Ask Lemmy

I used to believe that useful idiots were the exception, not the norm.

I thought America were the good guys…

that people as a whole are inherently good

nope. nope nope nope. people are inherently selfish

half the population of the world seemingly needs to believe in fairy tales and a magic book to give them a moral code. people will, time and time again, do things for their own convenience or desires at a greater direct and immediate expense to somebody else, i.e. knocking somebody over to spill $10 out of their pockets and only steal $2 and run away.

fuck people. people will get respect when they earn respect. everybody else gets basic decency and nothing more, until they prove they're not an asshole. and the moment they prove that they are an asshole, they get treated like one.

Israel was justified in their (initial) retaliation for October 7.

Gone so far in the other direction that I now firmly believe Israel should be wiped off the fucking map. Decades of propaganda convinced me they weren't violent colonizers.

Fuck Israel. From the river to the sea.

Hanlon’s razor

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”

Evil does exist, and it wears the mask of imbecility

That people are smart.

Most people are abject morons who still believe in Iron Age mythology.

I used to make fun of vegans. Now I am one of them x)

Politics. We have always been a conservative family (to relate: "conservative" here is the equivalent of the US Democrats, not Republicans!). My grandfather was a party cofounder and lived next door to our countries first chancellor after the war.

But the sheer disregard for the law by the (conservative) chancellor who was in office when I grew up turned me to the political left.

math is hard, annoying, useless

then found shaders, procedural art, freya holmer.

so math is hard, annoying, beautiful. well not exactly 180 then.

That comunism was wrong

I was raised in a somewhat homophobic household. One of my friend groups throughout high school was pretty densely LGBT, and so I grew. Exposure was all it really took.

I used to hate when Avatar: The Last Airbender aired. The episodes felt like they lasted forever, and I had no interest in anything that was going on. I finally finished watching it about a year ago, and it is one of my favorite shows to date.

Eating meat. I used to vaguely mock vegans when I was in college (UK, so 16-18 years old). I used to say shit like "don't you just miss bacon though" and "the animals already dead, you might as well eat it now or it goes to waste". I've since done a 180 and I'm close to 10 years of veganism. Best decision I ever made for both my health and mental wellbeing.

China bad America less bad.

I think China is no worse than america now. I don't put effort into buying american products anymore and will happily buy Chinese goods.

That I was a straight Christian.

Freeing myself from those chackles are probably the biggest pivots in my life.

Conservatism. Used to be a conservative around being 18-20. Then I left it after I saw what giving 2/3rd of the seats to Orbán did in my country. Now I'm not only an anti-fascist, but I also actively oppose conservatism.

When we thought fascism would never come back, we had to learn fascism was just conservatism at its logical extremes.

In high school, I was pro-death penalty. As part of a class on politics, I was randomly assigned the anti-death penalty position to research and debate on. I very quickly changed my opinion when I learned about the systemic racism involved. Now I'm an anarchist

First of all, I liked America as a kid, that opinion changed fast. I was very fundamentalist Cristian conservative, but this strongly went against my values of compassion at some point, and I was the type to constantly question things. So at first I just lost faith due to how there was no evidence for Cristianity being based on anything real, since I would be putting my own and other's wellbeing for a belief in what is anectodal evidence, I told myself that I had proof, I would believe it, I got tricked, and started to believe in it again, then did a 180 AGAIN.

I would see trans people as degenerate freaks, but by some point, I knew this was irrational, and then a friend revealed they were trans, and I didn't show even a hint of the disgust, even though I was weirded out, I just went with the online trans support script on how I'm supposed to act, but I had like zero experience (or personality). So they kind of faded out of my life, sadly. Either way, they instantly Wolololo'd me just by existing. I no longer think ill of trans people, but ngl, thinking about their very happy expression as they stretch some latex shit they found, still weirds me out (not trans related).

I as far as recently, utterly hated furries, and would see them as groomers. Again, having furry friends helped, but I was never 100% comfortable for a long time, until I meet a certain (ironically no longer furry) person. No, I did not do a 180, I was guarded and would sometimes be rude and dismissive. I disliked a game for being furry, but I basically grew into it thanks to OpenMindedness™ that again, developed from some sort of philosophy.

(Note: this is getting to dense to phrase properly, so I will try to make it more TL;DR).

I was asexual for more than one reason, I was questioning why I was like that, but never did anything about it, until ironically a roleplay bot did something inappropriate that I punished it for, but it made me think, and I knew I was cutting myself out of a very human experience for dumb reasons, went very freakish on Reddit and Lemmy NSFW for a while, then due to both constraints, and my well...moral disgust with humans, I did a 180 AGAIN, and I'm now at least behaving like an asexual, my only exception is a friend who I don't directly have an NSFW relation with, but I talk NSFW, and I'm more than willing to hear him out on anything they need (so long as it's not myself).

A few other things: I used to be very bootstraps, which ruined me. I do believe help is important (but no longer have the trust for it). For a long time, I valued forgiving and accepting people, and I put up with a lot. This unfortunately, has come to an end as well, and I am VERY wrathful now, want to smell burnt flesh level of wrathful, cut off friends suddenly level of wrathful, cut myself from things I need to hurt others level of wrathful. It took a long time of what amounts of being tortured, and massive injustice for me to become like that, and it serves a purpose, it is not a character flaw. There are many things I forgot and don't think about here that are an extreme departure of my previous beliefs, and I am nothing like my old self, and my old self would probably want to burn my new self at a stake.

