@codeberg @6543 No, I can live without wikis. Thank you, that is very helpful!

@codeberg @6543 Looks like I checked to migrate the wiki when none exists, so migration can't do anything... that is a user error. But it's hard to debug as a user. Heh.

@6543 Nah, found it, created an issue. Unfortunately, migration is currently failing from gitlab, so, yeah. There's that. Baby steps, though.

I see you're on that issue, so no need to tell you exactly :D

@6543 @codeberg Ah, if I don't have to host it, that's great... odd to have missed that, since I'm a codeberg member, but admittedly a donating-more-than-participating kind :)

So GitLab has updated their terms for hosting FOSS projects, which means I have to submit proofs to them that #interpeer is all non-profit stuff. Fine, in principle. BUT! tthe process seems to have gotten more complex and error prone.

I'm confused, and am thinking of moving off there to @codeberg a little sooner. But that means losing CI unless I set up @WoodpeckerCI .

I've got a ton on my plate without added ops work. Is there anyone who can assist or knows a FOSS friendly hoster?

:boost_ok:

@EU_Commission Posting this a few days after promoting #ChatControl requires #DoubleThink; holding two conflicting beliefs simultaneously. As people have pointed out, #MassSurveillance puts marginalized groups at higher risk, which sadly includes LGBTIQ folk.

Looks like #NineteenEightyFour is today, in the #EU.

@clacke ... part usually is accepting that, but it also becomes hard because of the need to control the outcomes. Because that turns it into a failure, I guess?

Anyhow, I guess it's more about accepting my failures and try openness instead.

@clacke I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're also seeing this from different angle I was.

I just made the experience that trying to manage how you appear to others is exhausting and ultimately doesn't get you the acceptance you want. This isn't to say that barfing all your shit into people's faces is right, either. But openness still is good.

People either stick around after that or don't. If they don't, they weren't for you, at least at that time. And that's okay. The hard...

@clacke @FailForward Prompting responses is not on me! I'm just as happy as you seem to be 😂

@FailForward No, it's all good.

Me barfing thoughts out isn't asking to be rescued. But thanks for offering. Feedback is still appreciated.

The rescuer and "one down" feels uncomfortable. I would say this is true, but perhaps situational.

As in, I don't think I think generally worse of any person I feel compelled to "rescue", but *in the specific situation*, maybe, yes. I suppose that must be the case, in order to feel competent to offer help.

@FailForward Huh... thank you for this. Live and learn, and apparently you learn by ranting to the fediverse.

I think/hope I've managed to avoid becoming the persecutor in this, but yeah, the rescuer rings all kinds of bells.

Something to unpack, so really, thank you!

So to deny people sufficient empathy to perform the most fundamental function of a social animal is on the one hand to deny them their humanity.

It's also denying that the fabric of society can function by extension - in the small, where empathy is directly employed, and in the more abstract where it is needed to effect required changes.

It may stem from very understandable struggles. But it sabotages the possible paths to ending these struggles.

From here, to the more personal one, I guess.

On the personal level, the "eternal victimhood" mechanism can be abusive, and I've been the victim of such abuse.

This is not at all to say that anyone who uses this rhetoric is an abuser. Far from it.

Psychological abuse, however, uses this mechanism, which means that the boundaries become blurry. If anything, I would like to unblur them a little here.

What makes psychological abuse difficult is that it's often hard to detect. Every individual incident within it may seem very reasonable.

It's vast because no single instance of using the mechanism can ever, under any circumstances, be considered abuse. We're all playing the victim from time to time. We're not all abusers.

But it's miniscule in that once this becomes a pattern, it's harder and harder to see the difference.

The particularly insidious part about the mechanism is that it serves to hide abuse and be abusive simultaneously, when applied with consistency.

Because it requires the victim to participate.

Psychological abusers employ a variety of techniques for being abusive. But the one mechanism they all seem to rely on is to use their own supposed victimhood as a means to move themselves into a perceived position that is beyond reproach.

To be clear: a person does not become an abuser by applying the victimhood mechanism. A person becomes an abuser by using the victimhood mechanism consistently to hide the abuse they commit.

The difference is vast. And also, it's miniscule.

Eliciting sympathy for apparent victimhood taps right into the empathy of the recipient. Any sufficiently empathetic person will fall for it. They have to.

But this usually requires a particular interpretation of the facts, where other interpretations are also feasible. Except that these other interpretations do not agree with the apparent victimhood status, and thus turn the recipient into a perpetrator.

No empathetic person wants to be the cause of other people's suffering, so what's the...

... choice for them? It is either to accept the apparent perpetrator role, or accept the apparent victimhood. In other words, to collude. To, effectively, turn themselves into the victim.

Speaking from personal experience here, if one does that for too long, one ends up bent out of shape. Unable to recognize themselves. Depression is an easy thing to follow.

So my personal reason for rejecting the "you can't understand because you're not X" rhetoric is because I've been down that path...

... too deep and I will *not* go down there again, if I have to piss people off to avoid it.

It also means I'm oversensitive to the mechanism. I see "eternal victimhood" in action, I am triggered, and I sniff for a pattern of abuse. I cannot avoid that.

What I can avoid is to declare every person applying the mechanism an abuser. I hope I have done that here sufficiently. The mechanism and its application are not the problem.

But I cannot "get on board" with this, either. Ever.

... is to enact revenge. Take control of a power relationship, and exercise this power to the detriment of others.

Victims of any kind of abuse very often cannot do this with their abuser. The empathetic ally is then turned into a stand-in for the abuser, because - by definition of the binary distinction of X/non-X - they are part of the abuser's group. And, being empathetic, they offer themselves up.

I very much understand the coping mechanism here. We all fall into such patterns, I think.

I cannot fault anyone for taking this path, is the point. It's pretty fruitless, but very understandable.

The thing that bothers me is that it's toxic on many different levels.

Society relies on empathy functioning. Empathy is what makes people get along. The issue with empathy is that it doesn't scale, so we extract moral codes from empathy, and laws from moral codes.

A lot gets lost on that way, and we need to continuously renegotiate this, to better reflect the empathetic roots.