I Survived /r/anarchism's ShitStorm of 2010 and I Didn't Even Get a Lousy T-Shirt.

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A lot of drama is going on in the anarchism section of reddit. This is the history of it, as seen through my eyes.

the calm before the shit storm.
Image by dearsomeone via Flickr

Anyone looking in on the subreddit of anarchism, would think that all-out-war is breaking out. Call-outs from people against the mods and call-out from mods against each other. Reactionary downvote brigades and sarcastic trolls. Posts about rules and posts against rules. And all the sideline, statists, Men’s Rights Activists and (right-)libertarians having the schadenfreude of their life.

Obviously anarchism can’t work right?

Well yes it can, but before we go into that, let me present the history of these events in as much an objective way I can (I will try to put in some links later).

The origins.

Until one point, we had the unwritten policy of simply modding anyone who is a contributing member of the community. This had been setup by one of the early mods, joeldavis, and it was an interesting alternative to the classic oligarchical mod structures of most other subreddits. It wasn’t perfect but it was good. At this point, there was a general agreement that mod’s only rule was to prevent the spam filter from catching legitimate posts and to check each other’s power.

The Failsafe mod

Given the way that moderation was implemented, any mod could de-mod any other mod, which presented the threat that a malicious person might masquerade themselves as a contributing member long enough to get modded up, and then quickly de-mod everyone else and destroy the reddit. To avoid this, we decided to elect a failsafe moderator who would be the owner of the subreddit and could not be demodded in this way. The candidate was chosen to be Veganbikepunk, the original creator of the subreddit.

Then reddit changed the code so that latter mods could not de-mod their seniors. This made things safer but ultimately more hierarchical unfortunately. This is isn’t so much related but a reason to understand why things progressed the way they did.

Showing our feminist colours.

I don’t remember exactly how it started, but at one point we started modifying the header icon of the reddit to point out our solidarity with other movements, such as radical feminism or queer anarchism. This was opposed by very few mods (particularly a few who were leaning more towards the propertarian values) and quite a few subscribers of the subreddit. Discussions heated up on this issue but most of the regulars agreed that pointing out this solidarity is important.

Unwelcome elements

A few misogynistic and white-supremacy  advocates started appearing in the reddit and posting, well, misogynistic and white-supremacy shit. Many correlated this to the recent change of the header icon, particularly since many of those elements were posting especially against this change. As one mod put it (paraphrase), “feminism made the reactionaries come out of the woodwork.”

This led to outrage from many members of the reddit, who felt that this community should not tolerate such speech which was reinforcing oppression of marginalized classes. This was usually called the “No Platform” position. Many of the old school mods (including myself) suggested that the organic moderation of the community via voting on the comments and their posts was enough to counter such elements and no further action was needed.

Others posted that the organic moderation was subverted via external reactionary brigades ((We do have proof that white-supremacy groups like stormfront have had organized plans to make their position heard, by collectively voting on their positions. People from other subreddits such as /r/mensrights also often request help from their group when they are downvoted and confronted)) and thus, stronger action was required to combat this phenomena and preserve /r/anarchism as an anarchist community.

The Banhammer falls.

As this dicussion was raging, a mod called bmoseley07 (who has since deleted his account) went ahead and banned one of the most egregious scum. A person called Zamato Elite. This is pretty much the point where all shit hit the fan. The ban was quickly reversed by other mods, only to be redone and undone again and again.

The mod discussion pretty much exploded, and two sides quickly formed an polarized in the debate. On one side was the argument that banning is not inherently authoritarian when it combats oppressive actions and speech and that /r/anarchism should be a safe space for oppressed classes. The other side was arguing that free speech is not inherently oppressive, and especially not when it can be countered with other means such as downvoting, and that the problem with those reactionary elements is transient and they will leave discouraged when their comments are consistently downvoted.

Disclaimer: I was on the latter group. At that point, I didn’t believe that the issue was as big as it was made out to be, and certainly not requiring a banhammer.

Things went pretty much downhill from here. Quickly other people were nominated for banning and some did it with very little input from others, further aggravating the other side, who then undid any changes. Insults from both sides were common with one side being labeled “vanguardists” and other being the “manarchists”. Meta discussions on mod abuses raged and many people started posting articles explain why moderation is not inherently authoritarian.

