• HousePanther
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    102 years ago

    I am often thought of as an asshole because I am not much of a smiler and much of my politeness is perfunctory. I am somewhat reclusive and a loner by nature. I find my time at work having to mask exhausting and overstimulating. That much said, once people get to know me they generally discover that I am passionate and care deeply for people who are suffering or experience discrimination and will fight for them.

  • @[email protected]
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    1222 years ago

    “I’m just asking questions.” Could be a child, could be a moon-landing conspiracy person.

    • @[email protected]
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      572 years ago

      Could be someone who’s genuinely trying to understand someone’s viewpoint, but it reveals inconsistencies in the other person’s logic, so they get irritated.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Ever since getting into arguments with strangers online stopped being fun for me, I try to be extremely polite to people when I’m asking a probably confrontational question.

        On the internet, a good amount of time people asking questions in comments sections are often just trying to show others how much they know about something in the most passive aggressively way possible, so it better to always be extra clear that you’re trying to engage on a healthy discussion.

        • maegul (he/they)
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          102 years ago

          Politeness online can go a very long way. Once you realise this, it honestly starts to become a bit cringe how many people are stomping around online being rude and just generally, IMO/IME, stressing everyone else out and bringing down the vibes of the place.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      I think the big deciding factor is how they’re approaching the questions and what the questions are. Like, if someone is “just asking questions” where the questions just so happen to be a common bad faith talking point, yeah, I’m gonna assume they’re also acting in bad faith.

      Eg, leading questions are a particularly common example here. The amount of lean towards their already-decided viewpoint can vary. They might word their question to be convinced away from their viewpoint as the default (“why isn’t the moon landing fake?”), or maybe they’ll provide a statement that obviously gives more weight to their side (“the government is so untrustworthy, so how can we trust the moon landing was real?”).

      But often, they even do word the questions in a perfectly valid way, because they’re not trying to get an answer. They’re not gonna be convinced and they’re trying to get an answer. What they want to do is make someone else mistake being stumped for “this person might be right”. Eg, if someone asks you “is the moon landing real?” and you don’t actually know how to prove that it’s real, that can make you think that perhaps it wasn’t real. After all, you can’t explain how it is. But that’s a fallacy. You not being able to explain it has nothing to do with whether or not it’s real. Asking questions is cheap and easy. It takes no time investment compared to answering or understanding an answer. That makes it effective for planting seeds of doubt. And of course, people should think critically, but many folks aren’t going to or aren’t don’t have the time. So they’ll retain this low effort seed of doubt and that’s it.

      Plus of course, searching for these questions, especially leading ones, can get you to fall into conspiracy theory or alt right echo chambers, which will have the leading question included in multiple times and technically is a better match from a pure SEO point of view. Search engines do try and train themselves against the common leading questions, but they often have to do that explicitly. This is actually an area where search engines like DuckDuckGo do worse at. You’re more likely to have a leading question in the top results because, again, it really is the most accurate match for that question. Should search engines direct you to the correct results or should they direct you to the results that are most accurate for what you searched for? Nobody really agrees and it’ll be criticized either way (personally, I think that correctness is far more important because otherwise the search engines propagates misinformation).

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        I usually find the best argument against “is the moon landing fake” or equivalent stuff to be the fact that the Soviet Union stated it was real, when they would have benefited a lot more from denying it and/or proving it to be fake. When your enemy supports your argument then it’s more probable that it’s true.

    • pickelsurprise
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      202 years ago

      Eh, if it’s coming from an adult who should know better, I wouldn’t say it’s being misinterpreted as a sign of being an asshole.

      • Chaotic Entropy
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        2 years ago

        E.g. Tucker Carlson is just asking questions so that he can supply his own answers to them, that he doesn’t want to suffer the obvious consequences for stating.

