#...i think the most cohesive idea between most trans communities is wanting to make the world a better place for people like us...

[uncanny-tranny]

The Trans Community is less an amalgamation of every trans person in existence and more of many trans communities with different needs, goals, aspirations, and experiences, so I'm always low-key suspicious every time I hear cis people act as though there is a Singular Hegemonic Trans Community.

When you notice and recognize that there are many trans communities with either similar or polar opposite goals, I think you can recognize commonalities between communities and are able to work with us instead of assuming, you know?

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #i'm incredibly suspicious of the idea that the trans community has a cohesive idea on everything or that we're a hivemind... #...i think the most cohesive idea between most trans communities is wanting to make the world a better place for people like us... #...but even then that falls apart when you look at certain trans communities... #...because - surprise surprise- we are not a Monolithic Organization... #...and i think hegemonizing us is one of the first steps to anti-trans radicalization... #...because it requires you to see us less as people but as Trans People (derogatory)... #...where everything we do is because we are Trans People (derogatory) #i'm by no means saying that if you've done this you're irredeemably on the path to being anti-trans #what i AM saying is that acting as though trans people can meaningfully be hiveminded isn't going to realistically work #this has been something i have been trying to get better about - recognizing just how many trans communities there are #and that not all trans communities will even have trans rights in mind. sometimes it's the opposite

[transmascissues]

correct me if I'm wrong (trying to find a cohesive thread through this issue) but it sounds like a gripe that people have with the terms transmisandry and transandrophobia is in part because they view it as theft of the concept of transmisogyny? i've seen that but i have also seen criticism of literally every other phrase trans men are trying to coin to describe their experience so it overall feels like a losing situation

yeah, that's one of many complaints people have about it

and i know you didn't really ask for my opinion on the criticism but in case anyone's wondering: you just...can't "steal" the concept of oppression. the concept of transmisogyny was coined first but saying that we somehow "stole" the concept by just...also talking about and creating words for our own unique oppression would be like saying the concept of transphobia is a theft of the concept of homophobia. i could keep elaborating, but the whole terminology discourse is honestly just too exhausting so i'd like to minimize the chances of someone trying to debate with me on this

generally speaking though, yeah you're absolutely right, there is no winning when it comes to the terminology fights - that's why they're so frustrating. people will never be happy with what we come up with because their actual problem is that we're coming up with anything at all. a lot of people just don't want to see us talking about our issues, and their reasons for not wanting us to be able to will vary depending on who they are and what circles they're in, but in general, having specific vocabulary makes our discussions easier and that means they're never going to like it, no matter how carefully constructed it is or how well we explain it or anything like that

and honestly, a lot of it isn't coming from a malicious place, it's just that the idea of us having a unique form of oppression challenges what a lot of people have been taught and some of them aren't ready for that so they fight it. a lot of trans women and transfems have been told by our current sort of ~activism culture~ that if you're not The Most Oppressed then your oppression doesn't matter at all, so the idea of other people in the trans community developing similar concepts of unique oppression genuinely feels threatening because they worry that people won't care about their oppression anymore if they're not seen as Definitively The Most Oppressed and like...yeah that's fucking scary, i won't pretend it's not! and a lot of trans men and transmascs (myself included) have been told by that same Most Oppressed philosophy of activism that, because trans women and transfems have been sort of placed as The Most Oppressed in our community, the focus should be on them as much as possible, so we end up feeling like we have to pick between talking about our own issues and getting pushed away by the larger community or just not causing a scene so we can retain our place in the community and again, the idea of being isolated like that is fucking scary too so i get why some people find themselves fighting against discussions of their own oppression for the sake of holding onto that community - i've had to fight the urge to do so myself. as angry as the pushback against our discussions makes me, i do have at least a little compassion for most of the individual people doing it because i know, for the most part, the motivation isn't malice, it's just fear. the genuinely shitty-through-and-through people are there for sure, but not in huge numbers

and honestly? knowing that makes it even harder to fight against the arguments sometimes because i can see what's behind most of them and it makes it a lot harder to be pissed, which is part of why i try not to get into it. obviously i think people should be held accountable for their actions regardless of how sympathetic the motivations are, but personally i feel like i'm better at just starting to have the discussions we want to have than i am at getting into the arguments about if we should be having them - i'll leave that to other people on here

that was a lot longer (and more rambly) than i was planning on and probably a lot more than you were expecting too, but i figured i'd kinda just put all my thoughts on the matter here (including the less "fuck you, this sucks" side of my thoughts, which don't always come across very much on here) since i don't usually talk about it at all. i'm a bit nervous to post it because i know i'm on that blocklist, but oh well, might as well

at the end of the day, most people's problem is that we're acknowledging our oppression in the first place, not the specific words we use (those are just easier targets), so i've personally chosen to just...not worry about the terminology and actually get to the discussions themselves. i have plenty of compassion when i think it's warranted, but i also have very little patience for the fights, yknow?

#ask answered #transandrophobia #transandromisia #transmisandry #virilmisia #virilphobia #trans men #transmascs

[drake-the-incubus]

What’s Bad for You is Good for Me

Or otherwise called, conflicting needs in representation. Which is most certainly a thing.

Sometimes we have specific needs ton representation that isn’t met due to certain circumstances. Recently I posted something about how Lazy Eyes are portrayed as inherently ableist, despite the fact I grew up with it being incredibly disabling and being treated poorly for having one, and in a discussion with other people, have been told they feel the same way.

Today, I saw a post about how someone being transphobic, complained about how trans characters gave him dysphoria. While he was incredibly transphobic about him, I realized that there’s intersectionality on representation no one really talks about.

We don’t talk about how it’s weird to define representation as good and bad depending on how stereotyped it looks. We just sort of do it.

Like, for example, a flamboyantly gay, gender-nonconforming man who is very open about his sexuality and might even be sexual. This is considered a horrible stereotype. I... I've known gay men like that who genuinely enjoyed the nice representation of those characters.

I think the issue is the difference between how it's played off, and why it's being done. And I'll use a few examples.

Power Puff Girls has the Devil who suspiciously borders on a transmisogynistic and homophobic stereotype, being a villain. The femininity that the character displays is part of the villainous routine, and there's not much to the character outside of this. When the character feels like it, he drops his femininity to become masculine and aggressive. Top it off with being the devil, it's pretty bad. This is bad representation, if not for the villain part, then for the fact that there's no substance to it at all.

Which is actually what the problem with representation usually is. It's two-dimensional, and it's villanizing. The character is not only that way because it makes them more villainous, but it also helps make us look horrifying to the viewers.

What changes when you include Lil Nas X's recent release, MONTERO (Call me by your name)? It's a form of self-expression and it's inherently fighting back against the need to sanitize oneself for an oppressing class. It's fighting back against the idea that in order to exist, we need to be pure. To be accepted into heaven we atone for being gay. It's a rejection of Modern Religion and society's base treatment of us.

And it's necessary. We can't have the soft, loving, sanitized rep. It can suit plenty of us. Being accepted into heaven- in spite of our flaw of being gay? I've been told that before- isn't what everyone wants. In order to have reached acceptance, we must not readily display the "bad" part of ourselves.

If a straight woman was to want for a dude, it's highly more accepted than if a man were to do it. Regardless of the man's input?

I can't go to a conversation, openly as a trans man, and discuss my attraction to men as a man, and not get shut down, "because it's weird" but I do have to sit there and hear talk about anime boobs. Sometimes for hours. Because you know, that's acceptable in society, me liking men as a dude isn't.

And the thing is, neither is bad. A gay man being openly sexual and open about his sexuality in media, so long as it's not his defining trait and he's not demonized for it in the media- aka villainizing a gay man who is flamboyantly gay and gnc is very common- it's good.

A gay man who is soft, caring and understanding for his partner, emotionally mature and shies away from his sexuality is also good. It's not representation I need, but for younger audiences it is.

A gay man who is selective in his men vs a man who isn't. We need both.

Representation makes us feel human. Like we're not horrible for existing, and one set is never going to be enough.

For example. I'm a very androgynous trans man. I wear dresses and makeup.

I enjoy the feminine trans characters because they can exist and so can I. I also enjoy the masculine trans characters.

I hate the written trans experience and I absolutely cannot stand fanfiction regarding trans man, regardless of which it is.

It's dysphoria-inducing. Why? Because it focuses on the aspect of being trans rather than the aspect of existing as a man, and those aspects tend to center around dysphoria or being AFAB. Either way, the experience is uncomfortable for me to interact with and can really bother me.

That form of representation isn't for me. I live the trans experience. I don't need it in my media. I want a person who lives the average life and happens to be trans. Where being trans isn't the center of the story.

Other people need it the exact opposite, and if being trans isn't integral it bothers them. They feel like being trans is on a higher level of their identity and their rep needs to reflect that.

In fact, I talked to another trans friend of mine, who said that the kind of stories that focus on the body being AFAB was reaffirming to them and it helped them along. They loved content like that. Where as I couldn't bear it, it caused me issues and I saw it personally as harmful.

The thing about rep isn't actually the stereotypes, most of the time. IE a feminine trans man character isn't bad rep, so long as he's an actual human being.

I also think the person making it and the intent behind the character are important.

Example 1: A cis woman who makes a trans woman villain the epitome of masculinity who is pretending to be a woman, and is defeated by a woman, is just bad rep.

Why? Because a) it targets and puts down another minority to uplift women. b) it intentionally tries to erase trans women from being women. c) it reinforces the stereotype that trans women are just men trying to pretend to be women and are inherently violent. d) it demonized masculine trans women who may have been denied- or do not want- to medically transition.

Example 2: Created by someone who is LGBT+ with input from a trans man. A trans man is flamboyantly gay, talks about how much he loves men quite a lot, and is known for being fairly feminine. He enjoys hobbies such as boating and fishing, and his story is about connecting with his community and accepting himself as a person without needing to give a part of himself up.

Is example 2 real? I hope it is, I'd enjoy that. But this is good rep. Yes, it plays on stereotypes, but this is a person. Their story is about their identity and they have traits outside of the stereotype. For a flamboyantly gay trans man, this would be perfect. If you challenged toxic masculinity in the movie and addressed how trans men feel the need to overperform into toxic masculinity for acceptance and how it ruins our connections with our emotions, it would be pretty great.