It’s important to note that while this was happening, no mod actually de-modded another one who opposed them. Many people who look in from the outside, think that this actually happened, but this is not true. Even the most radical elements of each camp avoided this.

Guidelining

As things seemed to be devolving into an all out mod-edit-wars, a few people tried to come up with some common ground solutions. The first such attempt was QueerCoup’s Banning Procedure, which was a draft that was continuously updated with input from the community. It didn’t treat banning as taboo, but it also stipulated that it must be the last course of action after all other options have been exhausted. It also required a lot of agreement from the mods and gave a chance to people being targeted to avoid it.

Unfortunately, since many still felt that banning was bad in all cases, this procedure didn’t gain much traction. Some opposed it out of principle. The mod wars continued.

Seeing this, dbzer0 (that is me, in case you forgot) drafted a different policy which basically took the events that were already happening and used them as a basis for a policy. This would allow people who could compromise just a little to work with each other in a more organic way and make mod actions resemble a more direct action.This was met with more support and with the unsaid consent of most mods, since hey, this policy just allowed them to do what they were doing anyway.

Speaking for myself, I had started to accept than banning might be acceptable in some circumstances, in order to preserve the inclusive space of /r/anarchism. I was still very much for free speech and (perma)banning only as a last resort, and against making /r/anarchism a safe space (i.e. a place where no opposing views are requested).

The Purge

As dbzer0’s guidelines started to get traction, the unthinkable happened. Someone de-modded everyone (we had upwards of 50 mods at that point), including themselves, and left veganbikepunk as the only moderator of /r/anarchism. This was quickly identified to be the user idonthack who used to be the most senior after VBP. idonthack was a vocal proponent of the no-banning policies and I assume he did it because the accepted rules seemed to be moving in the opposite direction. He never did account for himself on this (quite authoritarian) act, so I can’t really say much more about that.

This was since known as the Great Mod Purge of 2010. It frustrated both sides, including the only mod left, VBP, who quickly found himself to be the centre of attention.

At this point, I used this release from my “duties” to take a break from the drama in /r/anarchism and go do something relaxing. As such, my knowledge of the events following this, until the last week are a bit sketchy, so If I’m getting something wrong, please correct me.

The Bro-Trolls come, a Monarch Falls.

Even though VBP had stated that he was not going to take any action until a community decision on moderation was reached, he was the de-facto monarch of the sub. He also quickly banned two of the most egregious scum, Zamato Elite and Godspiral.

Around this time, a new reddit was created, pretty much by the pro-ban group of /r/anarchism. This was /r/anarchocommunism and from what I know, it was used as a launch group for a coordinated trolling assault on /r/anarchism. It wasn’t created for this reason, but this happened because of VBP “fatal” mistake.

He banned longtime.

Longtime was one of the most outspoken radical feminists of /r/anarchism. She routinely called out the casual sexism of many members and was particularly fond of using irony and sarcasm as weapons and turning the words of people against them. This had the effect of making her both receive a lot of flak by the people she assaulted in this way, and to also make her a sort of an icon for people fighting against accepted sexism in /r/anarchism. A favourite tactic of longtime was to write a comment in ALL CAPS and exaggerating the sexism or derailment in the comment she was replying to and thus shaming them into submission (imho good) or angering them enough to lash out (imho bad). This will become important in a sec.

After the mod purge, the efforts of the radical feminists were effectively countered. They could no do anything else except use the voting mechanism of reddit and their comments. For longtime, this further drove her to intensify her campaign of ALL CAPS (at this point she was making practically only ALL CAPS comments) as it was one of the few weapons left to their side, until more mods were added.

Unfortunately, VBP who had never been the most active redditor, was not aware of longtime’s style, so he saw one such ironically sexist comment and did a knee-jerk reaction, banning longtime. He was quickly explained the situation and reversed the ban within one hour, but the damage was already done. Longtime left in disgust and soon after deleted her account. This was the catalyst for the Bro-Troll brigade.

The Bro-Trolls were ironic names of historical male anarchists, where part of their name was replaced by “Bro” (“Bropotkin”, “Brahkunin” and so on) , thus signifying the “manarchism” in the politics of /r/anarchism. These people, apart from continuing in the proud tradition of longtime’s ALL CAP sarcastic sexism, started a systematic campaign against VBP. Unfortunately VBP reaction badly to it, quickly making some comments that were uncalled for (such as calling a member of the forum by their real name) and getting defensive.