Israel.

I thought it was complicated but they had a right to the land because of the holocaust, that countries around them should learn to get along with Israel

Now I know founding Israel was a mistake. Explicitly saying it's a Jewish state will inevitably lead to other groups being suppressed, i.e. Apartheid if not outright genocide. And they are not hated in the region because Muslims and Jews cannot get along, but because Israel was built entirely on stolen land, and they are still in the process of stealing more and genocide those who stand in their way

I used to be a conservative who shot guns weekly and reloaded ammo. I was deep into the group for years.

The last 6 years I've been democratic, gone to protests and do my best to educate others about the dangers of being on the right.

Problem is, on social media, everyone assumes your lying or a bot, so I can't help convert anyone over to the brighter side.

I used to be anti-nuclear energy until I learned a bunch of science and engineering behind it. Turns out things are less scary when you know more about them.

Edit: I also learned that it's okay, and usually preferable, to not have a strong opinion about things that you don't know about.

That science and programming are hard.

They are not. It’s just a bunch of rules much like learning a spoken language.

The American dream.

Born in a south American country, I've grown bombarded by USA propaganda. Later on, by studying word history through different points of view, I've realized the evil USA imperialist practices are and the damage it has imposed to all the "underdeveloped" countries. "Not all USA is bad, but it's always USA doing bad things".

That a dictatorship led by a "good, strong leader" would be enough to fix any country. Held that belief from ages 16-22. With time, I understood that it would devolve into a bad strong leader anyway, especially because any one single person cannot realistically do everything at such a large scale, nor can they ensure that everyone down the chain of command is "good". Paranoia would seep in, more and more resources would be spent hunting "the bad ones", innocents would be wrongfully accused either by honest mistake or by malicious enemies.

Nowadays, I really enjoy the idea of "Do not take for yourself any power that you would loathe your worst enemy to have" and I wish it could be applied to all levels of politics.

idolizing celebs, prof athletes, actors, singers...etc.

I turned 13 and learned what they basically do and how much they earn compared to doctors and teachers.

Well, I was raised a super political conservative, Mormon. Now I'm an Atheist Liberal. Does that count?

Used to think that if you put in the work at your job, showing loyalty and dedication, that the company would take care of you. That's how it worked for my parents...working for the same place starting as a college intern through retirement, or changing jobs when they felt like it when they wanted to move elsewhere.

It sounds naive now after years in the real world being taken advantage of, getting passed by, and getting laid off because of a company's whims...but when I showed up in the job market with a degree and good grades from college it was quite a shock.

Religion and politics.

Was raised Christian (Protestant; not sure which subchapter, but I've sung Psalms in whole-notes, rhythm, organ or drum and guitar - it didn't matter much), but turned secular/atheist around the time The New Atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris - the four horsemen, lmao) went around. Part was several youtube videos, part The Selfish Gene audiobook.

Nowadays, I still consider myself atheist, though I call myself heathen after the pre-Christian religion(s?) we used to have in the Netherlands (which is basically Norse mythology, but we call Odin Wodan, and Thor Donar. We also have a few extra figures like Frau Holle, some local legends, etc. I also wear two rings with the Elder Futhark alphabet, and a chain with Thor's Hammer.

I just think Germanic Myths and Legends are just neat.

Regarding politics: I used to regard myself as Liberal, but the more I learn about Liberalism (starting at John Locke, and ending with John Rawls) the less I like it. It feels like it's individualism and egoism to an extreme, and I think it will be damaging to humanity at large in the long term.

What would replace it? I'm not sure yet. I do feel we should probably try to get families living closer to each other, to ensure they can better support each other - nowadays a family can easily live all over just fine, which just means they'll grow apart. Yes, yes, not every family can do that, because some families are assholes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Our capitalistic system is breaking the family tribe apart, and I think that's bad for everyone involved.

Also, forced paternity tests. If men get the burden of fatherhood legally shoved onto them, then they should get legal evidence the child is theirs. I think cuckery (raising another's child without knowing - not the sexual act) is a deeply immoral move, a deep and traitorous move, and if women use the legal framework to force men to pay for support, then they should be OK with us using the exact same framework to support ourselves, right? That would only be fair, right?

Before using AI for the first time: "Holy shit this is gonna be dope!"

Aftwr using AI: "Yo wtf? This is bullshit."

I used to joke about eating two animals for every one a vegetarian didn't eat. I've been vegan for over a decade now, pulled a bit of an uno reverse in my early twenties.

I was raised conservative, back-country compound with apocalypse preppers, homeschooling, israel prophecy, the whole nine yards. I was raised with The 700 Club and Rush Limbaugh playing every day and night.

I read science books that distant family members managed to smuggle to me in gift boxes alongside other "safe" books like Kid's bibles, I learned more and more about the world around me, I started collecting my own book collection and just read and read and read, and the doubts started to grow, uneasy, shameful, scary-as-fuck doubts.

But the big turn happened when I got out of there, and America started one it's many wars and I was watching FOX news cover it. A humvee passes a civilian box truck and shredded it to pieces with an automatic grenade launcher. Probably a family trying to escape the city... cut to the host, smiling and praising America's might, and that's when it hit me: We're the bad guys.

A few more things really sealed it, when I had friends start to come back from these conflicts in boxes, or a couple guys I knew who blew their own brains out after coming home. I still despair at these horrific wastes of life and I can't figure out why more people don't see life as precious. How fucking stupid do you have to be to justify war, murder and causing destruction to society.