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The School Survival Forums are permanently retired. If you need help with quitting school, unsupportive parents or anything else, there is a list of resources on the Help Page.

If you want to write about your experiences in school, you can write on our blog.

To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.

I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.

I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.

I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.

I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.

Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.

Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.

-SoulRiser

The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.

Please do not make a mirror copy of the forums in their current state - things will still change, and some people have requested to be able to edit or delete some of their personal info.


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Steve
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no Offline
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Post: #1
Steve

Edit: Much post. Very delete.

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
(This post was last modified: 01-14-2014 06:50 AM by no.)
01-09-2014 08:11 AM
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Ky Offline
Shadow

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Post: #2
Steve

I don't know. If he bothers you, ignore him. If not, then try making up for it and being nice.

Public Service Announcement: First world problems are still problems.
01-09-2014 08:15 AM
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no Offline
True Scotsman

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Post: #3
RE: Steve

(01-09-2014 08:15 AM)DoA Wrote:  I don't know. If he bothers you, ignore him. If not, then try making up for it and being nice.

Ya... how? I've tried "apologize then continue" but I think his patience with me is wearing thin.

One of the things he says a lot is that he wants people to apply his ideas. These tend to consist of:
1. Change society (difficult to do singlehandedly)
2. Talk about feelings and needs (which I seem to be unable to remember to do. That, and I always end up using the same words over and over for wildly different things because of the general failings of English, and it feels like I'm not communicating at all.)

Oops, I said "feels like." Guess I'm emotionally illiterate!

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
01-09-2014 08:22 AM
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Night Offline
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Post: #4
RE: Steve

I don't know how posting his writing on here is going to help anything. Unless he gave you permission to...

It feels like this whole thread is only going to do more harm than good if he sees it..

I'm a girl ffffeck
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01-09-2014 08:36 AM
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Ky Offline
Shadow

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Post: #5
Steve

Indeed.

PF, I've noticed that you're very...blunt. And this is coming from someone who others deem blunt. It seems to me you are indeed emotionally illiterate, which may not be a bad thing. Not everyone can talk freely about their feelings; I sure as hell couldn't for most of my life.

So experiment. Study the meaning of pathos. See what happens when you attempt to communicate with your audience on an emotional level, just for practice. You never know what the results might be.

Public Service Announcement: First world problems are still problems.
01-09-2014 10:35 AM
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SoulRiser Offline
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Post: #6
Steve

It sounds like he does want to continue emailing you, but it's difficult emotionally sometimes. He's a very sensitive person, so you kinda have to communicate with him the way he wants to, or at least try to as well as you can. I'm not very good at it either, lol.

I also tend to get a bit annoyed if someone sends me a link and asks what I think without telling me anything about what they think first. Especially if it's a really long read. I just like to know why I'm being sent something before I take a look at it.

He's also dealing with a lot of family stuff right now, so he's probably more sensitive than usual as well.

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01-09-2014 11:49 AM
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xcriteria Offline
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Post: #7
RE: Steve

I haven't talked to Steve in a while, either. I hope he's doing okay.

(01-09-2014 08:36 AM)Night Wrote:  I don't know how posting his writing on here is going to help anything. Unless he gave you permission to...

It feels like this whole thread is only going to do more harm than good if he sees it..

Maybe that's something to ask his preferences about. I think planetfall's intentions are legitimate, and this isn't a hostile discussion. Steve himself has opened threads about others, for example, that one about potato and ppl in pain. (Potato didn't like that much, but I think Steve was raising an important point, about people being harsh and insensitive.)

There and elsewhere, I think Steve has raised some important questions to think about. How we interact, what kind of value we're providing, how people interpret and react to each other. Very often, these things are never discussed.

Personally, I think having conversations about interactions, when done productively, is one of the steps that are required to actually transform society or help people to be more conscious of themselves and others.

