I do know who needs to hear this, but: Talking articulately about your problems on Twitter is not being a burden to others. It is the opposite of that. It is throwing a lifeline to people who have similar problems but are not yet able or willing to articulate them.
Yes if everyone else had happy and perfect lives and you were just going into those happy and perfect lives unwelcomed and shouting about how miserable you are, that would be a downer. THIS IS NOT WHAT IS HAPPENING.
People follow you on Twitter because they're interested in what you have to say. That means what you are talking is resonating with them. They share some of your problems.
When you are being "whiny" and "complaining nonconstructively" or whatever, you are helping.
There are certainly nonconstructive ways to complain, but alt twitter is very much an opt-in place that is relatively free of social obligations. If people find your complaints unhelpful or unpleasant they can just unfollow you! It's not a big deal!
Anyway I'm sorry to subtweet the relevant parties quite so blatantly, I love you all and think your accounts are great. ❤️
Also yes of course it feels like everything you're saying is "obvious". That's because the things you are most equipped to explain usefully to others are the things that are obvious to you and not to them. It's literally curse of knowledge plus depression.
I am aware that the virtual equivalent of grabbing someone by the shoulders, shaking them, and shouting "YOU HAVE WORTH DAMMIT STOP SAYING YOU DON'T" is not the most delicate and considered of mental health interventions but I have *no* spoons left for subtlety this week.
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People always lie about appropriate social norms because they omit the step where you're supposed to read their mind and based on the information revealed to you there do the thing that they wanted.
This isn't even exaggeration. The social norm really is that you're supposed to read people's minds, because neurotypicals are under the mistaken impression that they can do that, and as a result are under the mistaken impression that what they want is obvious.
Ought doesn't imply can, it just implies that other people believe you can.
For reasons I might be less likely to want to tweet controversial things right now and so might stick to sensible safe topics for a while.
...
No, fuck that, lets do a thread about sexuality hacking.
By "sexuality hacking" I mean anything you do to yourself to try and change your sexual interests. I'm almost exclusively interested in *broadening* sexual interests - I don't think narrowing them is desirable, and I suspect if it's possible then it's intrinsically traumatic.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Nobody under any circumstances has any obligation to change their sexuality. I do not believe you can coerce people into doing this, and you shouldn't try because it's horribly unethical. This is for self-directed consensual use.
91. Which fictional characters would you love to be if ethics permitted you? What needs are you failing to express as a result of holding on to those ethical constraints?
92. What do people tell you about yourself that you refuse to believe? What does not believing that protect you from?
93. What things in your life do you not feel allowed to complain about?
In the context I saw this, it was being painted as a gendered difference. I think it is, but not for the reasons people are treating it as.
The actual reason is that we've put the boundaries of "thinking" in the wrong place.
We tend to only consider it "thinking" if you're doing it on your own off in your own head, but almost everything you do involves thinking, and many other modes of thinking succeed even by the standards you'd want to judge "real thinking" by, they just seem less legitimate.
Idle thought: We were talking about how Less Wrong had a lot (though a minority) of people from less savoury parts of the internet, but that's... actually very good? Less Wrong is actually a great community of last resort because it does genuinely make its members better.
The core LW worldview is not one I would particularly endorse, but honestly most people don't end up staying there. A lot of people seem to have become much healthier and more complete human beings as a result of joining LW, taking on board its worldview, and building on it.
And actually that is exactly the sort of site we want more of on the internet.