Example 3: Created based on a real person. A character who is clearly autistic, and struggles with communication, who acts childish and clearly has a prominent lazy eye. This character struggles with tasks but gets them right. This is done with input and the person's input

Bad Rep?

If you said yes you'd be wrong. A character based on a real human being can't be bad representation. Because a) they're human, and b) there's a nuance to people that needs to be addressed.

Human beings will never be a monolith and having a monolith idea of representation to show oppressors what we're like ignores the fact of human diversity.

I can only speak for myself. This means the topic of race and how to handle racial issues in media vs the sanitization of the culture people of colour have, is not one I can speak on, and I wish I could have input on it.

I'll add if I'm not cohesive enough, it's usually because of Autism and possible Comorbid ADHD fighting each other.

If someone better at the topic can handle this, feel free to reblog and add on, I'll reblog additions and reply to any concerns made.

#representation #diversity in media #what's bad for you is good for me

[spontaneousmusicalnumber]

SO YOU WANT TO TEACH PEOPLE ABOUT GENDER AND SEXUALITY.

Throughout my college career, I volunteered in a campus organization whose goal was to provide an opportunity for people to learn about gender and sexuality through facilitated Q&A panels. I loved it, and wish that there was more of an opportunity to create those experiences in the world at large. I’ve gotten some requests to share my experience, so here’s a write-up for the key points if you want to try and run one yourself.

These panels should be controlled, planned events for a cohesive group. I have done panels for classrooms, clubs, Greek organizations, and even a university staff department. They have a structure, a beginning and an end. You will be revealing a lot of personal information, so being comfortable in that role is a must. The state I live in has legal protections for gender identity and sexuality in work, education and housing so I never felt threatened opening up. You are under no obligation to do a panel if you do not feel safe.

Facilitating a Panel:

There is always a facilitator, and anywhere from 2-5 panelists depending on the size of the audience. The facilitator’s job is to organize and manage the event. They are the point of contact for the organization that requests a panel, they maintain control of the situation and ensure both the panelists and the audience feel safe and comfortable. They also make sure the pace keeps moving and can cut off a conversation if it gets too long or repetitive and not enough questions are being answered.

Ground Rules:

At the beginning of the panel, the facilitator lays down several ground rules. Both audience members and panelists are expected to abide by these rules at all times for safety and civility.

Rule 1: No Outing.

Ask if anyone in the audience knows what outing is, and if not introduce them to the concept of sharing parts of someone’s identity without their permission. Explain that this is a big taboo in the community, both for respect of privacy and for personal safety. Tell the audience that they are free to take away the stories and the general ideas expressed, but the names and identities behind them will stay in this room. This applies to audience members’ identities as well; they can be assured that the panelists will not share them.

Rule 2: Give Respect to Get Respect.

This one seems simple but is important to note. Aggressive or confrontational behavior does not lead to comfortable conversation or open minds. Let the audience know that the panelists are people too, and can choose whether or not they are comfortable answering a question. Just as the panelists are expected to maintain civility, so is the audience.

Rule 3: Assume Goodwill.

Trust that you the panelists are here to teach, and they the audience is here to learn. Ask the audience to use the most respectful language they can and assure the audience that the panelists will not attack or demean them for it. It is alright if someone does not know what words are respectful or offensive, trust that they’re trying and are open to being corrected.

Guidelines for Panelists

Start with your story. This is usually ~3 minutes long, and serves as an introduction to you. It can encompass a coming out, a realization, a meaningful moment, any combination of the above. My story talks about the rocky path to realizing and accepting I was asexual. At the very least, introduce yourself and give your pronouns. A good story will ‘drop breadcrumbs’ or introduce ideas for the audience to ask about.

After all panelists have told their story, the facilitator will open up the room for questions. These can be related to panelist’s stories, questions they had previously, or questions about current events. If audience members are unwilling to raise their hands you can try providing paper and pencils for anonymous questions. Cracking a joke about the 30 seconds of dead silence usually helps to break the ice, and once one hand is raised then usually the ball gets rolling. This is now your time to shine.

Speak from your own experience. If there is a panelist who has an identity you do not, they are the expert and it’s not your place to talk over them. You are the expert on yourself as well, so don’t let yourself get talked over. It is OK to not know an answer, just speak honestly. You can speak from research you have done or general experiences from people you know, but be sure to clarify that this is something you have learned from somebody else and remember to respect “No Outing”.

This is not the time or place to gatekeep. If you are an ace/aro/bi/pan/trans/NB exclusionist, I urge you to either keep your mouth shut when the topic shifts towards those identities or reconsider your place on the panel. Your job is to allow people to take an open, accepting stance towards non-straight and non-cis identities, not spread close-minded rhetoric. If you share an identity in a way that is different from another, say you are a dysphoric trans person for whom dysphoria is a large factor in your identity, you may speak from your own experience that way. However, you should not express that people who do not share your identity are not valid in theirs.

Be on your best behavior, no matter the question. This part can get hard, but it’s where “Assume Goodwill” comes in. Easily 99% of people in this situation will be respectful and just want to learn. They may not know what language is correct, or may only know offensive words for a certain idea. Correct these before you answer their question and explain why those words are harmful, but don’t shame them for not knowing the right language. You can ask clarifying questions if you don’t know what they’re getting at (or if you want them to realize what they’re getting at).

There will, rarely, be people who come with the intention of inciting anger or throwing insults or worse. At this point, they are not coming in to learn, so your goal is to make an impact on the other audience members. Respond to questions of religious intolerance with statements that that is not a belief you share. Request that they follow the ground rules, remind them of “give respect to get respect”. The facilitator of the panel or the organizer of the audience (if a classroom, the teacher) should intervene to ask them to leave if they cannot abide by the ground rules.

You can choose not to answer a question and can choose whether or not to give a reason why. “That’s too personal” is plenty. As an asexual on the panel I got more than enough questions about my sex life, whether I wanted kids or wanted to get married. These were questions I did not answer, instead offering a larger view of the community. I would explain how asexual people all had their own comfort zones and defined their sexuality differently, and while some decided they would like to be alone others can and do engage in all types of partnerships.

Unpack, unpack, unpack! Talk about the question that audiences are really asking when they ask who the man or the woman in a relationship is. Bring up heteronormative standards! Bring up sexist expectations of relationship dynamics! Bring up restrictive notions of gender! Bring up privacy concerns! A very simple question can reveal a lot about how someone’s personal biases shape their view of gender and sexuality so do your best to break it down in a way they can understand.

Try to define any words you are using. Audience members often won’t know what ‘cisgender’ means, or the difference between sexual and romantic orientation, or what dysphoria is. Try to keep them in the loop and be ready to provide definitions if the need arises. Again, defer to those who hold the identities in question before you answer and don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know something. 

Closing the Panel

Refer the audience to resources to continue their education. Offer both in-person places like a campus LGBT services center and trustworthy online resources like AVEN for asexuality. Establish a point of contact between the facilitator and the audience if they feel comfortable doing so- can the audience email anyone with further questions?

After the audience files out, gather with the other panelists and facilitator for a recap. Talk about what you think went well, what you think could have gone better, if you felt comfortable or not, if you felt talked over or if you felt like you talked too much, and how you think you could improve in the future. This is best for a team that may meet again, but even for a one-off event I feel it’s important.

That’s the start of it.

IRL, a panelist undergoes a 2-day training and practice panel before they are considered a panelist. This post is 1500 words already, so I’ll leave it there, but let me know if there’s something I can explain better or if you want more resources or examples! 

#my posts #long post

[milandherstyle-blog]

Koha blog posts

Week 7.1

Unfortunately due to a family event I was unable to attend the first lecture in the pit and class because I was still in Auckland. To utilise my time well before next class I looked at the resources on stream and tried to catch up as best I could. I understood the new brief, that being that we had to create a trans media campaign creating a poster, website and motion graphic video. I also listened to the Warren Maxwell songs and read through the lyrics as a class mate had mentioned this would be important for next class. Missing the lecture from Warren Maxwell was disappointing as it would have aided in my process however I am confident I will be able to establish a good work flow regardless.

Week 7.2

This was my first class back for the Koha brief and it was a bit hectic. In the previous class people had paired up for an exercise and these pairs were now doing the trans media campaign together, due to being away I wasn’t in a pair. I was quickly paired up with Courtney which was a relief however Courtney had also missed the first class. This meant starting our project came to a bit of a halt whilst we got to grips with the brief and what was being asked. Myself and Courtney analysed the lyrics to 3 of Warren’s songs, writing up word lists, thumbnail drawings, key themes and potential storylines. We also took this opportunity to have a one on one with Andre about what we missed in the previous class and how we could further ourselves. Towards the end of class we decided to continue with a physical workbook and on top of this set up our Trello website for our project management. For homework we decided it was best that both of us continue to analyse and establish potential storylines for our motion graphic.

Week 8.1

This weeks lecture in the pit focussed on the motion graphic aspect of the campaign and explored techniques to make the process of starting the motion graphic easier. By this point our pair had established a storyline combining key themes from 3 of Warren’s songs; Peaceful Man, Nature of Man and Home Land and Sea. We split up the work of looking as visual precedents and aI focussed on creating a moodpboard for the illustration style for our animatic. This mood board was a good first step to visualising how the animatic would look. In this class I learnt the importance of storyboarding and how quick sketches can really help aid in the process of creating a motion graphic. I sketched out a few images from the storyline we created and looked at how they could be put together to create a storyline for the “plays”. We also completed an in class exercise using a key frame from “A some for Europa” and looked at how the image could change meaning and context depending on what word we paired with the image. This was interesting and taught me that anything is subject to change when people are looking at something a certain way feeling a certain emotion.

Week 8.2

This week’s lecture taught me the importance of user experience. How creating a visual system targeted at a specific audience will help to portray my ideas. We began the class by brainstorming in our pairs, thinking back to the Warren Maxwell songs we chose and the key themes in these. We then focussed on the imagery related to these key themes and how we could begin to portray these images in a storyboard. We had an introduction to storyboarding by Jason which was super helpful for me because it’s not a skill I practice often. Once we had a few initial sketches I began to research types of animation style as well as illustration style and how our own skills and ideas could fit in to what we were researching. Myself and Courtney both found an animation we really liked, it was the simplicity of the motion graphic that drew our attention.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/69437287/SELFRIDGES?tracking_source=curated_galleries_list

We chose to delegate the illustrations to Courtney because we wanted our body of work to look cohesive so having one person dedicated to this would help. The Lab this week was after effects, Courtney attended and brushed up on some after effects skills, I was unable to attend however I had some knowledge of after effects from first year.

