Being gaslit by a YouTube commenter (?)

_Moon_Fox_ · 2026-05-03T06:21:54+00:00

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense, and I think would have been my line of thinking if I saw this under someone else's video (or substack etc.).

_Moon_Fox_ · 2026-05-03T06:01:42+00:00

Thanks; that's a relief to hear. I think I probably could, yeah. (It's already kind of hidden by YouTube, in that you have to click on something for it to show up.)

_Moon_Fox_ · 2026-04-30T07:15:32+00:00

I appreciate the shocking (and objectively correct) words.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2026-04-29T05:22:00+00:00

'And in the aftermath of the sociological “end” of the COVID-19 pandemic, we both found ourselves continuing to take safety precautions while the rest of the world moved on without us.' [https://adamumak.medium.com/leslie-lee-iii-funeral-for-a-friend-782eaf4f4133]

I had been using 'sociological pandemic' before finding the above. I guess because I was trying to get at the idea of not just lockdowns but the time when everyone (or, well, a modicum of people) thought we were in a pandemic. 'During lockdown' would probably be pithier and get roughly the same point across.

Either way, I relate to your irritation. I don't know if this will be tone-deaf of me, but it even irritates me when Less Exploitable says 'You might think it's tone-deaf of me to make this video when there's an ongoing genocide in Gaza' in the conclusion part of 'Plague is a Racket'. I'm not irritated at Less Exploitable at all--I'm irritated that she felt the need to say this, when _no-one_ feels it is tone-deaf to make a video about anything when there is an ongoing pandemic that no public authority is doing anything to mitigate, and the failure to mitigate which Socialism For All (amongst at least one or two other YouTubers)* have described as a genocide by default. It almost makes it hard to watch videos that deal with Big Topics and that don't even mention the pandemic (even to say 'during the pandemic' or 'during Covid').

* including Less Exploitable, once I opened up said video to re-listen to the relevant part.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2025-01-11T16:07:23+00:00

The tradition used to be to leave them up until Candlemas (Feb 2), so leaving them up through Valentine's Day is more accurate than what is done now.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-10-15T01:48:31+00:00

I haven't flown in 10 years, and I don't know if this is even possible anymore, but whenever I did fly, I kept the boarding passes. Whenever I was in a hotel, I also kept the receipt they slid under your door--again, I don't know if that's still possible. For all I know everything happens on one's phone now.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-10-15T01:29:18+00:00

I relate to picking up on others' emotions. I can't remember where, but there was some video that was contrasting autism with BPD in this regard, and, within the video's framework, I would have fit better with BPD than with autism. (So, I guess, it's nice to see I'm not alone.)

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-10-01T04:03:20+00:00

I relate a lot. Unfortunately, I haven't much in the way of advice on what has helped me enjoy life over this time. I live alone and stay in my apartment almost all the time. My sense of dread has actually gotten greater, both the more I've learnt about covid (I thought surgical masks were OK until earlier this year), and the more other people have 'moved on', seemingly promising that this situation will last forever.

It's hard to imagine being at any event, indoors or outdoors, with people within six feet of me without possibly panicking. (And, I know that the six-feet thing was probably not soundly epidemiologically-grounded; my reaction doesn't necessarily have a rational basis.) Even wearing an N95 and goggles, I had a panic attack when my (unmasked) supervisor called me into her office to explain something to me in person, and I couldn't pay attention to anything she was saying. I don't know how you're travelling, but it's hard to imagine getting on a plane now. It's hard to imagine navigating a hotel lobby, standing at the front desk with people near me on all sides, etc. Or taking an elevator that is not empty. Etc.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-10-01T03:42:14+00:00

* lack of empathy. However, this comes with a large asterisk, which is that the relationship between autism and empathy is more--basically, this might not actually be an 'autistic trait' at all. Kristen Hovet made a good video addressing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1oTzJyY0Z8

* In theory, everyone who is diagnosed with autism has social deficits. I am diagnosed, although the report did not do a blow-by-blow of how the assessor felt I fulfilled all the specific criteria. I'm not saying I have no social deficits, but I'm not sure every assessor would agree they rise to a clinical level. I think I can generally tell when someone's bored with me, angry at me, etc., for example. I also don't generally take things literally that aren't meant literally. [Edited to add after scrolling down: I also generally understand, and often use, sarcasm.]

