bejapuskas

Hello there, Maybe you remember me as the way too annoying moderator who policed all the disgustingly racist, sexist, queerphobic etc. opinions on this forum. That's me. All this time I thought that my actions were in alignment with this forum's values - the forum guidelines clearly say that any kind of discrimination based on any aspect of one's identity is prohibited. Yet, when trying to police people and give out warning points as assigned to me by the guidelines of this forum for inappropriate behavior, I experienced a severe backlash as a moderator because of the members' fragility and absolute inability to reflect and see beyond their view points. It started with a lot of people posting about Incel and Jordan Peterson even after it was banned by Leo. (forum guidelines are also written by Leo, but for some reason, those are not taken as seriously as these verbal statements) A lot of girls on this forum felt bad about the Incels and honestly, they were quite disgusting with all the rape apologist speech, victim blaming etc. Truly gross. I thought I could do something and for a moment it even seemed that things have gotten better. But did they really? All this escalated into bunch of people getting triggered, posting things such as justifications of eugenics, racism, transphobia, primitive views on non-Western societies etc. All of this should be warning points worthy, but for some reason, forum members backlash against this, despite it being clearly stated in the rules that they are supposed to read before joining this forum. Even moderators often times think that certain things people say are not serious enough when they really are. And to be honest, even Leo. Leo's development towards glorifying this political neutrality, not trying to ever change anything, letting the Incel majority to do so much damage, making this forum inhabitable for anyone with a more heart centered approach to personal development. Leo did once mansplain to me why a certain transphobic thing was not transphobic, even though he himself is not trans I don't think. And there we have all his videos about how gender is a construct, which should be progressive and changing our mindset towards a more accepting one, but they really don't. Viewers mostly just accept the kind of out-of-world spiritual talk, meditate on it, but they do not actually integrate any of this serious philosophy into their behavior. Today, I checked Leo's blog, where he posted a video about regretting not trying to change people's mind, because as the video argued, doing that is basically surrendering to authoritarianism of a certain group. (white cishet men) I am glad he finally realized this, after existing as a self-proclaimed wise guru for so many years and claiming he has nothing to learn from reading books anymore. Don't get me wrong, Leo did teach me a lot of stuff, but this is absurd to say from somebody who says they value self-reflection. There is always more to learn, the universe is infinite. There was however one thing that I did not agree with in that video, and that is the claim that all societies around the world have always been non-accepting in terms of queerness and other things. That is simply not true. The Native Americans, Black people in Africa, Middle Easterners and many others have had queerness, sexual non-repression, deep spirituality, psychedelics etc. deeply rooted in their culture. You can check this out if you are interested: https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/life/india-has-always-been-queer-af-we-even-have-a-gay-taj-mahal/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/24/how-a-west-african-shaman-helped-my-schizophrenic-son-in-a-way-western-medicine-couldnt/ Non-Western societies simply were way more spiritually AND politically developed than Europeans before colonization, but all of this was destroyed by them. Now, on this forum, people often say that Europeans are politically, even though maybe not spiritually, more developed, to claim being more higher up in the Spiral Dynamics development. But even that is just self-deception and racial bias. Unless there is a massive change of this forum's dynamic, I am not willing to participate in these harmful discussions. It is not worth my energy to persuade people who are here to idealize Leo, procrastinate high school work, never change their mind or spread discriminatory fascist views. It is just not worth and it is draining and it is painful. To honor one thing about this forum, it has been quite good in accepting non-offending pedophiles and people with severe intrusive thoughts, as I have many times seen in the serious mental health issues section of this forum. But it is necessary to add that the tolerance of mental illness was in my experience mostly seen in cisgender men who claimed to have mental health issues, while women were blamed for having them, and also all other things and basically just existing here. Let me know what you all think about this and if you think same, different, whatever you have to add.