Week 9.1

This class was our interim presentation, I completed wireframe sketches of our initial idea of a mobile website with organic shapes, as well as some initial illustrated key frames from our story board, we also had a printed moodpboard which I put together. During the time I was putting together the interim presentation work I learnt that communication is key when working in a pair, I ended up doing most of this presentation by myself which is no reflection on my partner just on the fact I like to take control and do things myself. However when working in a group or pair I have learnt that delegation is a really useful skill to have in order to get work done faster and smarter. The feedback we got from our interim presentation was good, Lee really liked our storyline and the initial semiotics I had illustrated of the coins and flowers. We are headed in a good direction and the moodpboard we printed is a good starting point for the visual aesthetic we want to achieve for our animation, poster and website. Going forward I will be further defining our storyboard for the motion graphic while Courtney works on illustrating. I will definitely be looking at how I can help to divide the work between us to make sure we get everything done.

Week 9.2

This week in class I looked at the timeline of the motion graphic and how the Warren Maxwell songs can work as a soundtrack for the motion graphic. I decided I would take on the role of creating the animation/motion graphic as Courtney has no prior experience with after effects, even though my own knowledge is limited.

Week 10.1

The illustrations for our motion graphic were taking longer than expected so personally I used this time to create a website. Usually some of the illustrations we already had I created a mobile website with a few different iterations as a start. The website started to come together really nicely and I was quite happy with how it looked. I also worked on our bookwork as well as beginning the animation with the key frame illustrations that were complete. During this week I learnt that learning a new skill such as after effects or even remembering and brushing up on the skill takes time, it took a long time and quite a few tries before I got to grips with the software.

Week 10.2

This class was just working towards Monday’s interim presentation, we tiled our poster, and our website is pretty much navigable. Our animation is also partly done but I’m not too happy with how it’s looking at the moment. Jason mentioned everyone’s motion graphics are looking almost like a stage - everything entering and exiting from the sides, I’m thinking of how we could develop our motion graphic to look less like this. Courtney has developed quite a few poster iterations now which are looking good. This week I’ve been brushing up on after effects and trying to learn some better skills which is proving harder than I thought. After effects is definitely teaching me patience.

Week 11.1

We presented our interim work for the class and tutors, having interim presentations is always really helpful for me personally, if I have been struggling to feel motivated to get the work done I’m always keen for feedback so the interim is a good opportunity for me to collate my work and get feedback. We got some really helpful feedback, the animation was feeling weak so I decided to reassess what I wanted to achieve from the animation and think logistically about what I could get done in the timeframe. Like always bad feedback is kind of disheartening however it’s something I have learnt to take in my stride and it will really help our project in the long run. We decided to re-establish the style for my motion graphic, cutting the time down and keeping it even more simple.

The poster we presented had really good feedback and we’re pretty much ready to print with a few minor touches. The website is also coming along really well and just needs a few final touches. This week I learnt that its all about the process and thinking of target audience, instagram ad transmedia, don’t want to watch a long video, short snappy but effective.

Week 11.2

This class was about continuing my work with the motion graphic and getting back up to speed. By this point we were ready to submit our poster to toy store and put our final touches on the website adding in a merchandise section and a link to more Warren Maxwell information. We are super on track at the moment with work only really needing to be done on the animation. We were told about the due dates being early for the animation and website, this shouldn’t really affect us too much because we are on track. I’m feeling quite good at the moment about our project and I am proud of the progress we have made.

Week 12.1

Today’s class was our last opportunity for feedback before hand in. We showed the tutors our motion graphic and website, both of which are now done. Was really good to get some positive feedback. We have submitted the poster to toy store and will only need to mount the poster. We need to create the website walkthrough after putting some final touches on the website. Our animation is due tomorrow night so I will need to put some final touches on that too. We are really on track which is such a good feeling. This project has been really interesting working in a pair and establishing a routine of communication and delegation of jobs.

Week 12.2

We submitted our animation on Tuesday and mounted our poster. This morning was an interesting opportunity to see everyone’s different style of animation. The trans media campaign has been super interesting really thinking on a deeper level about how your design will interact with the target audience.

[shinmegamitensei2]

i was gonna sleep cus i’m tired as shit but then my brain started blaring some thoughts in my head so now i can’t sleep, so now you guys get to hear me ramble angrily about privilege and intersections of it on my blog instead

warning: this is extremely long and at points starts to sound like “pwease weave the poow twans men awone we did nofing wrong uwu” but i promise there’s a point somewhere in here about how we gotta start thinking about what we say has consequences

just... i get so angry when privilege is conflated to “if you have it, you have every single facet of it and you always benefit from it” when that’s really not the case at all, and to treat privilege as a single card that is separate from, and consequently unaffected by personal experience, other VISIBLE aspects of identity and individuality, and so forth is a really flawed way of thinking

the way i see most people explain or treat privilege is whether you have, say, a “privilege card” and the more you accumulate, the more privileged you are and thus the more benefits society offers you as a result of your status over another person (say, a white cis straight man is far more privileged than a black trans gay woman)

this is it, a simplification of privilege, easily digestible and easy enough to regurgitate to other people to get them to understand on an elementary level what it means to have privilege - when you have it, you have benefits over another person because society deems you better than another person

but then the conversation stops there. it stops, and this simplification becomes a hard and fast rule rather than the beginning of an educational moment, and suddenly we have concepts such as self-determination of your identity means you can gain and drop privileges as you change and determine WITHIN YOURSELF who you are, rather than what society deems you as

and therein lies the problem: how do you gain or lose privilege? how does the concept of passing privilege factor into all this? what does it mean to pass, or to not pass, and can privilege be bargained, can it only be half-gained or half-lost, can it change on a whim?

the only times i ever see this brought up, it’s by some asshat who’s got some shitty opinions or is trying to defend the privileged group wherein exchanges of power usually do not happen on the level i’m trying to discuss (re: race and a white person whose family is predominantly european-white, although there is a lot to be said about someone who is white but also comes from a mixed family and the way that privilege can also be bartered based on perceived appearance versus the reality) but what i really want to look into, specifically, is the bartering of privilege gained and lost through identification as trans, nonbinary, or another gender unrecognized by mainstream society

because, like... it’s here, i feel like, where passing privilege becomes its most prominent (as well as sexuality and the culture surrounding it that has crafted a persona, either influenced by or influencing [or both!!] by homophobic caricatures of the past and present) and where we need to start having discussions, serious discussions, about how one passes not only affects their privilege, but also that we cannot and should not treat people specifically based on what privileges or disprivileges we believe they should be experiencing in their day-to-day lives, because... it doesn’t work that way

there’s such a monumental difference between people at different stages of passing, and what information they have about them that is on the internet, or among their friends and family, or to their bosses and coworkers or if it gets leaked in ways they didn’t intend or want people to see or know

i AM going to use trans men in this example, being one myself, because i don’t intend to try and explain anything using experiences that don’t belong to myself so as to not misrepresent anyone, so i apologize that this comes off as being really whiny and “wahhh stop treating transmasc ppl badly” because a whole lot of trans masc and trans men adopt misogyny and absorb toxic masculinity in an attempt to become masculine, in a world where manliness is often defined by how much you can reject femininity and the constant attempts to redefine masculinity in a way that doesn’t allow male predators to adopt it solely to hurt women I’M GOING ON A TANGENT ANYWAY

there was a point i wanted to make here, and it was specifically on the idea that, like... you cannot ever, possibly, expect a trans man who is completely untransitioned and is seen, societally, as a woman, to own any amount of male privilege that makes any real difference where it matters aside from an online community wherein anonymity is valued, but also in said community where that information (that they are trans, whether or not they mention they are untransitioned) may be open and ENCOURAGED to be posted online for the sake of engaging in these conversations in the first place

as opposed to a trans man who is fully transitioned, has spent several years being accepted as a man, having absorbed ideas about masculinity that may make him indistinguishable from other men and nobody questions his status as a man, and all of this is STILL contingent on the fact that nobody knows or SHOULD know that he is trans, as once that information comes out on a platform where people feel empowered to challenge him (not only including the internet, but in real life, where it is common and encouraged for men to engage in violence, especially where bigotry is concerned)

as opposed to any trans men who may be in between, too! a man who is taking T, whose voice is changing over time and where his neighbors may catch onto what’s going on and grow suspicious; a man who takes strides to act masculine where he can, but who is stifled in an environment where he could be abused or killed purely on account of transphobia; a man who does not WANT to take the steps required for society to fully “recognize” him as a man, and so may never be able to fully participate in presenting the way he wants

this is all transphobia, full stop. not transmisandry or whatever weirdo terms ppl are coming up with these days, but there is a lot to be said in how transness AFFECTS male privilege, and how that male privilege may be adopted, absorbed, and enacted depending on the way that society recognizes men, maleness and masculinity

trans masculinity, and the state of being a trans man, is not an experience shared by every trans man. trans men are not all the same - some are trans nonbinary men, some transition, some do not, some adopt abusive techniques and toxicity that comes built into the system that tells us what being a man is and what being a woman is (although i could also argue that in a lot of ways, to be recognized as a man without having homophobia and transphobia and misogyny thrown at you constantly is to HAVE to participate in these systems, but alas)

there is a wide variety of difference in all of these people, and how they are recognized on a widescale manner that makes any shred of difference outside of this website - which begs another question! where does privilege travel? can it disappear or appear depending on where you are? where you go? can you have privilege on tumblr, but then have it vanish when you leave this website?

there’s a distortion, a way we talk about privilege and the privileged folk, that makes it so damn difficult to discuss the finer and more important details about privilege, intersection, and how privilege is not the same for everyone. it CANNOT be the same for everyone, because passing privilege is not yet another token given to people just to show that they have it! and privilege is not a set of cards and coins that come separately and totally irrelevant of each other!

