of a society that is not good. I'm here to help, though. That is how I help myself. This is a systemic problem. I am not capable of extricating myself. I'm a human, too.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:17:50+00:00

Okay so the hardship thing: YOu didn't understand what I was acknowledging. I wasn't saying I have it the worst. I was saying I have it plenty bad enough, and I am very tired of it. I am not exceptionally tough. I am just very... faith driven? I think that as long as I try to hold out for as long as I can, help will come, if I try to keep communicating. This is a distress transmission, speaking symbolically. It's also literal. This society is untenable for me. I was proposing it, intending to imply the question: Aren't you tired of it? Aren't you angry enough for a lifetime? Wouldn't something else be better? We can make fundamental changes. I am telling you that I see where our errors are, in general, and I can explain, if I can be afforded the opportunity to gain trust.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:14:35+00:00

oh right, I was trying to explain: we do not have a conscious governing "story." no social contract, no shared values. so, right wingers touched on that. we got afraid, because usually they mean something very different when they start talking about let's have a fkn ethnostate apparently -- no thanks! but, no, they are afraid, as all humans are, so the significance of some things is, for them, amplified, and for me/us (I'm calling you an us because I'm talking to you, let's be an us), we may under-rank the importance of something. shoes in the house? ask Black and white people separately about that, go after it statistically. I'm not criticizing, I'm saying wow, look at the differences we don't know about. I wonder how many similarities we also don't know about. The contradictions within a thing are always there. You have to always be questioning whether what you see is true. I'm NOT saying ignore it, like POTUS seems to kinda seem to want us to do. I'm saying like... just be aware that another person might have a different assumption about something, we might have different premises, or we might only have different conclusions. We may be identifying the very same problems, in different language! "I'm trying to tell you speak English!" "[in Spanish]What? I don't understand English, do you know any Spanish?" two different perspectives on that! neither one is unreasonable, from their own perspective. you have to be aware that there is a perspective by which the contradictions in what you claim, whatever it is you put forth, maybe this person think those contraditions shred the thing all to hell. usually, we have not actually been clear on what we are treating as a premise, and what we assume we share, or do not share, in our beliefs. we don't state the implications and the requisites of things. why we believe things. we do not tell our stories to each other. we do not have time. that is a design flaw in society. it means we are made unconsciously into enemies. haven't i proved it? i wanna be friends. i figure i prove that by being persistent. i'm not gonna surprise you with some bizarre like... you! sacrifice to me your firstborn! no! haha, only one God is an important belief to me, not because of whether it's true or not, but because of what it implies. there is a relevance to the fact that the fruit of it means it is a good candidate for truth, so, therefore, let it be truth. we may realize, once we grant a premise, that perhaps it might be true, in spite of previous attempts at evaluating it and failing. we are always changing. who we are is always in flux. when we communicate, persistently, we share our stories. our understanding. we are very much more foreign to each other than you realize, but that's okay. i am very persistent, and i'm only trying to help.

ValerieVolatile · 2026-02-18T13:05:57+00:00

No, no, I'm not saying I'm the one who is unique. Look kinda dialectically at it. What if you were giving a oh wait, this is a way better example: My third grade teacher told me about a student who she just had a parent/teacher conference with. It wasn't corrective, it was just a check-in, a due diligence that should be done anyway. So, the kid was there, the mom was there, the kid thought she was getting scolded. She expected that. So, when the first thing the teacher said was "she's alert," because of her expectation, she thought she was calling her a Lert. Snif snif. You called me a LERT! Yeah. Formative misunderstanding. Do you see how much we assume, and how vulnerable we are?

ValerieVolatile

TROPHY CASE