I have also been called many things, often mutually contradictory. How I see it is that labels are relative. It is not me inconsistently “being X” in one community, and “being anti-X” in another community, but rather me consistently being me, which happens to be more X than the community #1, and less X than the community #2.
Like, applying to the wokeness debate or similar, I think that weird people should be left alone, but people who comment that something seems weird, unless they imply some hostile action, should also be left alone. That is quite consistent from my perspective: all people should be left alone, unless they try to hurt someone else. Sometimes it is the normies trying to hurt others, sometimes it is the weirdness warriors. But I can imagine two different groups of people yelling at me for being something, and the opposite of it, respectively.
Or, in context of religion, I don’t believe in anything supernatural, but I also try to understand the specific statements of specific religions, so that I can tell people they are strawmanning X, without actually believing X myself. I can also explain the motte of some belief, while aware that they are playing the motte-and-bailey game.
Or I can support a cause, while distinguishing between things that are important for the cause, things that are less important, and things that are perhaps completely useless but for some reason are used as virtue signals. That again is not very popular, because for many people, virtue signalling is exactly why they play the game.
My opinions are often of the form: “I believe that X is often the right choice, but if you happen to be in the situation where X is the wrong choice, then obviously don’t do X”. Not popular. The popular positions are “X is always right” and “X always sucks”. I am in favor of actually looking at the details, which again could be a popular position among people who call themselves wise and say “for any X, X is exactly 50% right and 50% wrong”, but I can disagree with that too, and say that X is a good default, because it is right in 90% of situations.
Lonely dissent doesn’t feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit. That’s the difference between joining the rebellion and leaving the pack.
Except, the position is not necessarily lonely in the sense “only you think it”, but can be relatively lonely in the sense “many people think it, but they do not feel the urge to make a Twitter army and persecute their opponents, so if you find yourself in a Twitter war it is often you alone against the entire army”.
I have also been called many things, often mutually contradictory. How I see it is that labels are relative. It is not me inconsistently “being X” in one community, and “being anti-X” in another community, but rather me consistently being me, which happens to be more X than the community #1, and less X than the community #2.
Like, applying to the wokeness debate or similar, I think that weird people should be left alone, but people who comment that something seems weird, unless they imply some hostile action, should also be left alone. That is quite consistent from my perspective: all people should be left alone, unless they try to hurt someone else. Sometimes it is the normies trying to hurt others, sometimes it is the weirdness warriors. But I can imagine two different groups of people yelling at me for being something, and the opposite of it, respectively.
Or, in context of religion, I don’t believe in anything supernatural, but I also try to understand the specific statements of specific religions, so that I can tell people they are strawmanning X, without actually believing X myself. I can also explain the motte of some belief, while aware that they are playing the motte-and-bailey game.
Or I can support a cause, while distinguishing between things that are important for the cause, things that are less important, and things that are perhaps completely useless but for some reason are used as virtue signals. That again is not very popular, because for many people, virtue signalling is exactly why they play the game.
My opinions are often of the form: “I believe that X is often the right choice, but if you happen to be in the situation where X is the wrong choice, then obviously don’t do X”. Not popular. The popular positions are “X is always right” and “X always sucks”. I am in favor of actually looking at the details, which again could be a popular position among people who call themselves wise and say “for any X, X is exactly 50% right and 50% wrong”, but I can disagree with that too, and say that X is a good default, because it is right in 90% of situations.
Related: Lonely Dissent
Except, the position is not necessarily lonely in the sense “only you think it”, but can be relatively lonely in the sense “many people think it, but they do not feel the urge to make a Twitter army and persecute their opponents, so if you find yourself in a Twitter war it is often you alone against the entire army”.