a trans man is pelted by misogyny, homophobia, as well as transphobia when he does not pass. just as cis men are pelted with these ideas, so too are trans men. and yes, they are misguided. they hurt women and gay people more than they hurt men and straight people, this much should be obvious to anyone. but these things - they are STILL internalized, and how they are internalized changes depending on who is on the receiving end, and in many ways these things are markers and indicators of how to and how not to act for men

i wanted to keep going on about this point and i think i have more to say but my end point with all this is just that privilege changes power depending on where you are, who you are, and on a moment’s notice depending on what information people have a hold of, and i know i did a not-great job of explaining this but also i’m just venting so whatever

another thought occurred to me, about something i was thinking about earlier today, and it’s about how we talk about this concept, and how we approach privilege and privileged people and people whose privilege may variably change

obviously tumblr’s a bad place to be. it’s polarizing, because a lot of people use it as a place to vent, and there’s a lot of gross and nasty people here (including highly-privileged folk and fucking neo-nazis for fuck’s sake) and having long and meaningful conversations here is pointless because it’s drowned out by the obsession and need for having notes yet lacking a cohesive way to spread posts and all proper additions to that post without someone losing some form of context along the way

(that fucking, pewdiepiekin post goin around is one such example, since it’s apparently a joke that OP has but everyone’s treating it as fact, and like obviously it’s hard to tell sarcasm on this website given how much weird shit we’ve seen, but also that it’s FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE to correct such a misunderstanding BECAUSE of the very nature of tumblr itself, go figure)

but that’s also why i think we gotta have this conversation, this like... talk that we can’t keep talking about shit the way we have been, especially in regards to social justice and conceptualizing it for the younger kids who USE this website, and like... we just gotta have a different way of approaching things now, because the more i watch idle chats where people gleefully and openly post screenshots of others making fun of them for minor shit or momentary fuck-ups that could be easily ignored because the person is still learning (ESPECIALLY IF THEY’RE LIKE 14) and otherwise give themselves a free pass to become openly vicious and in the name of coping or to share amongst their friends how pathetic they view some people

like ok not to be a liberal and i’d rather not be classified as such because i don’t lick the boots of the privileged or pull any of that devil’s advocate shit but this extremely hostile environment we’ve cultivated and continually defend because we think this website creates ANY sort of meaningful difference in the world and anything we do on this website has any sort of meaningful impact that is beneficial to us while also openly encouraging behaviors that mitigate and deny growth and learning from mistakes is honestly kind of fucking scary

this is in no way saying giving a pass or go on behavior that directly spreads violence like saying slurs and whatnot, but we’re also so, so very fucking vicious, and at some point, no matter what reason you have for saying what you do, the consequence is that your words and intents get hijacked and used out of context in a manner that forms high hostility in the first place

and it’s so, so hard to talk about here too, without going “well if you hate men hurr durr it’s ur fault everything on this site sucks don’t openly say you hate your oppressors hurr durr!” like that’s such an easy trap to fall into but i don’t believe that either, even if i’ve grown distasteful of openly expressing “i hate cis men” (because they terrify me and could murder me at a moment’s notice, both for thinking i’m a woman and for finding out i am trans) or “i hate straight people” (because they fetishize my gayness and shit!) and etc

i’ve got so many reasons why i could express those thoughts, but should i do it, and on a regular basis, consequences follow. consequences that destroy my cultivated and intended reputation as someone who is open and friendly and kind, because it is difficult to really PROVE that to someone who may be on the fence from allowing themself to be deprogrammed from societal teachings and ingrained and taught transphobia and homophobia and misogyny and racism and so on so forth

and i know not everyone is like that. not everyone WANTS to teach and to provide the resources for that and to help deprogram people. most people just want to vent, most people want to escape from the daily abuse and fear and vent their frustrations. i get that. but then where do we go from there, when we have such an absolute volume of people doing and saying this exact thing, in such a degree that such a climate becomes normal to be reactionary and to react to any level of ignorance with anger, no matter who it comes from?

i’m being so, so vague here, and i really do not want it to come off as protection of the poor soft privileged or what the fuck ever, i genuinely do not. i guess i’m just describing a time in my life where i was like that, where i openly enjoyed mocking people that i thought were beyond reprieve and “saving” and getting into fights and it was such a nasty attitude to be in because it led to me throwing people out of my life, throwing caution to the wind, destroying my reputation online and getting put on places like r/tumblrinaction and potentially k.i/.w/i./f./a/./r./.m//s for my actions

living that way endangered me, and not just because of who i am. living that way destroyed me, and it destroyed my way of thinking, too. it destroyed my moral system, it encouraged me to dehumanize others. it encouraged me to find new ways to rationalize violence as a way of “vengeance” and “retribution” for the damages society dealt me, as if that was any rational and correct way of approaching this situation

anger has its place. anger has its place in destroying the system we have now and rebuilding a new one. but we need to understand that our actions, no matter how justified, still have consequences, sometimes extremely unintended, and even unwarranted that we didn’t deserve, and just... i dunno

there is no easy solution to this. i don’t believe we’ll get anywhere by being nice to everyone all the time, just as much as i don’t believe we’ll get anywhere by developing such a community-wide but aimless anger that we develop as hostile an environment as we have on this website

i don’t know what we need, but it can’t be this

#vent #this is way too long and you probably shouldn't read it #and please absolutely do not rb it i would very much appreciate that #it's a bunch of thoughts i wanted to throw out there and it's not coherent #nor is it a blatant and exact statement of my ideologies #tons of it is vague even because i just do not want to stick to my guns and say something stupid #and like have all my friends turn on me and tell me how i'm no different from the people i'm rambling about #i dunno. this website has that effect on me now i guess #i know that's a broad reaching term too to be like 'fucking tumblr LOL sjws' #but... yeah everything i fucking put out here scares the shit out of me so thanks

[hipcityreg]

Playing Social

This won’t be nearly as organized / cohesive as I or you would like. But need to get these very raw thoughts down somewhere. It’s too long for my Newsletter and is too all over the place for a Twitter thread. I write about the nature and nuance of identity, all the time. This will be much lighter on that front than previous essays. 

Short Precursor 

Let me start by saying that gaming has always been social, and social has always been a sort of game. Something something, Eugene Wei, something something, status. But I want to focus more on the productized manifestations that we have seen, and how I am currently thinking about building moving forward. 

Let me also say, before diving into this, that I’ve been reading Snow Crash and playing Ready Player One in the background while I work. And although the movie isn’t that good, it still allows certain product-philosophies to be presented in a clear way. I think it is always important to share inputs at any given time of producing something, because it allows a clearer look into the thoughts of the creator. 

Podcasts: Founders Fund Anatomy of Next, little A16Z, and very little Village Global

Music: Solange, James Blake, Theophilus London, Bob Dylan, Khruangbin, Frank Ocean, The Internet, Lil Pump, Paul Simon, Jordan Rakei, King Krule 

TV: Haven’t consumed much tv lately only new thing is Wild Wild Country, mostly rewatching Seinfeld & Mad Men

Art: Mark Rothko, James Turrell, Dan Flavin

Fortnite

Let’s take the clear example of Fortnite. I’m not going to talk about the obvious / pseudo-hot takes we see on Twitter. We have those in abundance.

I tweeted a while ago, probably deleted now, that Fortnite is the precursor to the Oasis. I thought the Marshmallow concert on Fortnite was interesting. But it was interesting in a very limited way.  

If the goal is simply, time spent on Fortnite. Then they can keep plopping in more and more entertainment to form around. It builds an experiential content retention layer. The sense of space is very clear.  Navigation is very clear. And expression through skins still works. There’s nothing too groundbreaking. We have had vr dj sets for a while. This is a similar sensation for the flat internet. 

But what’s clearly missing, and again if this is simply a retention tool for time spent maybe it doesn’t matter, is how it touches the game itself. What is the most basic, yet compelling, way that Fortnite can create a social layer? 

You leverage your strengths. Fortnite has created a detailed and rhythmic world. And this is what they need to expand upon. Although I make jokes about it all the time, this probably actually looks like Club Penguin. I want to go around DJ Island. Have mid-day retreat on Meditation Island. The list goes. Then a timer goes off, I’m thrown off a plane, and I’m fighting. 

I workshopped this in a tweet. But this level of world building could continually expand the meta-space that is Fortnite.

Pokémon Go

When Pokémon Go first launched, it was the Summer between my junior and senior year at Penn. And in that time, I thought that a game had solved racism. Obviously, I say that jokingly. But the collective experience of going around Williamsburg, catching Pokémon, battling gyms, all while meeting and talking to complete strangers was truly magical. It also destroyed my phone’s battery.

The downside of mobile AR for this game, is that you are getting in the way of anyone not playing the game. So, the environment is not collectively heightened. This is part of the friction of trans-reality. 

This was part of a discussion on Founders Fund Anatomy Of Next Podcast, where residents that lived near a park wanted to strip the location from the game. Which brings up an interesting question of how we think of digital layers, and what that means to physical communities. But for another time.

The social layers being built within Pokémon Go are truly interesting. And something I have started playing around with more. My friction here is that most of my peers don’t play anymore. So to build a social component for myself, I would be starting from scratch. We do this with Twitter, to some extent, after choosing the community we want to explore. But with mobile AR, there is no digital barrier. I’m not in a “Twitterverse”. Any new social connection from the game is made from interacting directly, without any previous context of who someone is.

Niantic is a company that doesn’t get enough credit, but in terms of consumer AR, I would argue Niantic and Snap are delivering the most powerful experiences right now. We’ll see what happens with Ubiquity6. 

Eternal 

As a believer that every day is day 1 of our future, I ask what worlds can we build.

Games on social platforms do not elevate the network in which they take place. At its most basic, we have playing games on Facebook. And at its most interesting right now, we have Snapchat / Houseparty / Messenger (and others) gaming through video chat / messaging. There seems to be two things top of mind moving forward from here. 

1 - Social AR and editing a shared digital layer. (Niantic, Neon, Ubiquity6)

2 - Avatars and unlocking the next phase of digital identity. 

The second is where I currently focus, and what the rest of this post will be about. As we push into avatars as our medium of expression, we unlock a new level of social freedom. 