Hidden stuff:

That brings up a point, though... the fact that "self-conscious" is often seen as a bad thing, as if being conscious of the self has to be associated with negative feelings. Why? Why can't people be conscious of themselves and others, in primarily positive ways?

(01-09-2014 11:49 AM)SoulRiser Wrote:  It sounds like he does want to continue emailing you, but it's difficult emotionally sometimes. He's a very sensitive person, so you kinda have to communicate with him the way he wants to, or at least try to as well as you can. I'm not very good at it either, lol.

That's important to keep in mind. I think one point there is, everyone has points of sensitivity. It can help a lot to understand people's intentions, and as the book Crucial Conversations discusses, reflect on what kind of stories we're telling ourselves as we interpret and re-interpret things.

(I'm curious what Steve and the rest of you would think of Crucial Conversations... I've been listening to it in audiobook format, and it's got a lot of coverage of how to think about, and get better at, handling high-stakes and emotionally-charged conversations, leading to an increase in the "shared pool of meaning" rather than frustration and hurt feelings.)

It's also worth noting that everyone has things that energize or drain them, frustrate or inspire them. Learning about what these are in ourselves and each other can go a long way.

And, we probably all deal with info-overload and time constraints and response conflict at times.

I suppose it's all part of the getting-to-know-people process, in a world where cultural norms are whatever people want to make them... and where many of us are looking for better ways to interact, than "factory-model" conversations and relationships.

Any thoughts on that?

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01-09-2014 01:28 PM
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Gwedin Offline
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Post: #8
Steve

Quote:i believe my life has a whole lot of value. my words. my ideas. my knowledge etc. to put a dollar figure on it as i am used to doing or was taught to do... i would say my time is worth over one million dollars per minute. i came up with that because i believe if someone were to listen to me, say the entire world, for 60 minutes, what they would learn would be easily worth 60 million dollars - if they were open to learning it etc.

i could easily save many times that amount in wars, damage to property, law suits, legal battles, putting people in jail etc.

Did this come off as really narcissistic to anyone else?

From reading that thread about Potato that X. linked us to, I don't like him so I can't really give unbiased advice here. Not that my advice would have been any good if it was unbiased.
(This post was last modified: 01-09-2014 02:06 PM by Gwedin.)
01-09-2014 02:05 PM
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no Offline
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Post: #9
RE: Steve

Thank you all.
I cannot write a longer response right now...

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
01-09-2014 09:26 PM
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no Offline
True Scotsman

Posts: 1,238
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Post: #10
RE: Steve

Aaand it disappears. Should have known better by now...

Hello, traveler.

This is an ancient account I have not used in a long time. My views have changed much in the intervening months and years.

Nonetheless, I refuse to clean it up. Pretending that I've held my current views since the beginning of time is what we in the industry call a lie. Asking people to do so contributes to moralistic self-loathing. "See, those people have nothing damning! I do! I'm truly vile!"

Because you can never be a good person with a single blemish on the moral record, I thought that simply entertaining some thoughts made me irredeemable. Though I don't care for his writing style, William Faulkner presents a good counterexample. He went from being a typical Southern racist to supporting the civil rights movement. These days we'd yell at him for that, probably.

People are allowed to change their views.

Nevertheless, this period of my life has informed some of how I am today. In good ways and bad ways. To purge it would be to do a disservice to history. Perhaps it will not make anyone sympathetic, but it may help someone understand.

If, after reading all this, you still decide to use the post above as evidence that I am evil today, ask yourself if you have never disagreed with the moral code you now follow. In all likelihood you did, at some point. If some questions are verboten, and the answer is "how dare you ask that," don't expect your ideological opponents to ever change their minds.
01-14-2014 06:52 AM
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Potato Offline
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Post: #11
Steve

i was off this site for a few months. what's this discussion about Steve?

"I never said half the shit people say i did." -Albert Einstein

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail, there is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."-Stephen Hawking

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
01-24-2014 04:55 PM
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