@Jacob Morres I tried being nice to people but it did not work, I am sorry to disappoint you. I am only nice if a person shows at least some openness to me. I also do not think I have the responsibility to respect those who do not respect me. People have google, they can google information, I do not have to fill the role of their personal answer provider.

@Danioover9000 Yeh it will strawman, because it is hella afraid of getting harrassed or silenced. I don't know, I felt afraid Leo might take away my moderator rights after this thread, or just ban me, I don't know. It didn't happen. But it was there. This is exactly why we should not trigger people, because triggering them makes it harder for them to share their diverse perspectives. (and people who others are afraid of have like the most diverse perspectives there are)

@Leo Gura What about you developing thicker skins? Why are you using this double standard again? And thank you for offering me help, I am glad you are here for that.

@A_v_E No, problems also stem from the people who beat you up if you dress a certain way. See, in your point of view, the strict roles and identities are still operating, you are assuming if people lose identity, they will just fucking keep identifying with the oppressive norms, but that is not how it works buddy. That is just spiritual bypassing, and it can only be done from a place of privilege where you literally don't need to care about these norms because you are safe either way.

You know if you all created a safe space for trans people, maybe you would receive more articles like this that are actually pretty awesome and a lot of people could learn from them. They seem to address a lot of the problems with sexuality people commonly face here. I will share one that I like. But if you prefer a political echo chamber of conservative perspectives instead, sure. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jpy7g7/i-was-a-slave-to-testosterone-how-sex-changes-for-trans-women-on-hormones

@Ulax Thank you, but also get out with the nonsense about pride blinding me. You don't know what it is like from what I see. Actually go and try change people's minds. I am not going to ever stop being anti-misogynist, anti-racist, anti-queerphobic etc. You are not changing my mind in that. I enjoy the encouragement, but you still have not read the articles about how sexual repression and queerness was violently destroyed in non-Western cultures. You would benefit from studying actual real history that happened instead of the history written by men who literally enslave people. Another double standard - I and others have to suck up to people who are unwilling to educate themselves, because they cry when they receive warnings. The main argument for this is that "we are new here" which is not true, we have always been here, but the history about us was destroyed, as expected. You could still argue that it is a new topic for people in the context of their lives and that is why we should suck up. Sure. But what about the argument that these people with discriminatory opinions have ruled the world for as long as we can remember, so maybe we can have some rest by finally them being silenced instead of us? What about that? Or what about them also being labelled as too emotional when they receive 2 warning points instead of us being called too emotional? Being called too emotional is literally so based on identity here. If you are a cishet white male crying because bejapuskas gave you 4 points for justifying nazi race science, bro that is like actual cry baby material, so hormonal and hysterical for having that testosterone in your body. Another double standard. These are not serious arguments, they are just overlooking the other arguments that are there and seeing themselves therefore as superior. Wake up. Also I am still recovering from Leo thinking I do not understand that the world is ignorant of my identity. Maybe he thinks I live under a rock?

I propose there being pronoun tags on this forum so at least people do not get misgendered. There should be an option not to mention your pronouns if you do not know what your pronouns are or if you feel uncomfortable. That would actually be very nice. Like as long as I do not get intentionally misgendered or misgendered in a not well-meaning way, I feel way safer discussing with an uneducated person. Also I think we should still give away warnings, but maybe get rid of them if people actually show improvement? I just think there is really a double standard in what is being policed. I also think a lot of you should read the articles and watch the video I linked in the original post, since I am still seeing posts coming from a really biased perspective here.

That does not change anything about there being a double standard that is harmful. People like me are getting killed because of who we are. How long do you want to keep providing a safe space for those who are the perpetrators in this situation? You know, maybe you are trying to find some rationality in this violence, but violence does not have a rationality, so you can keep doing this to infinity. Cis people get questioned too, but it is not at all as serious, they get protection from peers, we don't, especially not on this forum, we are seriously othered. I did not actually notice the person changing their mind but ok.