When I talk about digital avatars/identity, I am referring to high photorealism. Not Bitmoji/Genies/Zepeto. We want Frankie as our quality baseline. Photorealism gives us a stronger connection to the abstraction of our identity, and allows us to blur reality enough to make the experience feel valid.

/// For those that haven’t read previous posts about Eternal, we are building a social network allowing users to have multiple avatars for expression. This is grounded in core truths of liquid identity. First we are building a social game, so get excited about that! ///

The most direct thing, from a business perspective, is building a digital marketplace to customize / augment your avatar. This isn’t new. But it creates a bridge into the first thing games can unlock within social. Rare digital goods. I think the compounding nature of this opportunity starts with abstracting your identity to a digital avatar. Without that essential foundation, this doesn’t make sense. The best we can do on current platforms is getting “verified” but even that has lost some of its value.   

With default open networks, we are able to host competitions for every user to submit to. I think this pulls at compelling themes that allow us to dive deeper to see what some of these experiences looks like. 

By directing the energy of the crowds, we not only create a shared goal through collective intentions, but we create a shared history for the platform itself. Meme culture is hyper ephemeral. However, to memorialize a moment that we’ve all witnessed and participated in, rare digital goods creates a lasting token. Or as my very sharp friend and builder, Paari, dubs it can render digital reputation.  

For the absolute worst example, if the platform wants to host “Supreme Street King”. Users would share a video where you tell us why your avatar should be crowned. If you win, your avatar is donned with a Platinum Supreme Headband, where we can all call back to what that means. This is most similar to artifact hunts in Ready Player One. 

A question I’ve been meditating on, is what happens when you can win a singular customized identity? Maybe it is non-gendered. Maybe it doesn’t have racial identity attached to it. Maybe it has a different racial identity than you, or a different gender than you normally express yourself with. How deep can we push this? What does this do to our sense of identity? 

I could go on, but I think the goal with the intersection of gaming and social comes down to a few questions that we can optimize around. 

1 - Can everyone on the platform take part in the game? And is simply playing enjoyable, no matter the result

2 - When you are amongst the winners, how does the prize live beyond the game as users interact on platform? What does this do to interactions? 

3 - Am I in another world? 

In the end it comes back to a feeling, that this is unlike anything else. To create next gen-experiences, we cannot be anchored to social as we see it today. 

I hope this doesn’t sound vague or reductive. I’m hyper aware that any time a founder paints a piece of their vision of what they want to build, how the world works, or how they view emergent behavior, there’s the more intense reality that it probably won’t happen. Which is the basis of fear when pursuing what you deeply believe. 

Some of these thoughts are off / half baked. But I want to come back to this to go deeper on specific ideas, throw away parts, clarify how products manifest themselves... and more.

/// This is a side thought I figured I’d throw in here. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I’ve been meditating on the nature of space. With consumer AR, the space is wherever you are. This has it’s obvious frictions, as I stated previously. More and more I’ve been obsessed with creating (1) a sense of space through direction (2) a sense of space through lack of direction. On the first point, there is an incredible lack of depth representation in mobile experiences. I should be pushing inward, to consume a history of you. Not gliding by it vertically. Weight of response and collaboration is held equal, when that isn’t skeuomorphic to how we ideally process interactions. On the second point, and I don’t remember who shared this idea with me, what if the future of social is a digital garden that we all help tend. I think lack of direction is beautiful and a potential direction of our future. Collectively caring for something. Conversing while we do it. Making new connections. Actively building a new world. ///

As always, love to hear your thoughts. Share, email me, follow me on Twitter. You know the deal.

#technology #avatars #digital identity #digital goods #ready player one #Snow Crash #NYC #products #mobile #AR #gaming #social #social media #consumer internet #internet

[shenzhenblog]

Tomorrow’s Products And Services Need To Offer Innovative (Not Just Iterative) Experiences

Napa Valley, what a wonderful place to visit. Some of my favorite wineries are in Napa. Paraduxx, Far Niente, Harlan, Mascot, Nickel and Nickel, Chandon, Domain Carneros, Cuvaison, Schug, just to name a few. Napa is also a wonderful place to work. And, I recently had an opportunity to do so when I was asked share my vision of the future at the Senior Living Innovation Forum.

I’m not an expert in senior living care nor am I a master of its business models and regulations. But I’ve studied the evolving nature of consumer expectations, preferences and their strengthening power of choice. I’ve studied how entrepreneurs, investors and bold legacy businesses are paving new roads to deliver modern products and experiences that cater to this evolving generation of connected customers. At some point, we are all the customers we are trying to reach. We all want experiences that build upon or at least deliver no worse, but hopefully better and more enchanting than the last great experience we had…regardless of industry.

The core of this presentation applies to every business and every institution.

Why Every Business Needs to Re-Imagine Experiences for a New Economy

In a talk that offered fresh insights applicable to senior housing, futurist Brian Solis stressed the essential differences between ‘iteration’ (refining what works to make it work even better) and ‘innovation’ (developing something genuinely new).

Recognizing that they need to embrace change at some level, many large companies have begun launching Innovation Labs, where a various stakeholders collaborate to create and prototype radical solutions to problems. However, about 95% of the developments these companies are calling ‘innovations’ are really just refinements of current processes. Truly radical ideas get watered down.

“Success makes us complacent; we become risk averse,” the award-winning author, keynote speaker and principal analyst at the Altimeter Group told the Senior Living Innovation Forum. “So we iterate. We do the same things better.”

Senior living falls into this iteration trap, said Solis, who shared case studies of companies in other industries that are truly innovating backed by examples of what they’re doing right, as well as cautionary tales of brands that refused to change. If your business is being complacent, someone will come along and develop something better. “Remember, there was a time when business as usual was leading edge.”

Experience Has Replaced the Kodak Moment

“We have to remember that what was offered in the past and what is offered today were designed for different times and expectations in a world that didn’t have much to choose from,” Solis said.

“Convention, business as usual, was very much the standard. What if we looked at other industries, other markets, other customers?

Solis referenced the fall of Kodak, which once dominated its industry.  If you’re over a certain age, you know the story of Kodak. “Someone in your house was the keeper of the pictures. Those were memories. That was the Kodak moment.” But digital photography changed our relationship with pictures. “They went from memories to experiences.”

During this transition, Kodak’s leadership dug in its heels, allowing the industry giant to be left behind. It filed for Chapter 11 in 2012. “Kodak lost touch with what the Kodak moment meant.”

Experience Drives Innovation

Addressing senior living industry leaders, the author of “What’s the Future in Business”  added: “There’s a group of us who don’t want to change. Who want to hold onto the world as we know it. The one thing I’ve learned about disruption is that disruptors can be disrupted. Every company is ripe for disruption.”

Solis defined experience as “something you feel, something you sense and interpret. It’s measured by how you react.” Through his research he’s learned that experience is the number one driver of innovation. “Those in the know have figured out that the customer has changed. There’s a new normal.”

To benefit, the senior living industry needs to embrace an experience design approach to improving and reinventing its communities. Experience design is the practice of developing  products, processes, services, events, environments and more with focus placed on the quality of the user experience.

He asked his audience how every aspect of a senior living provider’s operation—from your website to your landscaping/interior design and staff—makes the people who will be living in your communities and their families feel?

To remain relevant and competitive in the coming decades, senior living (like all businesses) must embrace experience design and make it work for them. “Experience design is nascent, but it’s going to be a key differentiator from here on out,” he said.

“You are in the experience business and your clients are guests. Their children and loved ones are your customers too. And they have an increasing set of demands that center on experiences. Every single day technology is teaching them a new set of demands they’re entitled to.”

If, as an industry, senior living is slow to adapt, it’s not alone. “Most companies around the world haven’t yet put their finger on this new normal,” Solis said. “This creates a growing epidemic of out-of-touchness, and it has led to an innovation divide between executives and customers.”

Iteration vs. Innovation (Know the Difference)

As we mentioned above, funding Innovation Labs has become common practice across many industries, including hospitality. A number of these companies have invited Solis to study their methods and offer feedback.

While he finds that many of these labs are constructive, the improvements they’re developing are usually iterations, refining existing practices, rather than true innovation, which often means tossing our existing practices and introducing new ones that make current practices obsolete.

Real innovation is a shock to the system, he emphasized. It means abandoning practices that are working today for ones that take time to implement and may not hit their stride for years.

“We spend our lives following rules, but innovation asks us not to follow rules. It’s hard to wrap our minds around this and change our behavior.”

A quick example of innovation vs. iteration in the same industry–while TV technology continues to both innovate and then iterate to create an ever-evolving product, each new version of the television remote is the same-old/same-old with new features attached. “On average there are 70 buttons on a remote control.”

Banking With Google?

Industries like senior living — which, obviously, addresses an older demographic — still need to understand the impact apps and online services are having on society.

Recently, Solis has been working with a number of banks and other financial institutions. “About 73% of millennials said they expected to bank with Google, Amazon or Apple over the next five years,” he said, emphasizing that none of these three currently offer banking as an option.

“That is such a powerful response in that they don’t want to even think about banking with a bank because it’s so different from the apps they’re used to,” Solis said.

Social media and apps are making us more discerning, while our expectations for goods and services rise daily. “The more connected we become the more informed we become. The more informed we become we get empowered. We become demanding. We become impatient. And that plays out in decision making and how we sit and experience.”

What’s the next hot app?

While social media addiction has become a problem, Silicon Valley continues to innovate in ways that make our lives better, even when the exacerbate our tendency toward impatience.  “How long is too long to wait for an Uber before you open the Lyft app?” asked Solis. “In New York City that number is five to six minutes. Doordash, Apple, Tesla and others are changing the normal.”

He referenced an app many hadn’t heard of: Filld. “It’s the Uber of gas. A truck will pull up and fill my car and I don’t even have to be there. The minute I used this app for the first time was the last time I went to a gas station. Because it was disruptive. It introduced new value and made the old process obsolete,” Solis said.

“This got me thinking, where’s this for dentistry? Why isn’t’ my doctor doing this? That’s all coming.” He prompted senior living to begin thinking along these lines.

Lessons Senior Living Can Learn From Airbnb

In any industry, when competitors innovate, the natural response is often to ignore the disruptor for as long as possible, then try to shut it down and regulate it. Key examples include traditional taxis vs. Uber and, closer to home for senior living, Airbnb vs. hotels.