While this was happening, QueerCoup  started drafting a modding policy, so we can get more mods on the reddit again and then start building the policies of the subreddit. Many others were at the same time requesting that no mods would be added and that we go completely unmoderated, but the rampart sexism that was rising up on the sub convinced many of us that such an option would be unacceptable for an inclusive space.

It was at this point that I started becoming more active again in the sub.

After about a week of harassment, and as the campaign against VBP escalated, he was asked to step down and so he did, leaving skobrin in his place. Frustratingly for many, skobrin wasn’t really active at that time so no further action was taken in the next few days, until he came back and modded dbzer0 and griffjam, who were some of the most supported mods in the new modding suggestions thread.

The meta is diverted.

As you can imagine, the meta discussions in the reddit were intense and drowning all other submissions. As my first act as a mod, I decided to try and work with this by creating a dedicated area for meta discussion which would both facilitate more of it and allow the main reddit to concentrate on actual posts and news about anarchism. This was not a mandatory move however, so anyone who wished could still post their meta topics in the main sub. Many people did find the idea good enough and started using it voluntarily.

At the start, /r/metanarchism was set to restricted mode, which meant that anyone could see, vote and comment on articles, but only the approved members could submit new ones. Soon however, the Bro-Trolls (which had reduced their posting by then) along with a few new accounts started trolling this area as well, so in an attempt to maintain discussion, I switched the security to private, which meant that one approved members could see it. Of course, since it is very easy to be approved, I didn’t consider this an issue, but apparently some did.

The same afternoon, QueerCoup denounced this action and the subreddit and called dbzer0, skobrin and VBP out for de-modding. And this pretty much started the second round of shit-flinging.

Everybody points and laughs

dbzer0, skobring and VBP are called out by QueerCoup, QueerCoup and enkiam is called out by hummanerror and anarchoal, chromalux and reqem is called out by VBP, the classic reactionaries from MRA and whatnot are called out by QueerCoup. Mod and ban guidelines are challenged. And as if on queue, everyone else chimes in to informs us how this is proof that anarchism can’t work,

At this moment, the debate is still raging but at a less intense level. QueerCoup and myself have achieved more cooperative attitude (I’d like to think). We seem to be cautiously moving towards an commonly accepted modding policy that will be very similar to my “Direct Action” proposal. We’ve had a vote and a compromise and those seem to have been well received.

Most of the current drama revolves around QueerCoup being a mod after his position was blocked by other members of the reddit. There’s also some bad blood between the regulars of the subreddit which will take a long time to heal (if ever). The also the issue of the visibility of /r/metanarchism. Mods, as of now, are treading very carefully to avoid being seen as abusing their power or supporting sexism and I’m fairly certain that we will soon reach an understanding and a new balance. Of course, I could be wrong, and things will explode yet again in a third round of drama. Time will tell.

So now you know what’s been going on. I hope I gave you a perspective that shows how the drama is not at all illegitimate and that this is a discussion that needs to happen to allow the subreddit to grow beyond the casual sexism that permeates reddit as a whole. In a future post, I will expand more on why dissent is not necessarily a sign of an unhealthy community.

Ah, I loves me some insidious sexism.

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Mainsteam publications misuing science? Noooooo…

A commenter pointed out to me an “scientific” article claiming the bold title “Scientists say genetic variations show that men think differently“. They used this as “scientific” proof of how women are naturally more passive and cooperative than males, which of course has the implication that some jobs are better suited for females and that the traditional role of the woman in the house taking care of the children is not so out of place.

This kind of thing annoys me immensely, especially since when I actually took the time to read that article, it quickly became apparent that Science proves no such thing. In fact, the best the article could point out was that

While the two sexes have the same basic genes, many of these are more active in the brains of only one sex. These gender-specific patterns of gene expression could affect many aspects of behaviour, the researchers said.

That’s it. That’s the great evidence of what “Scientists say”. A mild discovery and a weak correlation.

However, since most people will barely bother to read more than the title of the headline, the idea of what “Scientists say” will stay in their brain, and they may link others to the same dubious claims as proof of how feminists are going against female nature or some other nonsense.

