You know, the reason a lot of us struggle to “go back to normal” as we’re getting to a point of more safety with covid is not “virtue signaling” or being addicted to the pandemic lifestyle, it’s because it’s traumatizing to reconcile that so many ppl didn’t care about our lives.
It’s not a question of suddenly not believing in science anymore or not wanting our lives back, it’s a question of the idea that we should just “go back to normal” as if everything we’ve been through, everything we sacrificed doesn’t matter and has no resolution.
We’ve lost friends and family to the virus. We’ve lost friends and family to the cruel conspiracy theories. We’ve watched horrible and dehumanizing things happen and learned that our neighbors would rather let us, our friends and family die than to wear a mask.
You don’t just walk out of that unscathed and go back to like it was before. There is no going back to before to me. Before I wasn’t aware how many people around me would literally let me die than to take care of each other in public spaces.
Before I didn’t know people could completely ignore regulations that can cost people their lives and face no consequences and STILL end up safe due to the diligence and sacrifice of others. There is no resolution in that. There is no “back to normal” because I learned all this.
It has nothing to do with virtue signaling and everything to do with trying to reconcile huge collective trauma that nobody is offering any resolution for. No resolution for the loss of people, relationships and time. No acknowledgement of the trauma.
Don’t let people gaslight you into being sensitive for having a hard time to process it all and for not wanting to go back to how it was before because things ARE NOT like they were before. They are different now and I myself need time to work out what that means for me.
It has nothing to do with virtue signaling and people who say that are assholes who once more refuse to acknowledge the many complex feelings that a historical event like this has caused for many many people. It’s natural to want to process and change things for “after”.
Whether that’s changing your social circles, changing some of your behaviors, still wearing masks,... You process and reconcile however you need to. And it’s perfectly natural to be angry that our leaders are not offering any guidance or help with resolution.
It’s okay to process in whatever way you need to and take it at your own pace. Prolonged isolation from what you love, the loss, the living in worry and even fear - it takes time. Take however long you need and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
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This happens to everyone, including all the people you feel like have "made it" in this and other industries.
Last year I bombed an interview for a director-level position that I would've really liked, but had some insecurities about. It showed and I didn't get it. *shrug*
I wasn't sure if I was ready for it myself, I was overwhelmed by the possibility because I didn't expect an offer like that, I was unsure how I would approach certain leadership challenges and did not meet expectations for a director in a male-dominated field. All fair.
I felt guilty about it for months, was afraid that I missed my only opportunity for a director position since women don't exactly get these handed to them all the time and I felt like "I let down my gender" which is a thing a lot of us deal with.
But this is normal. It happens.
I'm super proud of BBI for this code of conduct that includes all of our channels - yes, also social media! Shaping our communities requires strength and clarity and I think this is a great approach. I love that it includes things for what we WANT ppl to do.
I'm personally a HUGE fan of including things we want people to DO in our communities, encouraging behaviour we want to see. A list of things NOT to do is not very effective.
"Don't be a jerk" is not a good directive. Pointing out behaviour to aim for and to reward is great.
I LOVE that it includes a line to expect to apologize if people were hurt - a really great thing to just encourage in people in any of our communities. Humility, care for one another, self-assessment - all great things to include in your community code of conduct.
So I’ve been thinking about EA putting a patent on an intricate dynamic difficulty system that in the patent refers to its use to be for player retention and while I don’t claim to know the inner workings of EA and its motivations, I wanted to take a stab at dissecting it: Thread
So from what I understand, the system in question has a way of analyzing player behavior from previous games in relation to a player’s predicted time spent in one play session and it uses that data to adjust difficulty dynamically.
I could be wrong in how it is used in the patent, but usually when we refer to player retention we use it to discuss overall retention of a player playing the game in recurring sessions and not within one play session. Retention data *usually* means if people come back to play.
You’d think after all these years and all the harassment I’d know better and actually trying to explain progressive concepts to bad actors, even if they follow you, will not work and you will be punished immediately with dozens of people harassing you.
Maybe one day I’ll learn.
This happens literally no matter what. Even if the person you talked to sees your point.
They WILL come after you, ESPECIALLY if you’re a woman.
My personal instinct is to not give up on people and have conversations about missteps but Twitter makes it literally impossible.
My only advice these days is this one: block literally every single bad actor even if they follow you because if you don’t and if you try to explain and discuss, you’ll potentially end up raining harassment on yourself and other people.
Hi. This is a weird tangent but I’m nervous about this so you’re coming on the journey with me of fighting my spider mite plant infestation by.. releasing... more mites into my plants. 😬
I bought a plant from Facebook marketplace from a local and now almost all my plants have spider mites and it was a huge mistake so here we are.
Mites that eat other mites are my only hope.
It ... feels very counterintuitive, not gonna lie.
Also... it’s somewhat cruel? Once all the spider mites are gone, these mites here will die because they won’t have food.
But it is for the greater good I guess otherwise I will suffocate in spider mites. 🙃