“Of course, the final response is learning how to compete and not lose (more) customers to the innovators,” Solis said.

And, often, even the innovators need to innovate. After its initial success, Airbnb hit a roadblock when it realized hosts and guests were having bad experiences, which, as a startup, could mean the end of investor funding.

So Airbnb did what all businesses should do, including senior living—they pulled all their data and then looked at the experiences in industries that people love. Next, they hired a Pixar storyboard artist to humanize the ideal Airbnb experience.

This approach would work for senior living, if developers choose to design resident experiences “like a Disney or Pixar movie, complete with character and story development, woven into a  thoughtful and methodical universe where the experience is linked, immersive and enchanting in every moment of truth,” he said.

“Airbnb went thru the Pixar storyboarding process to learn how to reimagine its brand and the experience for guests and hosts. This lead to a cohesive vision and a guide to help hosts deliver and guests receive a desired brand experience.”

Solis added, This process allowed Airbnb to transform their brand’s guest experience, to “humanize” it in ways they never saw before.  “Now there are conferences and communities of hosts; they’ve become an extension of the Airbnb brand.”

Hard, but Necessary, Work Ahead

While some innovations can seem obvious once they’re in place, a lot of effort goes into getting there, he stressed.

“None of this is easy. We have to ask ourselves ‘Where we are operating from? All innovation starts when we step outside our comfort zone,” Solis said. “All innovation comes to life when we allow ourselves to see how people live differently, how they want to live differently and do the things that connect the dots between where we are and where we want to be tomorrow.”

  Note : This article was originally published on https://www.briansolis.com

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet, Brian is world renowned keynote speaker and 7x best-selling author. His latest book, X: Where Business Meets Design, explores the future of brand and customer engagement through experience design.

Tomorrow’s Products And Services Need To Offer Innovative (Not Just Iterative) Experiences was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

[thisdaynews]

Breaking News: Miyetti Allah rejects calls for service chiefs’ sack, backs foreigners grazing in Nigeria

New Post has been published on https://www.thisdaynews.net/2018/07/03/breaking-news-miyetti-allah-rejects-calls-for-service-chiefs-sack-backs-foreigners-grazing-in-nigeria/

Breaking News: Miyetti Allah rejects calls for service chiefs’ sack, backs foreigners grazing in Nigeria

The apex Fulani social-cultural organisation, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, has rejected calls for the sacking of the country’s Service Chiefs.

So also did the body back the idea of foreigners grazing in Nigeria as stated by its Secretary-General, Saleh Al-Hassan, at two functions on Monday.

Al-Hassan spoke during an interview on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, and at a function in Abuja.

He said: “We have documented 411 innocent pastoralists killed just in southern Kaduna for nothing.

“We have documented all the crises but because we want peace and want to promote the culture of peace and forgiveness hoping that our neighbours will continue to allow us to do our business.

“But the issue of arms and light weapons is a security one.

“I believe they (security agencies) are on top of it.

“With the arrests they are making, we must acknowledge the efforts security agencies have put in trying to contain criminality in this country.

“That is why people calling for the removal of Service Chiefs are either the corrupt politicians or the ones working for them.

“We should not fall for that gambit.”

Al-Hassan also rejected suggestions that herdsmen from other countries should be prevented from grazing their cattle in Nigeria.

He said the ECOWAS free trade protocol guarantees free movement, adding that herdsmen do not recognise international boundaries, which he described as “colonial creations”.

He added: “You cannot just opt out of a protocol that is integrating the African continent.

“The pastoralist movement is not for picnics.

“They go there to access land resources.

“Also, these boundaries that you have are colonial boundaries.

“Some of them (boundaries) don’t mean anything to the herders.

“So, what we need to do is to domesticate the ECOWAS protocol, begin to enforce it and then we create grazing reserves for trans-human pastoralists.”

On the way out of the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers, Al-Hassan said it remains ranching, adding that it must be partly funded by the government and supported by all Nigerians.

He said: “Policies aimed at solving these problems are strongly resisted.

“Attempts were made to put up a commission for grazing reserves to see how it can be done but it was shut down at the National Assembly.

“The minister of agriculture has been trying all his efforts to see that solutions are brought to the table but people read political motive to it and killed the policies.

“Today, we have a national livestock development plan that is well articulated but the same people saying we should ranch our cows are now saying they will not accept ranches so what are we talking about? So, we must understand the socio-political undercurrents.”

He lambasted Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State for initiating the anti-grazing law, adding that most of the arrests by security agencies showed it was Ortom’s men that were carrying out the killings.

At another event in Abuja, Al-Hassan said security agencies must identify the perpetrators and sponsors of the killings in Plateau State, noting that corrupt politicians were behind the massacre.

At a colloquium organised by the Citizens Communication and Advocacy Centre, he said the National Assembly was laden with corruption and the legislators had not taken sufficient steps to address the farmers-herders’ crises.

The topic of the colloquium was: “Understanding democracy as instrument of development, integration and national cohesion.”

Alhassan said: “The spate of insecurity in this country is worrisome to anybody that loves this country and I think our security agencies should be up and doing.

“They should be able to identify the perpetrators and their sponsors and then ensure that justice is meted out to them.

“We must watch closely our politicians, their utterances and their body language because some of them are the ones promoting violence we are having in this country.

“We are not responsible for the killings in Plateau State.

“There are crises between farmers and herders all over the country, particularly in the North-Central geopolitical zone.

“We must recognise that it is a crisis that borders on land resources and we are calling on the government to put mechanisms in place for sustainable management of the land resources.

“But first, our security agencies must be supported to identify the perpetrators and the promoters of this violence.

“We must closely monitor some of these evangelicals that preach hatred in churches and mosques and desperate politicians that are facing corruption charges.

“We must be able to get all of them and watch them closely so that they don’t set this country ablaze.

“They are the drivers of the conflict.

“Most of these politicians own armed thugs and militias across the state.

“The government should also find those behind the importation of large arms into the country.

“Who are the people importing these arms?

“We need to overhaul the security architecture of the country but the Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police are doing their best.

“We should not listen to what desperate politicians are saying.

“It is the corrupt political elite who are creating crises in this country.

“There are attempts by our group to assist the security agencies.

“We have been partnering the security agencies in terms of giving them critical intelligence where we suspect there are cattle rustlers and criminals.

“The calls for the removal of the service chiefs are empty calls.

“Desperate politicians and politicians facing criminal charges are the ones making that call.”

#backs #calls #foreigners #grazing #Miyetti Allah #Nigeria #rejects #sack #service chiefs

[anautisticdragon-blog]

Autism Myths: Intentional Misrepresentation & Sociopaths

I don't know why neurotypicals are so intent to attack, undermine, smear, and even go so far as to character assassinate not just autistic people, but the type of mind in general, unless I'm incredibly right about NT tribalism and they just can't help themselves. It's fascinating just how many parallels I can draw between the NT 'scientist' and baloney systems of faith and religion. As an autistic person, I have an incredibly clear view of this, my mind just strips away the nonsense and sees things for what they truly are. I already spoke of the Cult of Dark Matter, and how that's turned into something that's the contemporary equivalent of 'finding God,' instead of just admitting that a.) our estimations of mass within our galaxy may be wrong, and b.) Erik Verlinde might actually be correct. The attitude toward autism is very similar to the Cult of Dark Matter, Creationism, and other things you probably should be weary of. The reasons why will become rather obvious as you read this and things fall into place. I'll open by saying that I don't think there's such a thing as an NT 'scientist.' The NT 'scientist' is like HR from CW's Flash. They're all about pomp and marketing, but they lack the level of necessary objectivity to engage in actual science. Their 'science' is all about sensationalism and the rise of neurotypical extraverts in science has lead to the shoddy state it's in right now (read here and here and here). Science used to be much more a field dominated by the a gamut of different kinds of minds, but as it shifts towards neurotypical extraversion it's losing cohesion and worth. A part of why NTs make for bad scientists is that they can't leave their tribalism behind. If you need to understand this, read my prior post on autism myths, and some others on my blogs. NTs have a very binary, absolute outlook on the world, very 1 and 0. The NT is 1, everyone else is 0, that's how they define their incredibly simplistic hierarchy. If you're not 1, if you're not of the NTs in-group, you're 0 and thus subhuman. This is how prejudices occur. This is how a gay person who's experienced bigoted hate can turn around and act like a hateful bigot toward trans people, because they can't stop being tribal. This doesn't happen with other spectrums who'll advocate trans right every bit as much as their own. In fact, autism is quite prevalent amongst trans people.

NTs will even try to tell you they’re more attractive for being the for being the 1 to your 0. They might even use some entertainingly bollocks-laden 'science' to try to prove it. Which will then be deconstructed by someone actually intelligent. Still, the fact that they made the effort is somewhat telling, isn't it? You see, NTs are perfect and so they must also be the most attractive, too. That's simply science! Oh dear.

NTs will also tell you that children who dislike making eye contact are racist, let’s just ignore the studies that show that eye contact is painful for autistic people. But nah, it can’t be that! Autistic people are racist, obviously.

