So Am I Back?
First published: Sunday March 28th, 2021
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No, not really.
I never really left. I just was trying to not comment anymore. And... for at least the first few months I think I went with only commenting 3 or 4 times in total over that whole span, on quizzes or blog entries that were not my own. Which was down from the 5, 10, or 25 comments a day that I often left in a typical 24-hour period. So... I feel like I kind of lived up to what I set out to do.
It was never my intention to abandon the site completely. I was thinking about that. But if I had made that decision then I guess I would have deleted my account and I didn't do that. However, I was thinking that I would stop coming here every day... and... though I definitely come here less often than I used to... I still find myself coming back pretty much every day to at least take the front page quizzes if not kill some time in other areas. I authored or updated a couple quizzes. And I've been responding to comments left for me on my first blog post, etc. Those last two things were things I was intending to do all along. But... I have to admit I am a bit annoyed with myself that I still spend so much time here. And especially with the fact that, even though I have cut back a lot, and I don't find myself going back and reloading old comments sections of quizzes where I was debating or conversing with someone(s) over and over, I still often feel the compulsion to read through the comments section of any quiz I take. I wanted to stop that. It makes it difficult to maintain a vow of silence when I'm scrolling through and see people saying things that are mean, bigoted, ignorant, offensive, or just wrong. Or even just that could perhaps benefit from additional information that I happen to have in my head - in that latter case I do sometimes still pipe in. Don't see much harm in that.
I feel like the comments sections of certain quizzes have gotten markedly worse since I stopped actively perusing them... without anyone proactively pruning the overgrowth of stupidity it tends to flourish, unchecked, and multiply. Or at the very least remain on the vine, a diseased lump of tissue, becoming a distracting eyesore on an otherwise healthy plant, without a vigilant gardener there to cut it out, bring balance, make things pretty again. I'm sure other people feel differently. To them the brown-black shriveled xylem is somehow inoffensive or even aesthetically pleasing and in any case best left alone; they find the gardener to be an obnoxious busy body whose opinions on plant aesthetics are tiresome in their fastidiousness.
A few people have commented that they "knew I was gone, but... [hoped I could respond to something]"... or something along those lines. That's what prompted this blog entry. I'm not trying to hide from anybody and I will respond to anyone who comments on a quiz of mine with a question about something. A few other users here spend their time trying to provoke or insult me, presumably because they dislike me commenting so much in the past and purportedly because they feel it morally incumbent upon themselves to call me out for my provocations, usually through their own recent insulting/ad-hominem responses to one of my comments I left six or seven years ago, tireless hypocrisy enthusiasts that they all are. Regrettably, I sometimes am provoked enough to respond to these nincompoops and miscreants.
Anyway. I'm still here. I'm not dead. I just have been trying to comment a lot less. And, most of the time, I have been. There have been days, though, when I felt exceptionally bored, or depressed, or was on a high from some new medication, and found my way back to the comments section of JetPunk several times in a day.
I hate hypocrites. It's one of my major pet peeves. A couple of the users I've had disagreements with on this site I've seen as being hypocritical. I dislike drama queens. Attention whore. Narcissists. And my desire to not be any of those things is a guiding principle in many of the decisions I make in life. Which is part of why I find it so weird that so many people see me that way. And I know that they do. I honestly believe that they are wrong. I think they misunderstand me. That this is some function of not being neuro-typical or on the Autism/Asperger's spectrum. All this is me trying to say I dislike it when you see those people online who announce that they are leaving and then never go. Or they keep coming back over and over. Or they change their relationship status on Facebook 3 times in a week. I try to never say anything I don't mean. Unless it's to be funny. But I know I announced a few months ago that I was quitting the comments section of JetPunk cold turkey and I haven't 100% lived up to that so I thought I would explain why. And at the same time reaffirm my intent to continue cutting down, or at least trying to resist, spending a lot of time engaging in the comments section here.
