Democracy and collaboration in general. I love the idea of working together with people for the greater good and the idea that if we just all have a say in things, that will make things better over time, but it feels like the last few decades have shot down both these notions. We’ve got our own democratic system here in the US that’s getting attacked by foreign actors who are jamming up the system with misinformation, noise, and propaganda. We’ve got Congress members who appear to be on the take from foreign governments and don’t seem to have any sort of agenda apart from gumming up the works and bringing government to a halt. I don’t think a dictatorship or fascism is the solution, but holy crap do we need to sweep away the people who are obviously working in bad faith to undermine our democracy. Even just relying on people to vote in their own best interests or the best interests of the country in general is really not a reliable way to get rid of bad actors in the system.

With regards to collaboration (in business or personal settings), I’ve rarely seen anything come from it. In school, “collaboration” meant working on group projects where 99% of the group did nothing and 1 or 2 people drove the project forward. Much the same happens in business work groups. Trying to get friends or random strangers on the internet to collaborate on writing or gaming projects has just been an exercise in futility for years, as it usually ends up being 1 or 2 people driving things forward, and no real commitment or output from anybody else (people flake out regularly). I just stopped trying to work with other people on anything unless somebody else pulls me into something and shows some amount of progress on their end, otherwise I just feel frustrated when it seems like I’m the only one even trying to do anything. Any of my “biggest achievements” in life have been things I worked on on my own or was the primary driver behind it.

I was a big ‘offend everyone’ dweeb, with a side serving of “free speech”.

I grew up in structure where etiquette and taboo were abused and hated them. Like the chilidish little maximalist I was, I applied that hatred to everything. Slurs were particularly hilarious, I thought people were ridiculous with how they tip toe around them and delighted in their discomfort when I’d just come out and say it. They were just words, why be scared of them?

In my mind, I clearly didn’t hold any bigoted views. Particularly with homophobic ones - I’m queer, I’ve been beaten for it, I’ve been beaten counter protesting “actual” bigots. I’d ask critics “what have you done?”, before calling them a fa-

Well, you get the idea.

At the end, I was also a sort of community figure. An extremely minor one in the grand scheme of things, but I still had attracted a small audience. This included a large number of younger men who were impressionable. The thing is, they attract their own audience too.

I noticed an increasingly amount of what I considered back then to be “actual” bigoted stuff being said. They trying to sway those younger men. I saw them buzzing around my peers too, encouraging them to say things for them, dropping bait in chats and pulling aside the younger male audience members to try to recruit them, more or less.

I tried a couple of times to call it out, but they’d fall back on “it’s just a joke”. They’d point to all the bullshit I’d said over the years and the obvious hypocrisy. I’d given up any credibility I had and bred an environment where these people could thrive. It also became clear that plenty of my audience had taken me seriously, and were imitating what they thought I was doing.

It made me reevaluate things. I’d alienated people, good people, by acting in this way. I’d hurt people I never had any intention of hurting with my callous disregard for their feelings. I’d convinced people to be worse in ways I’d fought against, destroying far more progress than I’d ever made.

So I stepped away from the spotlight and stopped. As a side note, working it out of your vocabulary is a truly frustrating progress. I’d trained myself to use slurs to mean the most basic things. Getting sober was more difficult but at least it was quicker. It took literal years of diligence to kill the impulse to call someone who is being annoying a fa-

Anyway.

Afterwards, a surprising number of the people who distanced themselves from me reached out. More than I deserved. I hadn’t told anyone I’d had a revelation, or made some grand apology to try and absolve myself of the sin or whatever. It is telling about how bad it was that people took notice just from it’s absence. Many of those shared stories of how it’d hurt them.

The one that broke my heart the most was a transwoman who I had stood up for when others tried to push her out. She had been lonely, and I’d given her just enough acceptance for her to get trapped in a toxic community. My bigotry she rationalized away, and it desensitized just enough to try to fit in with the broader community around me. She internalized the horrific transphobia that was being said. I think it goes without saying what that did to her mental health and the places it lead. I had caused deep harm to not only someone I liked, who had looked up to me, but someone I had tried to help.

It’s not just jokes, the intention doesn’t change that.

Eating animals. I used to be the Making-fun-of-vegans, I-will-never-be-vegan type of person until I realised that 1) I don’t have to eat animals to be healthy and 2) if there is no need to do it, killing animals for taste pleasure is fucking evil.

While I have never been a coffee person, I always rolled my eyes when someone ordered a decaf soya latte or something similar. “Come on, if your can’t drink coffee then just don’t”.

…Then my friends got me to ditch dairy for oat (both for environmental reasons and the creaminess), then I had to accept the fact that I like it more sweet, then I tried salted caramel syrup, then I found out that two shots is like a hand grenade followed by two hours of misery, and I started drinking one shot caramel oat mochas. And then at my place I saw throngs of young moms who couldn’t have caffeine.

Now you can’t disgust me with your coffee order. If you like it with one and three quarters shot, macadamia milk, semi decaf, with mustard and marshmallow syrup then good for you. Also, let me try it.

Being antivax.

I grew up in an antivax house and I never questioned it, especially since me and my family used to be healthier than most people around us.

There would be vaccine days in school and we would have to go and refuse them. only when the corona hit and suddenly there was all this discussion about the importance of vaccines and I started to actually research it, given I was still young at the time so I don’t blame myself for not doubting it up until that point.

To this day I’m still wary of vaccines and I do have this deep feeling that I don’t want to be vaccinated but I do get my vaccines after researching them and proving to myself that the data makes sense.

I also can’t ignore the fact that there is a conflict of interest for these companies to release these vaccines and them maybe not being as safe as possible but I try to follow the data especially from independent research that isn’t related to the company that made the vaccine.

