WRETCHEDSORCERESS

WRETCHEDSORCERESS wrote

Reply to Anyone ever been rightfully criticized for something, but you just weren't ready to hear it yet? by cowloom

I've definitely been in positions like that. When I was young I clung to weird conservative beliefs/catholicism in the hope it'd ingratiate me to my extremely far right family despite my being queer (I was very worried I'd be found out and disowned or something). It was something I just needed time on really. Seeing the grotesque nature of it all is in and of itself extremely convincing. Mostly it was an emotional change rather than anything super logical. Just a point when you see reactionaries as so awful you'd rather be on your own. For me this naturally happened by being a queer woman.

I think in most of these cases it's really a community based thing, I think. There's a feeling of psychological safety entailed by "membership" in reactionary groups/politics as there is any other community. But I agree wholeheartedly with the approach of being patient, giving gentle nudges, etc. Altering the concentration gradient enough that they naturally just slip out of solution.

I've been talking with my mom for years being gentle and compassionate and only pushing where it "feels" right. The rest of my family are traditionalist catholics, Q conspiracists, and at best a neocon or two. That's most of her social circle at this point. So for me a lot of it has both been gently bringing up counterarguments or validating her feelings but not her rationale. Over time she's started bringing a lot of science related questions to me to get a perspective that isn't incredibly far right. I've been able to debunk conspiracies while being like "ok yeah but the material conditions that cause these beliefs are very real; here's alternate ways to think about them" and such.

I think a big thing too has been pushing her to engage in more social groups. Getting her back into her video gaming groups and going outside to talk with friends, joining local groups and stuff. Alternate communities and support networks disentangled from reaction.

She told me she just couldn't vote for Trump in the last USAmerican election because of me. It's a small thing but to pull someone back from wholehearted commitment to reaction over time is nice. She was talking to me yesterday about how she doesn't think socialism could work in the USA specifically but 'she doesn't know enough about it.'" lol.

There's plenty she, and any reactionary say that's just infuriating. I need to vent to my friends about it sometimes. But I try to keep my frustrations to those sorts of environments. I think positive individual experiences tend to soften people's hearts, but I don't blame anyone for being unable to tolerate it. I certainly don't go trying to convince my tradcath relatives of anything. I'm not convincing my "vatican II was too woke" grandfather of anything.

There's a trap in this approach, of course. Most of the time you're going to get labelled as an exception. "One of the good ones." Not like those other feminists/commies/queers. This is one of the most frustrating things to hear. But in my experience it still helps pull them back from the most virulent stages of reactionary radicalization. I dunno. Maybe I am being too optimistic and saccharine about it.

But I always just kinda go back to how we are all alienated and suffering under this system. People say and do awful shit, but so often it's because they can't see the faces they're shooting at. Most of us have similar material interests, and are caused similar angsts by them. Speaking to those angsts is often quite doable, and I think it's a good place to meet those reactionaries that can yet be convinced. Just planting seeds of "society is evil and it sucks. maybe its for reasons that aren't WOMEN." can help. Or maybe not. It's all gooey and vague.

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WRETCHEDSORCERESS OP wrote

Reply to comment by rain in Microbe Monday: Macroscopic Sulfur Pearls by WRETCHEDSORCERESS

For sure! Biology is wonderful in that it will counter any assumption we make about it. Every rule, somewhere, is broken.

For the reverse kreb cycle, I typoed and said energy when I meant carbon! While we use the krebs cycle to generate units of energy currency, it used the reverse to make carbon from CO². It is a similar mechanism to how photosynthetic organisms use ambient carbon dioxide to make all of their biomass, but it is effectively running breathing in reverse to make its body.

It extracts energy from sulfides and nitrate, which is still really cool to me because these are inorganic materials. We think that all life is dependent on the sun/photosynthesis but you get chemoautotrophic exceptions like this and I love them.

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