  • @[email protected]
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    222 years ago

    Not agreeing to false logic (say, out of pressure to be polite or non-confrontational), especially when the next step would be doing something based on that logic. People sincerely don’t understand why deceiving you once like this won’t work another time and think it makes you an asshole.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      Agreed, and along the same lines, pointing out bad logic or factual errors used to support a point you actually agree with.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      In Spain it’s a way of life. If I’m 10 minutes late for something I just call it Spanish On Time.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        My brother runs on what he calls gpt. Gay Time essentially. I’m not gay but sometimes I run on gpt top.

          • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
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            22 years ago

            No, almost all of us are trying to be on time. But that’s balanced by other concerns, like making sure we leave the house prepared, and taking public transit, and the needs of the people we’re leaving as well as the people we’re going to. There isn’t always an “earlier” we can leave by, and not everyone is in charge of their own schedule.

            • Chaotic Entropy
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              42 years ago

              None of what you’re describing is “not trying to be on time”.

              You’re describing an “all” situation using very specific events. You’re also describing a poorly planned arrangement if the time you’re expected to arrive at something is not realistic for you to be there. That’s different to someone not trying to be on time to something that they otherwise could be and aren’t.

        • 𝓢𝓮𝓮𝓙𝓪𝔂𝓔𝓶𝓶
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          2 years ago

          I’m sure someone does but sure. But there’s a difference between someone who’s not trying to be late and someone who actually tries not to be late.

          Someone who’s habitually late can’t be bothered to even try to respect your time. To me that’s a bit assholish.

          • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠
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            22 years ago

            There’s a skill component, too. A lot of ya are trying not to be late, trying to be early, even, but just are really bad at it.

        • @[email protected]
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          162 years ago

          But if you’re constantly late it means that you don’t care about wasting other people’s time… Kinda assholeish

            • AggressivelyPassive
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              52 years ago

              You don’t have to find apologies for everything. Blaming everything on “daemons” is just externalizing a problem so you don’t have to deal with it.

            • No one is perfect, nor should try to be. Asking someone to have enough consideration for others to not show up late to everything isn’t asking for perfection.

              We have zero idea what someone else is going through.

              You’re right. That applies to you as well. Everyone has to put effort into showing up and most people have obstacles to deal with.

              Sorry but your struggles aren’t more important than anyone else’s. Not less, but also not more. You’re not a martyr for showing up. If you struggle with physical or mental issues, I’m sorry, I hope you’re getting help and have a good support system.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              There is a straightforward, but not always simple for everyone, solution.

              Communication.

              If you’re always going to be late then either communicate a realistic time frame (eg, could be there between 1 and 3pm depending on how difficult the kids/traffic/knee pain etc is today)

              You may not intend to but if you’re constantly late then you are disrespecting the other parties time and that’s not ok. Let them know what’s going on, let them make other choices, don’t tie them to a commitment you agreed to but can’t keep. Communication is key.

              You’re allowed to be late, just set proper expectations and give people their time back.

              • Chaotic Entropy
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                2 years ago

                My partner used to be very frustrating like that. She’d rock up 30-60 minutes late to do something and then always have reasons or excuses why, some better than others. All it takes is for you have the common courtesy to tell me, rather than leave me to get increasingly irritated over the course of an hour when I can basically do nothing. Thankfully, things improved a lot after some particularly crummy instances.

        • Boop da toot
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          122 years ago

          Well, youd be surprised… I definitely know people that leave the house past the time they were supposed to be somewhere with a nonchalant attitude “theyll wait, its nbd”

      • @[email protected]
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        112 years ago

        I have a friend that’s always late, like literally always. I tried to put myself in his shoes because he’s got 2 small kids and that should be extremely exhausting, but I don’t think he even tries anymore.

        • The Cuuuuube
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          142 years ago

          I’m perpetually late. Trying to arrive on time to things I don’t occupies so much of my head. I try to build in buffer time for emergencies. And every single time I’m still late. I don’t even have two kids. If your friend is anything like me, arriving late fills him with guilt every single time, and the two kids are factors of chaos in planning that simply cannot ever be fully accounted for

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            Reframe the way you think. Stop trying to arrive on time, and just commit to arriving early. I’ve easily arrived an hour early to appointments and just lounged around on reddit or read a book. I’d rather waste an hour of my time, than 15 minutes of a friend’s (if you have an appointment with a group, multiply time you are late by # of people).