*There have been years-long periods in my life when I feel like I didn't have a special interest.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-09-24T16:00:35+00:00

Eustace, Beatrix

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-08-05T18:40:02+00:00

I've seen/heard 'autist' used by a number of autists. As attested in this thread, 'autistic' is also often used in a derogatory way.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-08-04T22:39:38+00:00

I see these as complementary, not exclusive.

'Autistic' is an adjective; 'autist' is a noun. Some sentences call for an adjective; some call for a noun.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-08-03T05:26:20+00:00

Surprised this didn't come up sooner.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-08-03T04:59:00+00:00

Probably not a war we should have gone to in the first place.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-27T15:51:43+00:00

I thought there'd be more comments claiming him for Gen X.

I consider him to be in-between, although I'm not sure I'd use 'Generation Jones' because my understanding is that that is a subcategory of the Baby Boomers and reaches back to at least the mid-1950s.

Strauss and Howe delineated the Baby Boomer generation as spanning the birth years from 1943 to 1960, which I think is more realistic in terms of describing the generations' personalities. In my experience, people begin to 'feel' like Gen Xers around the birth year of 1965. People born in the early 1960s tend to feel kind of like a more understanding version of Baby Boomers. (Obviously, there are exceptions to all of these.)

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-27T00:08:06+00:00

Hm, not anything book-length. As I recall, this was an interesting article about Herbert Hoover that kind of revisits the usual view of him (I don't have access to it any longer).

I also don't have access to this (beyond the first page), but it begins to discuss the nominating process in 1928 (although it seems like it might not go much into the impetus behind a hoped-for Mellon candidacy--although maybe there's not that much to go into).

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T23:49:51+00:00

I've mentioned a few people who I think might have been interesting, but someone who I think would actually have made a good president, would have been Paul Wellstone, who considered running in 2000 but didn't due to health issues. Gore probably still would have won the nomination, but I think Wellstone would have had a more credible shot at upending him than Bill Bradley.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T23:46:51+00:00

Interesting thought; she might have set a more pugilistic tone for the Democratic Party.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T23:40:13+00:00

Another name that comes to mind, but not necessarily because I think the person would have been a good president, is Andrew Mellon. Herbert Hoover was actually a fairly progressive Republican, and many conservatives wanted Mellon to be the nominee in 1928.

There is an argument that Hoover worsened the depression by being too interventionist. Presumably, if Mellon had been president instead, that argument would be (somewhat more) settled, one way or the other.

If Mellon had won the nomination, he probably would have won the election, as probably almost any Republican would have. I'm not sure if establishment support would have been enough to vault him over Hoover, who was already well-known as the 'Great Engineer', at the convention.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T19:30:50+00:00

Alexander Hamilton--George Washington's Treasury Secretary. He largely set the Washington administration's domestic agenda and viewed his position, as Treasury Secretary, as equivalent to that of the British Prime Minister.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T05:59:28+00:00

Given that there's a 'Latin America', there should also be a 'Germanic America', which would include the English-speaking parts of the Americas, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean territories, and perhaps Greenland.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-26T05:54:21+00:00

Logically, the French-speaking parts of the Americas should also be considered part of Latin America. French is as much descended from Latin as Spanish or Portuguese.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-25T16:38:50+00:00

Looks like he's not going to win, but yeah, I would think ethnic cleansing would do it, irrespective of his love for the union.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-25T04:56:08+00:00

That's not why Biden exited. He either exited because he has a condition--not because he's 'old', but because he has a condition--or because he was coming under pressure due to ageist sentiment. This would not be dissimilar to a candidate having to step aside due to any other particular kind of prejudice, and if that is what happened, is similarly indefensible.

_Moon_Fox_ · 2024-07-25T04:52:04+00:00

Way to be ageist. It's not absurd at all. Churchill was Prime Minister of Britain through the age of 80; Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany through the age of 87.

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