Leo, but it is always only the trans people who are being questioned. The cis gender never gets questioned here, or if I did, I would be labelled a clown, whereas if you question the trans, it is somehow a "serious philosophical debate." There is a clear double standard there. You might say that this did not exist in our society before, so we need to question it, but it did exist in so many societies before, people just are not educated about that, it got destroyed and suppressed. So if you are arguing this, you are being both transphobic and racist, because you are putting a double standard on genders and cultures which are in reality equally valid. There is no philosophical evidence you can provide to prove that some genders or cultures are less valid than others, what does that even mean? Just for your info, I don't know if you noticed this, but some member here who already had so many warnings from the past started a thread about "Serious discussion on race," where he argued about how black people are less intelligent. This thread kept running for multiple days without being shut down. This forum is not well moderated at all and it is really laughable that you think serious discussions are happening on this forum. It looks like the Nazis discussing. So you are going to ignore a perspective or call it too far removed to keep me from posting about it? Even if that perspective is perhaps more truthful than what other members are proposing? You know, I don't see this as a serious commitment to truth, more like serious commitment to censorship and comforting fragile cishet white people who get so sad for receiving warning points for seriously offending someone. I as a trans person would feel better if I did not have to always be the one giving warning points for this, or putting literally any effort at all. There are other forum members who try, but it is really the minority. I am sorry to disappoint you, but the tone is not of intellectual honesty. Maybe you just do not see all of the posts that I am seeing, or you see them differently, maybe you have the privilege of not getting as emotionally affected. I am glad you feel safe here. But there are people, and please stop denying this, because I know this, who really are not here for serious philosophy. This guy who argued about black people being less intelligent for example kept pulling out different studies that proved him right while ignoring colonization, environmental factors, impoverishment etc. He really was not trying to change his mind or stay open to others. You might say this person was trying to "argue as best as he could with his strongest arguments," but these Nazi studies and racism cannot be a justifiable way to argue about something, it just cannot. Thank you for the last sentence you wrote. Unfortunately, most people like that already left. People drove them insane.

The OP was restricted from using the forum for 5 days. If they do something similar again, they are out of here. Their behavior has been problematic ever since 2016.

@marinaaniram Society makes you believe so much shit about relationships, it is called *amatonormativity*, search up that term, it is really interesting. Like for example "the one who loves less wins in love", for god's sake, find someone who you love equally as they love you, isn't that common sense? If you do not love somebody and just stay with them, because you are winning by them not leaving you, by giving you lower quality love, you're by definition settling for the worse.

@Mindful Bum I am sorry, I did not mean to defend Leo's position entirely, just the bit about him not trying to treat people with mental illnesses, because I actually consider that a good thing to do, that is if he just is not trained. I kinda have some mental illnesses myself, I am also queer, so like I often come into contact with people who just do not know how to respond to me. And that is just a sad reality. Of course, saying you would never be friends with somebody seems like he maybe does not really have an idea of what it means, I am not trying to defend that. Just saying, if you are seeking help, spend yourself the potential pain and trauma and seek it in resources where people are trained. Teach yourself to seek help from people who actually understand your situation, and that does not even have to be professionals, as some of them also suck. I am just saying, build boundaries around who you open up to - that sometimes means your favorite teacher is gonna keep hruting you and you might have to drop them. I am not trying to defend offences against people with mental illnesses, those really are unexcusable, everyone can read up about how not to hurt others, that should be common decency. I am just saying it is not everybody's responsibility to help everybody, we are limited humans, we need to have different of focus. Even if Leo says his content is holistic, and encompasses everything, which I don't think he entirely does, he possibly cannot. Of course he can make his videos more friendly to oppressed groups and he should, it just better to do that, but that does not mean he has to offer treatment etc., especially if he does not have training or interest to do that.

@Leo Gura Maybe Leo if you are serious about what you said in your video, being more kind and understanding, you could maybe read some prose from oppressed authors. They can give you insights into lives of people who are struggling with things you do not struggle with and open your mind, or just make you understand it more. They also tend to have a lot of the emotional significance you were talking about. I liked this comic book called Gender Queer: A Memoir, read it in one sitting, it shows a lot of intersectionality, it was banned in a lot of places, because it really shows a different point of view on reality.

