So, I don’t know why I am doing this, but I was reading “Log Off” by Katherine Cross more carefully, after a short discussion here, and here. It seemed to me a good idea to have a post dedicated to this, and possibly in the future if this works out, about other books. The book is dense, and highly relevant to Lemmy and broadly Fediverse culture, and it spells out nicely some things I had thought before, but in much more packed and well thought-out way. I found myself highlighting something on virtually every page. So I guess I would like to post my thoughts on these highlights and see what other folks think about those as well. So here goes. I am posting the quotes as separate comments to this post, to facilitate them being discussed more thoroughly.
I did not expect when I posted this that it would be a field trip on the very phenomena Cross is taking issue with.
You are not jumping with me anywhere. I invited people to comment on the quotes of another author.
Negligence of COVID prevention is important. To me, trans equality rights are important. And a score of other not only important but critical topics, from climate change to ableist structural eugenics.
But by dunking on each other in places like these, even if Lemmy / Mastodon is not corporate, achieves nothing. Your comment does nothing. My comment does nothing.
We had this mentality passed on from corporate social media, and it is just wrong to think that our posting achieves anything good the internet has to offer, to activism or otherwise. This is the true message of the quote, and not minimizing the importance of any macro-, structural, systemic topic.
That said, for those still grasping with the notion of weaponized sincerity, the above comment is the more fine specimen of it.
For the record, I’m aware that this is not your quote. I am adressing a rhetorical “you” in my message. However, I’ll use the more direct you now. You asked for discussion about the quotes you posted, and I gave it to you. I am not sure what’s weaponized about my sincerity but it is, indeed, quite sincere.