            This is what we mean when we say people who are constantly late don’t care about wasting other people’s time. Even if they don’t intend it, they are still choosing to prioritise themselves over others.

            • Mossy Feathers (She/Her)
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              32 years ago

              I’m ADHD, I literally have to start preparing to leave an hour and half before I need to go in order to be on time to somewhere 15min away, and I’m still sometimes 10-15min late. Why? I have no sense of time, and I have been told that this is not something that I can fix. When I get focused on something, I no longer experience the passage of time. If I’m not focused on something, I can’t get anything done.

              I can’t control this.

              I’ve been told I shouldn’t feel bad about it because I can’t help it.

              I feel horrible for it anyway.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                Would aggressive alarms be of any help to make sure you can get unfocused from the thing you’re focused on and moving to the “getting to the right place” part? I’ve “forgotten the time” when it’s just me setting a time for me to do something, but when I need to be somewhere for/with others I make sure to set my alarms earlier and more of them to keep myself from having “just enough time”. And I have to make sure I actually respect the alarms, I’ve made the error of thinking “I have 5 more minutes before I need to leave” so I just start leaving when the alarm goes off now.

                I don’t know your exact situation, so this may not be of any help, but it may help someone, somewhere.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Running for or holding an elected office. Yes, there are plenty of of scumbags in politics, but there are people who run for good reasons.

  • TacoButtPlug
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    2 years ago

    Being female …

    edit: ahh I can see the misogyny came over to lemmy from reddit. that sucks.

  • RoundSparrow
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    2 years ago

    I turn the question around… people who are clearly liars, deceivers… politicians and businessmen that people line up to vote for with their money or public votes. You really wonder what people think an “asshole” is when you see the kind of politicians that get massive support in a population - to a point people have their photograph on the wall of their workplace or home, put stickers on their cars, etc. to support people that are clearly monstrous. A lot of people do not seem to like to study the crowds of Europe 1930’s terrible leaders and just how many lined up to cheer on such persons.

    The scientists a person believes also is a huge indicator of who they consider to be an ‘asshole’. Just passively listening to people who support denial of climate change, denial of microscopic germs and virus, etc. The enthusiasm that followers to non-factual science seem to be very high, and they draw crowds in ways that fact-based science does not seem to do.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      When you make up fake science out of whole cloth, it’s easy to make up something to that accords with people’s biases. Actual truth is simply less likely to fall into that category, and more likely to be uncomfortably inconvenient or terrifying. There’s nothing fun about global warming, deadly pandemics, nor microplastic pollution.

      Fake news never makes demands on its target audience. Sometimes it says “you are the victim”, or “those people are the problem”, or at the very least, “this is fine.” But it never says “if we don’t get our shit together we and our children face a dismal future.” Instead it always appeals to the greedy and the lazy amongst us.

      • RoundSparrow
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        32 years ago

        Fake news never makes demands on its target audience.

        consumerism, purchasing the sponsor products, donating to the clergy…

          • RoundSparrow
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            12 years ago

            I do not think more than 0.5% of humanity demonstrates self-awareness or an ability to openly discuss media-consumption bias.

            I think people fall in love with dead persons so easily that they will sell out all of living/alive humanity for a storybook.


            “Finnegans Wake is the greatest guidebook to media study ever fashioned by man.” - Marshall McLuhan, Newsweek Magazine, page 56, February 28, 1966.

            I have never done LSD or any other illegal drugs, but I have read FInnegans Wake: www.LazyWake.com

  • themeatbridge
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    1072 years ago

    Parking in a handicapped parking spot and having no visible disability.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        In general if you’re parking across 2+ parking spots you’re an asshole, no matter if the parking spots are disabled or not. There are exceptions, but one would have to be considerate in how one parks for those to be legitimate (IMHO).

    • @[email protected]
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      132 years ago

      It’s bizarre to me how many people assume that disabilities must be visible. And not just visible, but that it has to be glaringly visible.