The reason why it goes this way? The tribalism of the neurotypical spectrum's mind makes them incredibly selfish, they're all about themself or their group. The interesting part is is that that selfishness can be subverted if they believe it's in the interest of their in-group. This is why for affiliative extraverts they can put the interests of their in-group above their own even when it's harmful for them to do so. Sociopaths are masters at manipulating them to do this, which ultimately benefits the sociopath at the expense of the affiliative extravert. This is simply how they function, however, there's little that can be done about it. It's unfortunate, but they don't have the Theory of Mind enough to be self aware of this manipulation. What this means is that it's incredibly easy to spot someone on the NT spectrum versus all others. If, say, a person has autism, Williams syndrome, or any other number of mental ‘disorders’ they're likely to have avoided the curse of the NT tribal world view. These other spectrums won't view the world in this black & white, arbitrarily binary way, they won't see things in absolutes of 'my tribe' and 'their tribe' in the way that the NT mind always does. Whatever fluke of evolution has occurred, it's given them self awareness enough to want to expunge this from their outlook. It's fascinating to me because you can even see it in how the neurotypical spectrum views the world. Consider: "I am neurotypical. I am the basis, the default. I am 1. I am normal. I am the standard. I am health. I am perfection. I am the embodiment of correctness against which every other is to be judged. If you differ from me, then you are 0. You are flawed, you embody problematic elements which are contrary to my default status and thus you are inferior." The very concept of 'neurotypical' is oh so, so, so very telling. You'd have to be blind not to see it, and this is only a problem that the NT brain suffers from. And yet, the NT mind is sadly lacking in Theory of Mind to the point where there's no self awareness of this flaw, it escapes their own perception. And if they don't see it, then it doesn't exist. Do you see? And this is something that only the neurotypical spectrum cannot be aware of as their mind is designed specifically to lack self awareness of this factor, to ensure that they play it up as much as possible. Other spectrums are, in various degrees, less prone to tribalism and/or more profoundly aware of it. The NT cannot be aware of their own tribalism. What this leads to, of course, is that the NT will always try to smear anyone that the NT believes to be 0 to their 1. I see this in bad science, in religious people, in politics, in just about any field that's dominated by the neurotypical spectrum. Consider politics: "Our party is 1, all of our ideas are the right ones and we will never back down. Your party is 0, every idea you have is toxic, evil, and wrong so we'll fight it at every turn." This is true with marketing as well. And marketing fascinates me. Did you read that prior post where I spoke of how autistic people are less prone to the marketing brainwash? That was based on an actual study. This study points out that autistic people are better able to make consistent decisions without being controlled by marketers. So I ask you, why do you think that is? Why do you think that autistic people aren't so vulnerable to bias and marketing trickery? Tribalism. Affiliative extraverts are easily brainwashed into adopting a tribe, sociopaths (and to a lesser extent, agentic extraverts) are incredible at pulling their strings, something about how their brain functions has given them a startling expertise at manipulating affiliative extraverts. And there are more affiliative extraverts on earth than any other kind of human being. Which makes this tricky, and sometimes, even dicy for others. Affiliative extraverts are the group thought of when one says 'the masses,' thier actions are dictated to them by social structures, marketing, the media, and outside sources. They don't seem to make very many of their own decisions, they just go with the flow and obey whatever the Zeitgeist is, locking in with it as much as possible. I spoke of this earlier as well where even affiliative extraverts who're poor will buy expensive branded goods just to fit in. Tribalism is powerful. I'm more sure of this than anything else I've ever been, it's the one thing I want to contribute to humanity so that everyone can realise that there are aspects of every spectrum which could be considered problematic. There isn't one perfect, pure, default spectrum. The fact that they believe that is evidence of the disordered tribal thinking I speak of, the kind that they lack Theory of Mind enough to actually perceive. It always vexes me just how lacking in Theory of Mind the average neurotypical is when it comes to this topic, because you can present them with all the evidence you can find, directly, and they'll still deny it. They'll even then turn around later and say that they don't like some ethnicity because reasons, you'll point this out to them, as one does, and they'll come up with the most specious, nonsensical arguments to support it. This has been my ongoing experience with affiliative extraverts. In the UK, Nigel Farage is an expert sociopath who was fantastic at manipulating affiliative extraverts to be racist. He puts up this fucking awful ad (which I've used as the picture accompanying this post) that's an utter fallacy about immigration, which autistic people call him on. So what do the affiliative extraverts do? They go out and harass Polish people and shove dog shit through their letter boxes, they deface a Polish community centre with obscenities (in London, which is supposed to be the most progressive place in Britain, or so they say), and worse. Why do you hate Poliish people, affiliative extraverts? There'll be more specious, nonsensical arguments than you can shake a stick at, but once you bat all those down it ultimately results in "I don't know." I know why. Because Nigel Farage told you to. And you obeyed. It's that simple. Affiliative extraverts are that simple. So, here's the thing. When Nigel Farage put up that racist advert filled with so much BS it made my head spin? Every autistic person I know of called him on it. And not even one of the neurotypicals we knew of did. Why? This benefited the agentic extraverts and sociopaths, of course, by giving them even more power by removing invasive cultures which might challenge their power. They're afraid of sociopaths and agentic extraverts of other cultures coming in and taking over their herds. And the affiliative extraverts? "WE OBEY." Just like bloody daleks. I've never met an affiliative extravert that's able to think for themself. Please, prove me wrong. I'd love to see any evidence to the contrary because every day I see more evidence that supports my view of the neurotypical spectrum. I'm always trying to look for evidence which is contrary to that, something that might tell me I'm wrong, I'm almost desperate in doing this. I have to be careful though because I don't want to end up doing the Cult of Dark Matter thing but from the opposite end of wanting to prove myself wrong. At some point I just have to accept that this is how things are. I think I write these articles to spread this awareness and to give people a chance to challenge me, still. So, anyway, that's how the neurotypical spectrum works. Yes, affiliative extraverts really are sheeple. I'm sorry. We can beat around the bullshit bush all day, if you'd like. We can argue semantics, I can call you on manipulative nonsense, and we can play silly games. The truth is is that agentic extraverts and sociopaths would rather that affiliative extraverts weren't aware of how herd-like they are, how easily controlled, how simple it is to edit their behavioural patterns just by shifting their perspective of how their tribe behaves. If I'm wrong about affiliative extraverts? Explain the study about how people view the Apple logo with the same religious zeal as Christians view imagery of Christ. I want you to think about this. Don't just accept my views, look into it for yourself. If you agree, that's fine, but always agree because you couldn't defeat this perspective yourself. Those tested in that particular study were affiliative extraverts, as there are more of those than any other kind of person. They were looking for Apple loyalists, after all. If they'd done that test on any other kind of brain, they would've found that effect to be greatly reduced or non-existent. It's similar to Creationists, isn't it? Proper science discovers that dinosaurs have feathers. What happens next? Sociopaths undermine this by saying that science ruined dinosaurs. But wait, the kind of sociopath saying this is a Creationist! There's something going on, here. You see, Creationists don't believe dinosaurs actually existed. So what's happening? These religious sociopaths are using manipulation tactics to undermine their flock's faith in science, they'll do this any way they can with whatever cheap, base trickery is available to them. This is what happens. Affiliative extraverts are sheep who'll believe anything that agentic extraverts and sociopaths tell them, because that's how their spectrum works. You see, all minds on the neurotypical spectrum possess manipulative traits, it's just the further you move toward sociopathy and away from affiliative, the stronger those traits become. And all minds on the spectrum have a certain weakness to it. Yes, even the sociopaths are weaker against this kind of manipulation than other spectrums (such as autism). This is why we always see these tribes trying to manipulate one another, to undermine the others. And sociopaths, due to a lack of self awareness, will try to pull this on groups involved in other spectrums. The thing is? It won't work. We're obviously going to call them on it due to our immunity to these shenanigans. There's a reason why the autistic mind doesn't fall prey to marketing, quod erat demonstrandum. And this brings me to my point. I was reading this article about Williams syndrome and it amazed me just how much the author (who I quickly identified as an agentic extravert) tried to use Williams syndrome to demean autistic people. They also undermined Williams syndrome as well. Can we consider what they're saying?

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder versus the default state of neurotypicality.

Empathy is problematic if you have more than the default NT level of it.

Autism is the opposite of Williams syndrome as it doesn't experience much empathy.

Autistic people won't say "I love you." in excess.

Autistic people hate hugs and other kinds of physical contact.

Pushing the myth that oxytocin is Universally a 'love hormone.'

Pushing the harmful idea that autism needs to be 'cured.'

Empathy is seen as a disability in Japan.

The article praises the book for not being exploitative.

