Gratitude for 5 minutes. Subject to change

[jfz9580m]

3. I am 50-50

Last edited Fri Apr 10, 2026, 08:01 AM - Edit history (1)

I am lucky and grateful some. But I have also met some real jerks.

I was reading Brianna Joy Gray this morning and she had written something I agreed with wholeheartedly (which I will get to at the end).

It captures the dynamic that has made navigating a reality where you work blind so damn hard and leads to what seem like bizarre mood swings whereas it is only a difficulty with processing: 1) large crowds in general as opposed to small or even reasonably larger networks of trust and 2) flying blind. And the third is so ineffable as suggestion, your own brain glitching, possibly external input all - if something is subtle enough an annoyance..well let’s just say it is one more uncertainty factor that throws off “reality monitoring” at its healthiest.

When I was more robotic (it turns out that humans do have an innate robot like mechanical mode or I would be shocked if we didn’t at this point and it makes me extra contemptuous of ai even if ai has machinic memory. After all, I have human knowledge of the kind machines simply can’t and still that was so lame), I used to swing from “to hell with it all” or “oh fine I will suck it all up” and various other broken things it is really hard to remember. Though I must. Not very pleasant memories.

I was startled once and lost the normal human ability, of separating out worlds, contexts.

It is easier for sociable or extroverted people.

It is so intuitive in humans to separate out context and worlds that to lose it all of a sudden is galvanising (where do these words come from?) shocking.

I am not innately paranoid nor scarred nor a gullible moron. So it was very strange. It really was a bit like a knockout. You cannot wipe out 33 years of pleasant enough knowledge of reality. Otoh..yeah that was weird.

I was a normal person who dislikes some people (relatively few outside street creeps or outrageously sleazy and self serving people which is rare in my experience if you stay away from hells), likes and trusts some people and is mostly used to routine or neutral banality. It was a disorienting experience and occasionally could have been dangerous though there I got lucky.

Paranoia is at least protective potentially. Some kind of Pollyannaish naïveté must be a different form of survival. To just have a running state that’s searching for safety ineptly is awful.

Anyway Gray wrote about how shaming may not always work. She nailed this part:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2018/03/the-politics-of-shame

But unlike guilt, which is tied to specific acts of wrongdoing, shame provokes a holistic negative self-evaluation that impedes one’s ability to internalize and learn from bad behavior. While the person experiencing guilt thinks “what a terrible thing I did,” and then considers the effect their actions have had on others, the person experiencing shame thinks “what a horrible person I am,” and searches for a way to preserve their self-esteem. Guilt is adaptive: it causes us to isolate and rehabilitate a specific “bad” behavior. But shame is uniquely hard on the ego. The results can be disastrous.

I have never really bought into hectoring and preaching especially since some of the people who behave like that are nothing like Gray. This widespread nuisance I suspect will make life hard for some of more hypocritically sanctimonious out there. I rarely pay attention to the right as they are not as overtly represented in academia as they are in the private sector and in academia it shows up more in callow PMC liability culture devoid of meaning than any other way. And it is really hard to pushback against that sort of sleazy corporate liability bs if you also have to worry about some of the guys for whom the bullying is the part they enjoy whatever the cause, not actual sympathy for the screwed over. The show Dexter comes to mind. “I must bully and mob. Let me pick a good cause so I can get away with it.”

Now guilt is something I am used to feeling, because a lot of my mistakes have been along the lines of breaking research equipment inadvertently and one feels guilty. However, I had gotten to a point in my life where I thought I was learning not to break things and then I got broken.
I suppose I am back to normal and I hope Norml .

I am outright ungrateful and unapologetic some (or seriously it is just asking to get shoved around..I am not defiant the way a creep like Louis C K would be, but I am sick of maltreatment). Otoh I am back to usual worries about not breaking even more confusing things than lab equipment. Besides I am a complainant in several real contexts and angering ones.

It’s still rough and one is instinctively extra careful to not escalate where there may be no there there and where you have different worldviews to start with. It is wild. I have rarely directly had much to do with the right and the people I have issues with just largely seemed apolitically awful and annoying. Annoying was what I mostly registered. And ear splitting, creepy and various other sterling qualities.

I don’t understand kayfabe. But in some cases where it isn’t that serious a conflict but one is still pretty sore, they can suck up being called annoying if they can go around calumning one by shoving one into places filled with morons who call one psychotic while other morons shatter one’s eardrums day in and day out, where it is not even clear if it is an entirely routine nuisance level unconnected with anything or an encroaching and malicious space grab.

Yeah I am definitely mixed on gratitude .

Definitely my head is all over the place. But I predictably lose my shit when street noises are way more loathesome than can surely be anything but : a) targeted, deeply misogynistic harassment and b) truly not giving a shit. It has goaded me into losing some Stockholm Syndrome.

But it is a particularly vile feature of where I live that total creeps pile on in situations exploiting unsaid forbearance for an entirely different and distant group person or two legitimately probably working in lousy ai, bot and rot filled things and trying to do something worthwhile or decent.

But then these creeps pile on expecting to take cover in accelerating chaos as if people are daft enough to confuse dynamics of: 1) genuine acceptance, 2)routine annoyances and 3) some real assholes and creeps endlessly truly pushing it and trying to get away with that.

Genuine acceptance itself is super idiosyncratic especially for women used to creeps and systemic “boys will be boys” bs coupled with malicious moral policing.

As if you can confuse everyone and make women like me out to be super high maintenance jerks rather than people who would just rather not be exploited, shoved around, harassed and have more and more pile ons pile on expecting forgiveness endlessly.

The rare times I have accepted something, in context, it really didn’t look like someone getting away with stuff. And my quibble today in those instances is mainly “why exactly are we always accommodating creepy tech cos which don’t give a shit and will promote endless poly crises and slipshod hasty solutions with a high background of collateral damage, backlashes and chaos?”

Sadly it is a calculation even nicer people make that they can get away with insulting and ignoring some of us and expect forgiveness. While satirizing the exact same dynamic in worse off people like me who are forced to tolerate crazies thanks to their rubbishy tech humping.
Vietnam got it. Ban those cruel wetmarkets. Nothing “culturally” sacrosanct about animal abuse.

Always scrambling for vaccines and ransomware patches over decent regulation and humane laws, wet markets or douchey wetware markets.

These guys definitely pushed it where I live and they can be assured of conflict.

But I have to get over moods where one wants to drop out of society entirely as that may not necessarily be what works.