      You’d think that it’d be well known that visibilities might not be obvious, but nope.

      • themeatbridge
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        102 years ago

        I have an invisible, part-time disability. I used to have a wheelchair and a handicapped hang tag, but I got rid of the tag because it wasn’t worth getting hassled everywhere I parked. Thankfully, the medication is helping and I haven’t needed the wheelchair in a very long time, but that doesn’t mean I won’t need it tomorrow.

        It’s like people want any excuse to be a righteous jackass.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      Being vague and expecting everyone to know what you mean with a particular acronym. HFAYQT? 🤷‍♂️

    • @[email protected]
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      232 years ago

      Reminds of a post a few days ago, that described how people think you’re condescending and sit on a high horse, just because you use some fancy words here and there.

      Meanwhile I’m just trying to describe something with as much detail as possible, because it’s important to convey exactly what I mean.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        I find treading the line between people thinking I’m talking down to them vs them thinking I’m pretentiously trying to seem smarter than them exhausting. It’s a stupid game where I try really hard not to unintentiont piss people off and they get offended and resentful anyway because I dared to try to communicate with them but failed to perfectly thread the needle of how to speak to them on a level they are comfortable with.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          I’m at a point where I just don’t care anymore. If someone can’t appreciate that my intention is to improve their understanding of the matter, then they can suck my nuts, and fuck off.

          • @[email protected]
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            Sadly I find that the people who I most often come into conflict about this with are the ones who have unknowingly curated their social world to only people with very similar brains to themselves by being an intolerable jerk to those who don’t (I suspect their discomfort with someone being “smarter” than them stems from projecting their own feelings and behaviour towards those “dumber” than them) but due to external circumstances of life we are forced to try our best to get along. The fact that they make that unecesarily difficult doesn’t change that I still need to do my best to do so. Meanwhile, anyone I don’t need to get along with who acts that way tends to very quickly pick up on the message to suck my nuts and fuck off. For those who I must get along with I try very hard not to try to clarify things for them unless it seems either quite important that they have a better understanding or that it would be very easy and non-comtraversial to do so. I still usually try to give them plenty of time to figure it out themselves, then try to give them the least amount of prompting possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

            Meanwhile I’ll still happily ask for their help if there’s something that exceeds my capabilities but not theirs. It’s just a shame that intelligence (whatever that really means) is somehow seen as more important an indicator of someone’s worth than most other random traits like height, coordination etc.

            As a profoundly clumsy person I’ve never felt I was being personally insulted by someone else being dexterous for example.

    • @[email protected]
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      142 years ago

      I’m not a bigot, but in my opinion the sliding scale between jam and marmalade is so fine that it’s not worth distinguishing between them, it should be a spectrum of preserves.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Worst is stating an opinion to a group of people that all disagree. It doesn’t matter whether you have good arguments or not, what matters most is whether they respect you.

      • TheHalc
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        2 years ago

        Absolutely.

        “It’s just my opinion” isn’t a valid defence when you should have kept that opinion to yourself.

        “Your baby is ugly” might even be true, but it’s not something you actually say to people.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          “Your baby is ugly” might even be true, but it’s not something you actually say to people.

          Hate to say it, but my brother’s child was an ugly newborn. She’s fine now, years later, but that face wasn’t pretty on day one. I lied. I’d do it again.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            Shit. My youngest was so ugly I pull up pictures just to show off the level of ugliness that he had obtained. But after his first birthday he decided to take after his mother in the looks department instead.

            Edit: but I definitely saw him through daddy goggles at the time and I’m glad no one said I had an ugly baby.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      In particular, women are more likely to be viewed as “bitchy”, “bossy”, etc for doing the exact same thing that a man could do without being considered as such.

      So it’s not just women speaking up, but also that there’s a gender imbalance in how that speaking up can be viewed.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        That can go either direction though. Sometimes the women are being unfairly judged for reasonable behaviour a man wouldn’t be challenged for. Sometimes the women are being judged for unreasonable behaviour that a man would be unfairly unchallenged for.