The reason why I originally committed to not commenting was that I was very pissed off about the moderation on the site. For a variety of reasons I still don't think it would be worthwhile getting into. But I still feel the same way that I felt and still think the best course of action given those feelings is to not comment. For a short while I was mad enough that I thought it would make sense to quit the whole site completely; but I decided against that then, and haven't thought any differently on it since then.
I think I may start using this Blog section of the website a bit more going forward. Perhaps this would be a better outlet than occasionally popping into the comments section that I've said I was going to avoid. Those that wished to interact with me could do so. Those that wished to avoid me could do so. Though I often said before that this was possible even in the comments section... (if you don't like reading comments then don't read the comments)... but this would make it even easier. And perhaps this would scratch whatever itch I had for interacting with the other clever people who come to this website a few times a day. However, removed from the context of the quizzes which provide a useful jumping off point for conversations, I'm not sure if this would be satisfying for me or not.
I might not be able to post anything consistently. Due to laziness. Or depression. Or apprehension of being or appearing narcissistic or self-indulgent. I have another blog which I started recently and that I find it hard to post to for these and other reasons; even though I have literally 0 regular readers there so it might as well be a personal diary, still the fact that I am publishing things to the Internet makes me feel self-conscious, masturbatory, and attention-seeking. But... well... we'll see...
It also seems like QM's phobia against people having conversations or opinions may get in the way of any such blog posts. This from the guidelines on what is or is not permissible: "Blogs are intended to be a way to share interesting or educational content and so must have substance. This means self promotional blogs or ones with very little text are likely to be removed. This is not a forum or chat service." ... makes it sound like every blog is supposed to read like an impersonal Wikipedia page. Which raises the question of whether or not Dan actually knows what a "blog" is.
Comment below if there's some topic that you'd be interested in discussing with me or seeing some information on presented with my own unique slant. Philosophy. History. Travel. Religion. Psychology. Human physiology. Art. Music. Politics (gasp! the forbidden word!). And maybe I will be inspired to post something "interesting" and "substantive" on the topic that perhaps won't get deleted by our arbitrary overlords, and which could in turn potentially lead to a worthwhile comments section of its own. Some topics that I was thinking of myself that I might delve into include...
- the complexities and dilemmas of Internet site/app/community moderation, "good" and "bad" decisions that go into this, and how much more fraught (and worse) this has become in recent years
- depression, mental health, and the realities of trying to find meaningful help for these issues in the US today and around the world
- the extensive and exhaustive case for why Donald J Trump is the worst president in US history and why this is not and should not be thought of as a partisan or political issue
- the illusion of free will, and the implications this has for both the judicial system and just for how we treat one another
- tribalism and how it is the root of all evil
- simple observations about culture or society I have made in my travels; or personal anecdotes related to the same
but I'm not sure if any of the above blog posts could be made boring and impersonal enough, at least if I authored them, to satisfy Dan's guidelines. Especially the 2nd and last ones. But I could give it a go, maybe.
Hmm, I dunno. Oh wait, now I know, I have never seen your input on the Jetpunk vs. Sporcle thing. Even though this debate is mostly childish, do you have an opinion?
So... if I spend less time reading over the comments section, identifying such comments, and responding to them... but the comments remain unchallenged... this, to me, is far more unattractive than having a debate or argument.
I think that in the past there were some comments sections of certain political quizzes that ended up relatively free of such comments, maybe in part because those who were preparing to leave such comments saw that they were going to get called out on their bullshit, and so they thought better of it and said nothing. But now many of those sections I see comments like this being made and sort of flying under the radar
It's entirely possible that I have an exaggerated sense of importance or influence when it comes to this.
I would like to know about your travels. Maybe I will start a blog series about travels (despite I traveled just to states in Brazil, and Argentina.), and I want to know some experiences that you had.
Despite your comments were to much “debatable”, sometimes were nice to read (except when was something I believed, like religion, or Brazilian Politics, like in our stupid discussions). It’s nice that you aren’t “so gone” that we thought. I’m still having doubts in “why you left JetPunk Comments”, considering how much you posted them in a single day.