It’s really crazy how childhood beliefs can hold you so strongly even when you logically get through them and realize they are wrong.

When I was in my late teens up to around 20 I still believed in God and religion. Looking back, largely to please my Mum.

My views changed because my brother was so dismissive about religion so I started to question it myself properly for the first time. I’d taken it for granted after being indoctrinated into Catholicism my whole life.

Once I started questioning and actually thinking about religion (rather than just accepting it as the dull background to my life) I moved fairly rapidly to become an atheist. I’ve never once doubted or regretted that change. I feel like it was a turning point in my life when I actually started looking around me and questioning everything, and developing as my own person.

For a long time I thought the whole pronoun /name /being outta the closet thing didn’t personally matter to me to make the effort to attempt to change it.

Yeah I figured out I was trans at age 21 in the quite distant past but like my partner had sex characteristic preferences that meant that as long as I prioritized him in my long term goals I wasn’t physically changing. I figured you know boo hoo I was ugly and people didn’t really get me most of the time but you know… Big deal? I was stable enough. I wasn’t under particular hardship because aside from some vague presentation pressure from time to time everyone just basically accepted I was quirky and liked me enough without putting much emphasis on my gender anyway… I ended up trying gender neutral pronouns basically as a lark, a way of proving to myself that I was fine.

Turns out I was not fine.

I didn’t realize how shit I felt on a regular basis nor how much less energy all my social connections would need once I made the changeover. I really didn’t realize that such a tiny thing was subtly poisoning every single interaction I had with people. I stopped experiencing stress heartburn and headaches after time spent with friends. I was usually pretty quiet and withdrawn but I actually started being generally more gregarious and active. I stopped feeling invisible and lonely. I went from low key disliking people to actually liking them. It was like someone suddenly replaced my batteries. I never expected something so small to make so big a difference.

Capitalism and markets
Anticapitalist views became compelling to me from the analogy between the state’s governance and the governance of the firm. The contrast between the (officially) democratic nature of the state and the complete autocracy of private companies worried me. I was initially a market abolitionist when I become an anti-capitalist, but I found no sound explanation for how such an economy would work.

Now I am a pro-market anti-capitalist, an unusual position on the left

Religion being completely stupid and harmful. 2005-2016 me was 100% certain nothing good ever came out of religion, it was only useful for making corrupt shitheads powerful and keeping easily amazed idiots in line.

Took me a while to realize how religion can help integrate the community with its local/historical culture, something that’s easier to notice with minority religions. It is, after all, an instrument of power. Like any such instrument, it attracts people who should never have any sort of power, but that’s a wholly different discussion.

Was a hardcore Libertarian till I finally read theory and realized how much Propaganda i had soaked up to think that Socialism was bad and unfettered Capitalism was good. Cringe so hard thinking about it now that I am a full blown Socialist.

I used to think that there was hope for humanity. Now, in my late 50s, I’m realising we’re fucked.

We’ve always been fucked by the mega rich that own and control everything but, with more and more people trying to survive here every day, things are getting exponentially worse.

There is no indication at all that any of these rich fucks have any appreciation of the fact that we can’t grow indefinitely and we seem doomed to hit peak population (around the year 2100?) in Mad Max, rather than Star Trek, style.

I’m glad I won’t be here to see it, but sad that my grandchildren probably will.

Traffic enforcement and red light cameras. I used to be very opposed to them, but I’ve since come to appreciate the absurdity of America’s car central culture.

Additionally, traffic stops by police disproportionately effect minorities and lead to escalations and other issues, while taking away enforcement capacity from more important things.

I still don’t think the cameras should necessarily be run by private, for profit entities. Nor would I really want cameras that ticket you if you go 1 mph over. But in general I’m much less opposed to the idea than I used to be.

I used to identify as Libertarianian. Resented taxes, overreaching, infiltrating my life, all about independence, don’t want to be interfered with.

Then I became homeless. Realized how the social services, ssi, Medicare are important. Sure there are lazy people, but also those who genuinely need help, who want to get back on their feet. Care a lot more now about wanting to live in a society that actually cares about the people in it.

I used to think conservatives just had a different view than my own and weren’t evil just because we disagreed.

Yes. They. Are.

The more I saw what was seething under the surface, the less I believed that. And eventually Trump made all that evil that was hiding feel comfortable coming out into the open. The racism, stupidity and utter disdain for rules, common decency and human life in the modern right is sickening. I refuse to acknowledge an ideology that supports the ghoulish things the modern right does as being valid and deserving of a place at the debate table.

Disagreeing on zoning regulations in cities is valid. Locking brown kids in cages, separating them from their parents and shrugging whenever another dozen school kids get filled with so many bullet holes that we can only identify them through DNA tests while threatening their parents with being deported by ICE is evil.

And the conservative mentality that people “dont want to work anymore” is hilariously divorced from reality. There’s a chemical company in my area that hasn’t bothered to update their wanted ad on job sites for years. The starting wage theyre advertising at the low end of the pay scale is a dollar and a half below minimum wage. They require a BS in chemistry. They cant figure out why no one wants to work for them. That sort of stupidity is EVERYWHERE but its those damned greedy workers that are the problem apparently. You cant fucking survive on what companies are willing to pay and the degree of laziness in management is astounding.

And theres this pervasive mentality on the right where people would love nothing more than to cut wages of people that work in jobs that they dont respect like food service to supposedly lower prices rather than advocate for their own wages to be increased. Thats evil too. Theres a lot of evil shit going on on the right even if you ignore what happened with roe v wade being overturned (yeah theyre attacking women that had miscarriages now) As if there werent enough reasons for me to despise the modern right as it was.

I was raised Mormon, am now atheist. Regret every conversation I had in high school about gay marriage. And evolution.