Let's tackle each of these individually.    Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder versus the default state of neurotypicality. I contest this. I say that it requires a greater degree of understanding so that those on this particular spectrum can better integrate into society but I contest the idea that a mind is disordered simply for functioning differently than the perceived neurotypical norm. I absolutely despise this idea, it leaves me feeling livid. Yes, they might require more help because they may be more vulnerable, especially with all of those manipulative NT sharks they'd have to deal with, but they aren't disordered. It's simply that their brain functions differently. This perspective that everything that isn't NT is disordered is nonsense. And it's toxic, harmful, and frankly evil nonsense. It's the kind of nonsense that allowed atrocities to be committed against the Jews by the Nazis, because the Germanic people were convinced (affiliative sheep that they were) to believe that Jews were inferior and responsible for many of their woes. This is no different. This is exactly the same sort of toxic thinking that allows atrocities to happen. So, no. Williams isn't disordered, it's just vulnerable because neurotypicals are so exploitative and those on the Williams spectrum simply don't have the tools to deal with those encounters. When someone becomes old, are they 'disordered' for being vulnerable?    Empathy is problematic if you have more than the default NT level of it. Really? Why? Yes, it can lead to more suffering because neurotypical spectrum sociopaths exploit this for their own gain, but why is it perceived as a negative to have more empathy? I don't like this. I think that empathy is necessary for us to learn to stop being horrible to one another. Empathy is the natural counter to exploitation.    Autism is the opposite of Williams syndrome as it doesn't experience much empathy. This is fascinating. A moment ago the author was saying that it's problematic to have too much empathy, now there's this negative tone to their article while talking about autism for not having enough of it. So, which is it? Is it bad to have too much, or too little? I think the idea here, of course, is that you need exactly the correct amount, the NT amount. Which frankly isn't very much at all as we know for a fact that both minds with both Williams and autism alike possess much, much more empathy than neurotypical minds. That isn't what the article writer is saying, though, I know. They're pulling an old autism myth out of the bag that autism has less empathy than the neurotypical mind does. This has been disproven time and time again, I'm sick of hearing this particular myth. I know from my interactions with neurotypicals that I have far more empathy than they could ever hope to. The anecdotal account, for example, of the NT a horrific act on television and putting their hand to their mouth and gasping, but then having forgotten about it fifteen minutes later versus how other minds (autistic, introverted, Williams, et cetera) will internalise it and be bothered by it for weeks to come. NTs would love for us to believe they're empathetic but even affiliative extraverts on the NT spectrum have a marked lack of empathy. The neurotypical spectrum just doesn't have a whole lot of empathy. Yes, affiliatives have a little bit more than agentics and sociopaths, but it's dwarfed by the sheer levels of empathy in autistic, introverted, and Williams minds. The neurotypical mind makes a pretence of empathy (hand over mouth), but doesn't really feel the experience like other minds do.    Autistic people won't say "I love you." in excess. This one is news to me. My partner tells me that I say this too much, that sometimes I say it so often that it makes them uncomfortable. It's just that due to autism being functionally introverted, I don't interact with a lot of people. The ones I do interact with, though, I will regularly tell that I love. Of course, the NT mind only recognises extraversion, everything else is an inferior state, so if the autistic person isn't telling everyone they love them, then according to the absolute binary perceptions of the NT mind, they never do it at all. Autistic people are prone to saying "I love you." in excess, but just not to a group of people. You see, Williams is like an autistic form of extraversion, versus the low empathy, lacking in self awareness, manipulative, and exploitative NT form of extraversion. Williams minds have more in common with the autistic mind due to how both types of mind experience an excess of empathy, whereas neurotypical minds don't experience much empathy at all. And it's funny because the more extraverted empathy of the Williams mind also clearly makes the article writer very uncomfortable.    Autistic people hate hugs and other kinds of physical contact. Um. Yes we do. I love hugs. I seek out hugs at every opportunity. The thing here, though, is that because we can get overloaded, there's a protocol to it. So we prefer it when people ask first before just lunging at us. And there's something about an NT hug that feels... wrong. I don't know how to explain it, it just doesn't feel real. I don't like it. It feels fake, like they're doing it out of a social need rather than an empathetic one, it's all fake with them. I'm left feeling deeply uncomfortable after an NT hug. It's just disturbing. One thing about autism (and I bet this is true of Williams, too) is that we have an empathy radar, of sorts. We know when NTs are faking something. We know when someone is hurt, or happy, and nothing can be hidden from us. This has made numerous people I've known very unhappy and uncomfortable as they can't hide anything from me. My senses will just hone in on anything that seems wrong and fixate on it. From reading boards like Wrong Planet (an autistic forum), I know I'm not alone in these experiences. So I don't like hugs from NTs. They feel excrutiatingly fake. I don't like how they leap at me without asking, first, only to just do this cold feeling, fake hug that I don't enjoy. With autistic people we ask first, then we hug, and it feels real. There's warmth there that an NT hug just can't compare to. This means, of course, that autistic people don't like hugs just because we're not into hugs from NTs. That's obviously what it means. Yes.    Pushing the myth that oxytocin is Universally a 'love hormone.' This one is dangerous. Now, Williams minds might have found a way to avoid the bad aspects of oxytocin, which is awesome. I'd like to take that and copy-paste it across all brains as that's a handy quality. I'm not being sarcastic, here, because looking at Williams syndrome I do believe that that might be the case. Their minds might have cracked how to use oxytocin in a good way, without the incredibly dangerous side effects. What dangerous side effects? Well, in NTs, it makes them even more tribal. Check out this study about how oxytocin can fuck you up. An NT on oxytocin would choose to save the life of one person of their own ethnicity, gender, and age over a group of people of different ethnicities, genders, and ages. In the NT brain, oxytocin dials the tribalism dial up to 11. This isn't the kind of thinking you want to see someone exhibit if they have to make a decision about the balance of life. Choosing one life over 20 lives, 10, or even five other lives is never the correct choice. So, in NT brains, oxytocin is very, very dangerous. It means that the NT would happily allow diversity to die if it meant that a smaller number of 'their own kind' were to survive. This isn't something that we want to see more of. This is something we want to see LESS of.    Pushing the harmful idea that autism needs to be 'cured.' Yes. Yes. Yes. Autism is a disease. It needs to be cured. Blah, blah, blah. Let's not actually ask autistic people what they want, or care what they think. Let's just accept our cures handed down to us by the Great, Glorious White Hope of the NT. I don't even know how to deal with this. What next, NT? Black skin is a disease and we should use CRISPR to cure that so that they can be as White as you are? Fucking hell. I don't even want to dwell on this one. Suffice it to say? It's bullshit. There are different kinds of brains, there is no Universally disordered or ordered brain. That's just ridiculous and they should know better, but they can't get away from their tribal-oriented thinking, and how it locks them into binary absolutes. NTs are just so lacking in Theory of Mind that they can't even realise just how tribal they are. Hey everyone, did you hear? If you're not NT, you're fucked up! You need to be cured! Also white. And straight. And anything else the NT values.    Empathy is seen as a disability in Japan. Are... Are you okay, Clare? Are you doing alright, there? Clare being the article author. I mean, that's a really, really fucked up thing to say. As someone who's taken in plenty of Japanese media, and is familiar with philosophies like Shinto and Bushido, I have to call this out. Bushido even goes so far as to say that it's important to be empathetic to the needs of your lord even if it comes at the expense of your own wellbeing. There are a number of cornerstones of Japanese culture which are built on empathy. Did Clare just take a look at a bunch of Japanese people, see some introverts who aren't constantly faking empathy, and then decide that they must have none? Oh, good job! That's some solid journalism, that is. It's hard to write at the moment as I'm stopping to facepalm every few seconds due to just how fucked up that is. It's typical, though, isn't it? Clare is obviously a Westerner, likely American. It's culturally apt in America for NTs to be very fake about their lack of empathy, to put it on even when they aren't feeling it. Obviously, that fakeness is the correct way to go, Japan's introversion means they have no empathy! No, dear. It just means that Japan doesn't fake empathy.    The article praises the book for not being exploitative. Funny that. Shame we can't say the same about the article, which is clearly using the book to push its own agenda. New Scientist should be ashamed. Another day, another round of NTs billiously spewing dialectic diarrheoa about autism. And anyone wonders why we suffer with depression. Really.

#autism #neurotypicals #exploitation #autism myths #williams syndrome

[draftingforrewby]

rewby well yeah what are you asking this all seems pretty basic

helicoidcyme idk it seemed reasonable to me but i havent spent anywhere near as long as you have thinkin abt it so i wanted to see if i was missing anything mostly

rewby idk it's like

helicoidcyme i guess theres some room for people who, like, will never have sex and people who, like, arent up for a romantic relationship without sex to want to discuss that with each other before they get too far into things, but that fits into the part where the post discusses individualized communication so like yeah

rewby yeah it's like a thing i try all the time to articulate but am constantly shouted down over by mogais so,,, meh

helicoidcyme what eeven is mogau mgoai* fuck it

rewby Marginalized Genders, Orientations, And Intersex, bc I guess intersex is just a thing that gets stuck on the end lmao, and basically it's the acronym ppl are using to "replace" lgbt+ as "more inclusive" aka "we want to include literally every marginalized gender and orientation ever" aka "a bad fucking idea"

helicoidcyme /me squint

rewby i wouldnt hate it as much if people haven't started trying to use it in real life to replace the actual acronym "lgbt"

helicoidcyme are /me hrm i guess intersex people arent inherently trans

rewby the basic root of the intersex issue as far as i, a perisex person, can tell

helicoidcyme though i imagine its likely given the mess that is modern society/medicine's reaction to them as infants

rewby is that each individual intersex person can identify as cis or trans depending on their condition and therefore including them as a whole in the lgbt+ acronym isn't particularly useful for their community there are, for example, a lot of intersex women who are afab and identify as cis who've written about this

helicoidcyme /me nods

helicoidcyme but like there are plenty of gays who arent trans either whoare still in the grouping just bc theyre gay so like

rewby so like that's why the intersex community as a whole hasn't advocated for their inclusion in the acronym and most people who include I in the acronym are, surprise surprise, perisex mogais

helicoidcyme while they dont necessarily fit just bc theyre trans i could see an argument for including them anyway

helicoidcyme it seems to me that they could reasonably fit, given the general unifying factor between gays and trans being oppression based on not behaving the way society Expects based on genitals? but like it doesnt seem necessary or anything so if they havent really asked to be included im cool with it just being a somewhat-parallel community yknow

rewby yeah but like as an intracommunity issue intersex voices who, for the most part, don't want the I in the acronym, are being ignored in favor of overwhelmingly white perisex voices

helicoidcyme right

rewby additionally the more I think abt it the more I agree with the analysis that the lgbt community is based around a partnership against shared oppression formed during and because of the AIDS crisis and that is really the defining factor in what groups form the community

helicoidcyme which is, obviously, all about feeling self-righteous about being More Progressive Than You hm

rewby prior to the AIDS crisis there was no significant partnership between gay men and lesbians

rewby (noting that trans/nb women and men were generally parts of the gay and lesbian communities, respectively)

helicoidcyme /me mutters thats bc men suck and lesbians have had enough of them wait, respectively?

rewby trans women prior to the real popularization of transgender identity and politics in the mainstream usually found homes in the gay male community and most often IDed publicly as drag queens

helicoidcyme ah

rewby similarly, trans men found homes and community with the lesbian community and most often IDed publicly as drag kings/butches

helicoidcyme guess that makes some sense but like... ill admit to being glad that thats not... my situation now

rewby within the first few years of the AIDS crisis, lesbians rapidly became the only social group willing to form partnerships with gay men and take care of them through the epidemic. survivors of the crisis recall that their lesbian acquaintances were the only ones they could count on to nurse dying men and act as in-home caretakers, for free

helicoidcyme /me nods

rewby doctors and nurses were often not willing to do these things due to homophobia and AIDS panic

rewby so that was really when a solid alliance formed between gay men and lesbians and when the communities began advocating as a cohesive whole rather than disparate factions

helicoidcyme but there was already a gays<->transes thing goin. where did that start?

rewby from the beginning! gender nonconformity and homosexuality have almost always been seen as linked/synonymous in the public eye therefore trans and gay people have pretty much always been forcibly lumped together and oppression that affects one group nearly always affects the other i.e. in the 60s, it was illegal in America to wear the clothing of your opposite assigned gender this was meant to target gay men and lesbians, but of course significantly affected trans people

helicoidcyme /me nods

rewby and like I mentioned, drag (of both kinds) has always been a subculture formed in gay and lesbian communities, but it also has always served as a safe haven for trans folx

helicoidcyme i dont understand? drag like outside of trans people

rewby man this is a good conversation do you think we could post it

helicoidcyme i guess as a broad concept yeah sure gender isnt real esp gendered _clothes_ so ya just wear whatever but in the real world uh sure if you want yeah but in the real world with individua people who _have_ grown up with gendered clothes, where does drag come from if not trans people

rewby idk its just Good and i would like to share but if not it's cool