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August 2001 - June 2017
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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
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you should never shut out advice just because you don't like the person without considering the content of the advice, because content is what's important, and ad hominems are useless. there was a peter thiel video where he said one of the helpful things about having a partner in business is to provide you with reality checks as you bounce ideas off of each other. this guy here is basically saying the opposite, "don't even listen to people who doesn't support your ideas." if you agree with him, you're obviously not going to listen to me. so i guess i'll stop wasting my time end my comment here.
"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."
i was paraphrasing. and i watched about 75% of the video. and i'm glad if you don't agree with my paraphrasing
"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."
(This post was last modified: 03-08-2014 09:58 AM by Potato.)
He made it a point to criticize that "ignore all naysayers" advice.
Certainly, a range of feedback can be valuable. Figuring out how to process it is the challenge, then. Not all feedback can be evaluated solely on the face of the statements people make.
It's often helpful necessary to determine why a person is saying what they're saying. And, it's often quite relevant who they are, what their background and experiences are, how they're cognitively modeling your situation, and so on.
Very often, naysaying echoes a person's dark view of life, a.k.a., Jade-colored Glasses. If so, they might still have something worth listening to, but it may need to be taken with a grain of salt. Other times, people don't even know what they're talking about.
On the flip.side, it's also worth being cautious about "yes men" who agree with everything, or provide biased or otherwise inaccurate praise or encouragement.
In your case, Potato, your responses to things are often skewed heavily negative for whatever reason. Would you agree with that assessment? How much is that intentional?
(All of this is relevant not only to interpreting feedback, but being more conscious and discerning when giving it.)
I heard that naysaying was once a respected career choice in ancient times. Good pay cause you had to be smart enough to logically disagree with the rulers decisions and opinions.