Responses

2025-11-04

Introduction

Hi all, so currently I have two recurring series of posts:

• Sharing other things people have made, with perhaps my commentary
• A collection of ideas and thoughts that I don't want to expand upon as its own entry in my blog

This is, of course, along with my more ad-hoc posts and mini-series or what have you.

I think I will add a new series, where I respond to some subset of published commntary on my blog posts.

The responses

This is in response to Re: Small thoughts.

Hi Boyan,

Thank you for the kind words and your thoughtful response.

So I see three questions:

1. Why do I feel like discourse invites confrontation?
2. Why do I think my take is controversial?
3. Why do I like friction in communication?

The first two questions are related, but that latter is a wholly separate discussion, to give some context to other readers.

Why do I feel like discourse invites confrontation?

I suppose it is because that is what I have seen on the internet and to some extent in real life. If I am also to be pedantic, I also said it invites confrontation, not that it necessitates confrontation. My readers can respond with aggression if they wish to, I am giving them the opportunity to do so, the activation energy for this is lower than another typical post of mine.

But also, I don't think confrontation is bad, per se. I think a bit of feistiness makes the whole thing more lively, gives more stakes. And perhaps I use confrontation incorrectly. I also mean it in the sense of confronting something difficult, which in this case is possibly differing morals.

This may seem in contradiction to me saying I "dislike" it. But that dislike is like a fear of the dark, it's there and part of my being. I do not mean dislike in the sense of confering a judgement.

Why I think my take is controversial

For context, what I think is controversial (among my friends) is finding the following frustrating:

I'm not part of demographic $X$ , so my argument on a topic very relevant (or even about) demographic $X$ holds less weight".

Boyan says that most people would share the frustration, that you would have to be quite "radically left-oriented" for my take to be controversial (or something to that affect).

I do think most people would agree with what I say, but I think a lot of leftists wouldn't immediately scoff at the argument I have some objection towards. Perhaps I'm totally off-base of what my left-leaning friends would think, but I can imagine at least a few of them seeing some merit in this "deferential" attitude.

I suppose I heard this echoed twice in quick succession in some videos I had watched. I actually tried to find them but I couldn't, since I have disabled my watch history and it doesn't seem to come from a recent video of my subscribed channels. But I hear this sort of refrain very common, in the leftist video essays that I have seen (which gather hundreds of thousands of views).

Now, I suppose perhaps I am giving a very uncharitable paraphrasing of what I heard. Perhaps you might hear this argument, but in different words. Or statements that need this argument as a basis, but not so directly. If I were to recrease the most inoffensive form of this, it would be:

Here is my take as demographic $Y$ , but I'm someone from demographic $Y$ , so read / watch this take from person from demographic $X$

Even here, why specifically use arguments from a person of demographic $X$ unless you think they are more valuable than from someone of demographic $Z$ or $Y$ ?

I mean, if you just want to share another perspective, just share it, right?

Why do I like friction in communication?

Well mostly, I think it's fun! I could try do to some post-hoc rationale for it, but there's no philosophy here. I think it's fun to see my friends in person and I like roleplaying an 80 year old in email.