Why does mainstream media do this? More importantly, why have they not been taken to task for this nonsense? How can such a misleading article stay online? It’s like reading an article which boldly claims that Scientists say that “Skin colour affects intelligence”. How come insidious sexism gets a free pass while people have wizened up enough to counter insidious racism?

Of course for me, further annoyment was caused when I linked this article to reddit, assuming that people in /r/feminisms can see the obvious, and immediately I was asked to explain what’s wrong with it. When I did that and pointed out that it’s annoying I had to do it, I am then told that I’m being rude. FFS people! We are allowed to be annoyed when we’re asked to explain the obvious again and again and again. Being annoyed at it gives out a clear signal that people should start using their own head for once, instead of asking for Cliff’s Notes.

So, I got married…

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And no, before you ask, I don’t feel any different 😉

Yep, as strange as it may be, I am now a  husband. I wasn’t really planning to as I’m not a fan of the marriage tradition and the pratriarchical things it stands for, but I am only mildly opposed to to the idea so when my girlfriend insisted upon it, I didn’t care enough to oppose it so much.

We were planning for the marriage to happen in summer but due to various circumstances, this didn’t manifest. Thus we decided to just have a civil wedding this year and do the ceremony stuff next year, where we’d have more time for planning. The civil wedding was going to be kept very short and sweet, with only a few people invited.

And then came the subject of the clothes. My soon-to-be-wife categorically objected in me going to the civil service on anything casual and I stedfastly refused to use a suit & tie setup. As we were thinking of a compromise, an idea came to me and I was delighted that she found it exciting as well: A Steampunk theme. This way, I would both be wearing something that wasn’t casual or conforming.

So we set about trying to create an outfit for this day. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a lot for the actual steampunk stuff other than the victorian-era clothes and the goggles, but even so, I think the end result was good.

So without further ado, here’s some pics that I found very good. You can see the whole album here (If you get 500 errors, use the slideshow option from the drop-down menu on the top right. Should be more stable)

Here we are in front of the Romer city hall. This is the place where the German kings were crowned. As you can see, we’re a…diverse bunch 🙂

Here’s the two of us close up. I think the attire was a success.

This is in the “ceremony” and the actual signing of papers and stuff. In the first pic, you can see me giving this decision some thought.

This is after the wedding, outside of the building. Given the amount of marriages that happen there daily (about one per 30 mins) throwing rice to the couple is forbidden, or else by the end of the day, the entrance would be covered in it. So as an alternative, our crazy Russian friend, throw intra-cook rice bags at us as we were coming out. In the last pic, you can see a bunch of children which were completely surprised by the way we looked. One asked us “Why do you look so bad?”.

We were quite the attraction that day in fact. The Japanese tourists probably thought we were part of the setting.

These are from the breakfast and lunch times. We went for both one after the other so there wasn’t enough time to digest. However we did leave out some space for the cake, which as you can see, we tried to build to the theme as well. There was so much left of it, that I brought practically half of it to work for the people there to eat 🙂

So there you have it. Next year, we’ll have one more 🙂

Do we need traffic lights or rules of the road?

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Empirical Evidence once more points to the naturalness of Anarchy.

In a new installment of Things About “Human Nature” That Are Counter-Intuitive, we now see that far from avoiding chaos, accidents, delays, and congestion, traffic lights and other handed-down-from-above rules are actually facilitating them. This video in two parts gives you the rundown Read more “Do we need traffic lights or rules of the road?”

Brb, Civ5.

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I got Civ5 so I won’t be writing a lot for a while.

Started with Civ5 this Sunday. The AI sucks at the moment and there’s a lot of stuff broken. Nevertheless, the new game mechanics, especially the new combat is brilliant and it has some very nice ideas built-in. There’s a lot of reviews so I won’t rehash what you’ve probably read a lot of times already, but you should really be looking at the critical reviews and not the positive ones if you want to get into the substance of things rather than partake in the huge hype surrounding the game.

In fact, I wish people gave up more weight to critical reviews rather than the one gushing about new and popular games, which is in fact all that the pop-review sites seem to be able to do. The critical reviews tend to be more thoughtful, and even when they’re not positive about the game in the end, you end up understanding more about the game from them, rather than from the hype-bandwagon. This is the second reason why Zero Punctuation is one of my favourite locations to get my reviews (the first one naturally being that Yahtzee is so creatively funny).