I see becoming more accepting as kind and sensitive as equalizing the validity, and I don't mean like equalizing fascism and nazism with self-help etc., but just deconstructing authority, because it brings about more diversity. If there is one leader, they can be a leader but they are still limited by the human condition and only have one perspective, whereas there are so many other perspectives that one can see. Like even if Leo is not a therapist trained to help the mentally ill, we can work on making this forum a less stigmatized place and give the people who face issues here more platform to address this. It's not just some wokeism, it's actually like hard problem solving, caring for somebody like that. It really does help to be in an non-stigmatized place, when everywhere else is so dark. I guess equalizing all perspectives and then through that seeing that some perspectives are just way too harmful. From my experience, even if you are not a part of some group, their ideas can influence you and shape you in your own authentic way and make you realize so many things about yourself that you perhaps assumed because you have only surrounded yourself with one type of people from birth.

I think it is fair for Leo to not focus on this, if he does not have the training. That is just preventing collateral damage, it is really easy to harm someone if you are not trained to help them and I mean that. I see that you guys have complaints here, which is totally understandable. How do you think we could make this forum a more inviting space for those with mental illnesses? In my opinion, some mental illnesses get demonized more than others here, what do you think? Do you see a similarity or a pattern there?

I agree that following what you want is better than bullshitting yourself. But that can be different for everyone, it can be dangerous to draw conclusions on what "the majority" wants.

Most people dont even really have much chance to gain a lot of power because they are simply born into a family that is not royal or elite. Then it becomes the issue too that the only base for their power is inheritance.

@Average Investor Just something I observed in myself is that like sometimes being too agreeable in relation to knowing what you want means that like you intuitively know what you want but you either dont trust it, or you dont believe it because theres some judgement about yourself instilled in your mind, or maybe youre fully aware of it but you dont follow through because maybe you think you dont deserve it or how you said, maybe you think you moved too far. But moving too far I think can be prevented by realizing this. Good luck bro.

@Realms of Wonder No worries It was challenging and I had to try to understand it. There are also different types of asexual and aromantic people, just like there are allosexual and alloromantic (those who experience romantic and sexual attraction in the way people usually imagine it), everyone sees it differently. So I had to go through a lot of nuances. In his case, he was assigned girl at birth and indentified that way for a long time, after which he started questioning sexuality and romance. This later translated into also becoming non-binary trans, because he could no longer identify with how society put his identity into different boxes just because of his body parts that he himself does not consider important. (he never wants to become pregnant or have sex etc. so they are kind of useless) I really resonated with this because as a perfectionist, I always try to push myself to be of greater use to this world. And this new person seemed like their life was beyond all this sex and dating I spent so much time and energy into without achieving much satisfaction. Of course later I realized they also suffer from societal pressure to do things they dont wanna do, like parents feeling entitled to push them to have kids etc. which can be quite painful. Anyways, I also explored many different types of attractions which helped me question my sexuality, like not just romantic and sexual, but also sensual, aesthetic etc. Perhaps the biggest misconception about asexuals is that they are repressed like stage blue people and that is why they are discriminated against. But actually, from my experience, they just question norma and societal pressure way more and many of them are much less repressed than allosexuals, who just engage in "vanilla sex" and dont try any other things, for example non-sexual kinky stuff, which can mean that they become so limited in which parts of their bodies are sensitive and they essentaly remain stuck. Or alloromantic people who dont question romance and just fall into weird patterns, while not trying to redefine what human connection is for themselves. But essentially I dont know what it is like to be them, its like as if a person who cannot see is being explained what it is like to see. My friend told me growing up, they essentially didnt lose their childhood hobbies. They didnt give them up to chase crushes. Which also resulted in discrimination and divide.