anyway i will be happy when compassion for others isnt contingent on identifying with them

apologies for this post not adequately covering the nuance of racism, either. the experiences of, for example, black folk in america can’t be neatly summed up by this kind of analysis – and even if it could, i wouldn’t be the one capable of doing it. i’ve approached it generally which is unfair to all who suffer from specific forms of oppression. i highly recommend reading about each one in specific to even begin to understand how they work and the experience of those who deal with it on a regular basis.

the point of this post was to explore the idea that supremacy exists in multiple levels which can be used to justify other forms of supremacy.

one of the more frustrating aspects of supremacy is that when explained in isolation, practically all individuals will see why supremacy of any kind is unethical but there is cognitive dissonance when confronted with how it manifests in everyday life. as an example, most white people will agree that white supremacy is wrong but will have a 2 hour ted talk about why their behaviors don’t make them racist despite their actions being textbook racism. i’m going to deliberately ignore the ones who have willfully identified with a supremacist ideology because they need a type of help that i can’t offer.

the same applies to homophobia, transphobia, nationalism, and just about every other flavor of supremacy which is commonly discussed. i want to believe this is because everyone wants to be a “good person” but whatever values underpin their ethical understanding (plus how they define their in-group) prevent them from being able to accept their behaviors which align with supremacy. as an aside, i hate the “good person / bad person” framing of supremacy and toxic behaviors. none of us want to be hateful but we perform hate regularly because it’s invisible to us – identifying those behaviors require us to separate action from intent. it’s much easier to correct behavior when it’s not attached to your (for lack of a better word) personhood.

to anyone who has done any amount of reading on fascism or supremacy, none of this is news. many of us are familiar with fascist tactics like dehumanization in order to exclude certain groups from the common in-group so that they can be routinely exterminated without much resistance, even from the “good ones.” however, one thing i’ve noticed which doesn’t get talked about as much is that most of us hold some type of supremacist belief (and more commonly, many types). i don’t think many would protest to the extermination of all mosquitoes, for example. most of us don’t view mosquitoes as having intrinsic value and the moment their existence causes any inconvenience to human life (which does have intrinsic value) it’s time for them to go. we don’t hate mosquitoes, they’re completely fine when they’re not a personal inconvenience! i certainly haven’t identified with a movement about the extermination of mosquitoes or any other insect.

this isn’t a post about fighting for the right to exist for mosquitoes (well, mostly), but i think it’s important to recognize that the mechanisms for supremacy are deeply baked into our experiences. if we can relate a person, for example, to the same (lack of) intrinsic value of something like a mosquito, the implications are clear. common forms of supremacy i see which are often unquestioned by average people are anthropocentrism and ageism. it’s not hard to explain why depriving children of autonomy is a bad thing, but make sure you’re ready to hear a battery of reasons why that’s exactly what we should do “for their own good.” equally fascinating to me are the justifications of pet ownership (as distinct from conservation efforts): “i love my pet so much, that’s why i made sure to get a designer breed which is prone to significant quality of life and health issues, dont prioritize their accessibility to healthcare, and only fulfill their social needs when its convenient for me.”

minorities tend to be more sensitive to these things because we’re often otherized, moreso when at the intersection of multiple minority identities. they’re forced to acknowledge these things early in life which (i believe) make them less prone to this type of thinking. obviously this is not a universal truth: there are many severely oppressed minorities which hold abhorrent beliefs. i just find that privileged folk tend to have less impetus to introspect about these things.

so uh… the entire American tech industry has shit itself and there are no longer any tech jobs at all, whatsoever. could anyone recommend a new career path for me? I am:

• very technically minded
• very fast at learning things on my own - especially if I can tinker/experiment with them (or a simulation of them) to gain an intuition
• extremely good with computers, programming, etc.
• cripplingly socially anxious, so ideally it should involve as little interaction with people as possible
• very anxious in general so it shouldn’t be a stressful job, ideally
• on a truly disgusting sleep schedule. I’d love if I could do shift work instead of having to wake up at 8am
• looking for a job that has a lot of demand for workers, so it’s easy to get hired. I’ve been trying to get a tech job for years but nobody likes me
• okay with going through a training program for up to a year, but no longer than a year

I’d really love to hear about any options that y’all know about