Kim Scheinberg

I'm in a WhatsApp group with friends of decades. None are Trumpers but I'm the resident leftist. So when the Seig Heil happened, they all expected me to react

I didn't

After an hour, someone brought it up and I [lied and] said I didn't see it as a big deal

And holy shit... the same people who would have told me to calm down suddenly lost their f'n minds

The Law of Conservation of Emotion: by withholding my emotional reaction, they were forced to have their own

I need to do that more often

Jan 23, 2025 at 12:34pmWeb
Show threadGed MaheuxJan 23, 2025
@kims Really great insight, thank you.
Show thread👁Pooka🫣Boo🫵Jan 23, 2025
@kims Great experiment....
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJan 23, 2025
@kims I did something that with AI in my former job - just bit my tounge for a few weeks while they all ran off playing with AI tools that I knew wouldn't work, and then came back and were like "Hey, this is crap!", which they would have fought me if I'd said from the beginning... I did notice a distinct lack of eye contact when it came up at meetings (and then stopped coming up because it sucks & is a waste of time) 😝
Show threadLiam O'SullivanJan 23, 2025

@jwcph @kims Adam Savage - always good for some light philosophical story-telling - talking here about having a realisation around ‘letting the universe solve the problem’, which is similar to what you’re saying, I think

https://youtu.be/OSpd5rV4evo

The Thought That Shifted Adam Savage's Relationship With Jamie Forever

YouTube
Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJan 23, 2025
@Liamo @kims Yeah, that's very similar - and also a good story, I love his musings 😊
Show threadRichard RatheJan 23, 2025

@kims

My Father was the token conservative in an otherwise "liberal" family. During the Obama admin he started sending/forwarding conspiracy theories to everyone, usually once or twice a week. Some of us would dutifully "bring the facts" and debunk each of these in turn, usually just in time for the next one. This got to be such a consistent thing I asked my Dad about it, and he admitted he was just trying to get his "liberal" family to react (almost a payback thing.)

We stopped responding and the trolling sort of faded away without confrontation or hurt feelings (that I know of).

#Internet #Trolls #LiberalTears

Show threadgetmischJan 23, 2025
@kims This used to come up in acting. First my teachers, then my directors, would say Don't cry, just get close to tears. And I'd say Why and they'd say Because if we cry, then the audience won't. And I'd say Good luck getting me not to cry in this scene, and the audience would cry too. So the concept is definitely out there.
Show threadStone1gloJan 23, 2025
@kims I’m going through that now. What to do, fight back and get in a big argument? Walk away and lose some groups I belong to?
Show threadA Slightly Orange CatJan 23, 2025
@kims I think they were waiting for you to get upset so that they wouldn't have to.
Show threadBenAvelingJan 23, 2025
@kims But it's not a big deal. At least, it's not new information.
Show threadPaul SochackiJan 23, 2025
@kims exactly. What happened to reaching across the aisle? Bipartisan compromises? After four solid years of such rhetoric from neoliberal leadership, they are certainly entitled to have emotions about what this has earned them.
Show threadMirishuliJan 23, 2025
@kims my friend used to call that “creating a vacuum”. We all need to do it more. Congrats to your friends though! 🙂🙂
Show threadJustice 4 allJan 23, 2025
@kims I've been talking about that to my friend lately. I think humans are like large language models. They get constantly bombarded by the same noise and it by its nature becomes the new average. So until they use their internal rational mind there is no "trimming" of the knowledge.... So by staying silent you're forcing them to go into their ration and now it's not a statistical average dominating their response but rather their ration...