Anyway, back to the subject, if you’re interested in the game or the series but not burning to play it right goddamn now, then I would advise that you wait at least until Christmas sales. Then you’ll both get the game with a few patches in so that the most horrible bugs and imbalances are fixed and you’ll likely to find it on a nice steam sale and grab it for 20€ less or something. If you’re a huge fan, then you’ve already got it so there’s no point in me telling you not to 😉

I personally would have also waited for a bit, perhaps playing it pirated once or twice to see how it goes, but after I saw an Amazon.co.uk deal for 20€ less than Steam, I couldn’t help myself 🙂

So I decided to play TES:Oblivion

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Oblivion modding is awesome. But then I go on a tangent…

I bought Oblivion: Game of the year edition from steam, as part of a very cheap bundle which had Fallout 3 which I wanted to replay. Good offer. So lately, so that I stop myself from pre-ordering Civilization 5 (Note: I failed) I decided to give oblivion a ride.

I knew from experience that mods for Bethesda games make them around 100% better, fixing and improving all the gameplay elements that the developers didn’t get right. I also had a lot of practice with modding Fallout 3 so I wasn’t going to play Oblivion without first getting some of the better mods included, as in fact, no-one should ever do ((Seriously, Bethesda could make a nice amount if they repackaged some of those games with a collection of the best mods build-in and thus with improved stability, and then sold the game again as a special edition or something))

I thus decided to first find out some nice mods for the game and then start playing to get the best experience. Without going too much into it, what followed could pretty accurately be surmised in the following pic

Modding is more addicting that playing
Modding Oblivion: It's pretty much like this.

Since I decided to start Oblivion on last Sunday’s lazy afternoon, I’ve spent around 12 hours gathering, reading on, installing and debugging mods and 6 hours of actually playing the game. It’s not that it’s particularly hard to do it (the tools that the community had created to make modding easier are just insane) but I would be gaming for half an hour and then find something that annoyed me (eg: why are there only 8 hotkeys?) and then I would stop and spend half an hour finding  a mod to scratch my itch. Reading the mods description, they would mention other cool mods to go with it, and I would check those out as well, perhaps choosing one or two to install alongside it. Spend about 0.5 – 1 hour getting the mods installed (doing it properly and depending on the size) and then get back into the game to check the results.Then perhaps half an hour more in case some unexpected bug started cropping up.

Then, then next day, after having played a bit, I would make a reddit thread on it to ask for some opinions, and about 8 more mods would be suggested, 4 of which just sound impossible to resist, and once I returned from work, spend more hours installing them than playing again.

I just can’t resist. The stuff that the community has come up with, for free mind you, are just incredible. I’m talking about gigabytes over gigabytes of cool new stuff. From completely new texturing to brand new quest chains to completely reworked combat and race systems which make the game truly overcome its limitations. Not to mention the modding utilities which are more impressive than many commercial applications.

This kind of thing really drives home the point of how doing things without the profit motive provides a far better motivation and thus better quality.  Consider that all these incredible work is being provided for free and because the modders weren’t feeling any monetary pressure, they created something that improves the vanilla game manifold. Was it difficult for the original developers to implement such things such as physics based archery or realistic combat with special moves? Not really but the need to put the game out there and then move on to the next project necessitated that many things needed to just be left as they were. The end result was a magic system that was considered underwhelming and an archery system that was underpowered,  not to mention the whole lotta bugs that were left open and required 3 community patches to fix.

Lucky for me, the PC gaming ecosystem allows modding which just makes things so much better when you’re getting into a game a year or two down the line (not to mention 4 years as in the case of Oblivion). Not only have the most egregious bugs been squashed by the community but there’s so much extra content  to choose from, that your first experience with the game is going to be miles better than if your played the game when it came out (not to mention better graphics quality since your PC should be able to handle it better).

It also goes to show that a game’s life cycle cannot be only until a few months after its release, as most companies treat their AAA titles, solely based on the monetary concerns. A well maintained and updated game can continue to provide wealth on the long tail long after it’s glory days are over. In fact, an actively maintained game can continue increasing its value based on how much the updates increase the word-of-mouth advertising and community. The immense success of the TF2 model is ample proof of that. And there, the updates are so awesome because, again, they’re not made with the profit motive in mind.