Your opinions are controversial sometimes, but is what you believe, and we need diversity of opinions in this sickly world. I want to know how these blogs that you are saying would be! LOL! So, that’s it. “Welcome back” with many quotation marks.
At first when I was thinking that maybe I should post a few more blog entries here, part of my rationale was that, being a user's personal blog posts, they will never appear on the front page as a quiz might, and Dan could relax a bit more about what appears in the blog or the comments section of that blog.
But... upon going to post and reading that caveat/warning at the top of the page about what is or is not allowed... it seems as though Dan has a different opinion about whether or not the blogs here should have more relaxed moderation. That might not be what he intended. But it's how it sounds.
The language is intentionally vague to dissuade those that want to spam blogs or just use it to promote their own quizzes. It's also a temporary message and will be removed in the near future. Malkiboy is right, it was added when spam was an issue.
He has expressed such feelings before... mostly in relation to people expressing their personal political opinions... but also to me privately that he does not want to become a forum moderator. This is why he, for example, does not use push notifications when someone responds to your comment somewhere. He doesn't want there to be any back-and-forth. I honestly have a hard time understanding why, with this attitude, he allows any comments at all. This has always been confusing to me.
But anyway if I blog any more here I'm going to feel apprehensive that if something I put out is seen as too personal, too conversational, too controversial, or not completely fact-based, it may be targeted for deletion.
1, 2, 4, 6 all seem good to me. 3 is debatable and may spark controversy, 5 could work though to me it seems like a joke suggestion :)
I think it all depends on context. Jokes could be okay as long as they're not offensive (or excessively so). And controversy depends on how much is fact and how much is opinion. Basically if the blog has human decency in it, and is not written to directly attack somebody or some group, I *think* it would be fine.
Especially "the extensive and exhaustive case for why Donald J Trump is the worst president in US history and why this is not and should not be thought of as a partisan or political issue"I'm not trying to say that everything he did was commendable.
By the way, although I disagree with much of what you say, I would like to say that I respect your hatred of hypocrisy and willingness to challenge your own beliefs, I think the world would be a better place if everyone attempted to do that from a non-biased point of view.
Also, as another non-sequitur, I would be very interested if you wrote JetPunk blogs about your travels.
And then, I really hope QM won't delete this blog, because it would be admit that the liberty of expression is almost unexisting on JetPunk. But I'm sure it won't be the case. Expression exists here (at least I think and hope).
Once again, thanks!
Also, Xi Jinping. This is a different boat since China isn't a democracy or following the same trends as the US/India, but since (arguably) it's a global superpower on par with the US now, I'd like to hear about your thoughts on Hong Kong/Taiwan/Xinjiang, whether you think the Wuhan lab leak theory is plausible, and how much you see China as a threat to democratic interests around the globe.
China still has a ways to go before they're on par with the US, economically (PPP bullshit aside), militarily, technologically, and in terms of international political and cultural relevance. But they are catching up rapidly in most of those areas.
Anything specific about Taiwan or Hong Kong? I don't have any non-mainstream opinions about either. I'd prefer to see both remain as independent as possible. Don't know how long they will.
Wuhan lab leak: possible. but I kind of doubt it. If it was leaked from a lab they were doing research or something, though, not trying to create a bio weapon... that's... stupid.
As for China being a threat to international democracy, it's pretty well established by this point that most of the Sinophobic Internet chatter out there ...
Reading this in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine, and you were spot on
Anyway... thanks.
I was fully intending to write some more entries here, but did not for several reasons. One was that I started writing in a private blog.
Do you not hear yourself? You come here and attack me for being on the spectrum, while accusing me of being judgmental (check your spelling, man, not a good look when you are bragging other places about your high IQ), nasty, and intolerant? Seriously?
I'd normally just block anyone who was this big of a jackass, but you're probably the 3rd or 4th person in 10 years I've seen on this site that I feel richly and desperately deserves a lifetime ban, so... going to leave this up for Quizmaster.