Now compare that to the DLC mediocricy and unmoddable nature of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and you can easily see which game is going to outlive the other.  But of course, for the bottom line in the short-term it’s better to have the old game die and sell the sequel rather than continue improving the old model to perfection. Unfortunately, this only leads to mediocricy which is sold mostly on hype and marketing, rather than quality.

Fortunately for those like me who like polish, moddable games like Oblivion and Civilization or supported ones like TF2, provide it and at a far more sensible price tag in the long term.

PS: This is my bookmark group for the mods I’m using, including some handy guides. Just in case you’re interested.

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Look what I found…

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In which embarassing photos of me are uncovered.

A friend of mine recently posted something in Facebook that I didn’t even remember existed.

Yep.

This is from my time in the Greek National Service, in the Military Navy, or as the Greeks like to call it “PeeNee” (You have to stretch the “ee” of both words and curve it to a short “eh” at the end to say it right). To my defence, I had no big choice and it was either that or the infantry which would have been worse. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have to dress like PopEye. Then again, our casual clothes were jeans so I can’t complain too much.

So, the end result is the picture above, where the aforementioned friend took when he came to pick me up from basic training (Good Lad). This serves as a proof that I have always been this silly.

Of  course, I didn’t have to wear these clothes all the time. Most of the time I looked like this:

Rambo Style

Which is another interesting photo of myself during some military exercise where I abused two machine guns for a photo opportunity 🙂

I also have a photo somewhere with the difficulties of the navy life (i.e. me sitting in an office with my feet on the table) but I haven’t digitized it yet for your enjoyment.

So yeah. Laugh it up.

Falling Down

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In which I was hit by a car…door.

small accident
Image by chdot via Flickr

Last week I had a small accident on my way home. I was driving with my bike on the right side of the street, with parked cars on my right, when suddenly, just one meter in front of me a car door from the driver’s side sprung open and I had barely enough time to swerve to the left while making a small warning shout. Unfortunately I wasn’t fast enough and the door clipped me on the shoulder and after a brief struggle for control, I ended up on my back in the middle of the road.

Fortunately the road behind me was empty, otherwise this could have ended far worse, but as it was, I didn’t get as much as a scrapped knee (I’m very good at falling. Years of experience as a kid. Hey, flaunt them if your have them.) After a brief pause to pause to compose myself, I got up and looked at the careless driver and…saw him checking up the door for damages…

I angrily shouted “Seht gut gemacht” which translates to “well done” but in retrospect I should have said something wittier, like “Is your door ok?” or something. At that point I was too shaken to be witty though. The guy, who was around his 60s, started apologizing profusely and people started asking what happened but at that point, once I verified that nothing was hurting, all I wanted was to continue on my way home. The driver of course was being now very very friendly and asking me if all is OK,  if nothing hurts and so on.

Call me cynic but I know that his main concern was that he wouldn’t get sued. He was very fortunate that I had no damage on myself or my bike ((My bike actually stopped squeaking after this)) and he was especially fortunate I’m not a typical German. Almost every one I speak to says that if a typical German was in my position, they would have called the police immediately, just in case something started hurting down the line. From my perspective, calling the police, taking statements and so on would have been so much a waste of my time that it was just not worth it. The hassle I would go through would be far too much of a cost.

The whole incident however pointed out to me how material-oriented so many Germans are. The guy who hit me was primarily interested in the state of his car, not because a scratch is a big issue, but because the car wouldn’t be perfect and that would speak bad about him as a human person. It sounds ridiculous but far too many people around here think like that. It’s like a nation-wide Keep Up With the Joneses situation and it really ruins human relations.

It’s the reason people are so emotionally cold around here. The judge themselves, and consecutively others, by their material wealth and avoid mixing up to those lower than them. This in turn leads to more and more alienation from your fellow human beings. In the case of my accident above, another person would very likely have a more angry reaction to the door hit, not just because of the carelessness of the driver, but because of where the driver’s primary concern was. The fact that his first instinct was to make sure his status was social unaffected and not to worry about the person he could have harmed.

It’s like a prime example of how crass materialistc individualism can go wrong and poison our society as a whole.