Eroding Friendships


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On 3/25/2019 at 3:14 PM, unixknight said:

You name the demographic and chances are we've had someone play in our group at some point that represents it.

Transsexual Nazi Tuvan throat singers?

On 3/25/2019 at 3:14 PM, unixknight said:

This group has run almost continuously since 2000.

So, a bunch of noobs.  Got it.

On 3/25/2019 at 3:14 PM, unixknight said:

The problem is that Penny isn't the only one in our group who thinks that way, and those who see things from her point of view are a tight knit group of friends who also hang out when not in my D&D campaign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

One machine should be able to kick out enough juice for 3-5 people.

On 3/25/2019 at 3:14 PM, unixknight said:

I *HATE* the idea that politics has infected my gaming club like this.

One friend has the policy that if you bring up politics in his dojo you will get thrown hard by the nearest person or people capable of it.  Maybe you could try something similar.

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2 hours ago, NightSG said:

One friend has the policy that if you bring up politics in his dojo you will get thrown hard by the nearest person or people capable of it.  Maybe you could try something similar.

I had a buddy who had a rule where if you argued with the DM, then “Diem The Mystical Dragon” comes down and steals the last item you used

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19 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

This problem really isn't about politics at all, rather it's a people-not-getting-along problem.  Such is human nature, and is not remotely your fault.  So I see two avenue of approaching this:

In this case, I gotta stick with blaming politics.  We're talking about people who weren't like this before, but have now changed.  I was able to overlook the changes for a while, but now I'm thinking I should have somehow addressed it long before it got to that point.

19 hours ago, Mores said:

Around the time of Bill Clinton's trial.  It got worse during W.'s tenure.  Still worse during Obama.  Now, with Trump, we're talking civil war.

Well if it's to be civil war, I'm glad I'll be on the side that's actually armed.

18 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

Would it be possible to have a "no politics/no religion" policy?  If people cant respect that, they've chosen to separate themselves. I agree with @Jane_Doe that it's a people problem, not politics.  

I've thought about that, but I have 3 reasons to not do it.

  • People will talk about what they want to talk about.  I can barely keep them form injecting Monty Python or Princess Bride lines into every other roleplay scene as it is.  Capping the topics of discussion during the social hour that precedes each game?  Not a chance.
  • That feels too much like censorship to me.  In a group of adults, it shouldn't be a problem.  If someone can't be an adult, that's a failing with them, not in my social atmosphere.
  • The line between subjects that are  political and subjects that aren't is so fuzzy now I don't think it's possible anymore.  Can we talk about Star Wars?  Superhero movies?  Oops.  Nope.  Those have all been politicized now.  
18 hours ago, LiterateParakeet said:

I'm fairly Liberal and some might say an SJW.

You're no SJW.  The fact that you're here and willing to even have conversations with those you don't agree with demonstrates it.  I respect that.  A lot.

10 hours ago, NightSG said:

Transsexual Nazi Tuvan throat singers?

Got 3 of 'em.

10 hours ago, NightSG said:

One friend has the policy that if you bring up politics in his dojo you will get thrown hard by the nearest person or people capable of it.  Maybe you could try something similar.

Like I said to LP, I can't do it.  We have a social hour where we chat, catch up on each other and have dinner for an hour before the game starts.  Sometimes the conversation is about politics, sometimes it isn't.  Ever since I trimmed he group down to just the people who can be adults, it's been completely peaceful and friendly, even when there's disagreement.  It isn't a bubble.

8 hours ago, Fether said:

I had a buddy who had a rule where if you argued with the DM, then “Diem The Mystical Dragon” comes down and steals the last item you used

I've thought about doing that during the game, but it feels a but too authoritarian.  I've found that as long as the players don't feel like they're being shafted, and if you're otherwise generous to them when it comes to the rules, arguments are rare.  

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42 minutes ago, unixknight said:

I've thought about doing that during the game, but it feels a but too authoritarian.  I've found that as long as the players don't feel like they're being shafted, and if you're otherwise generous to them when it comes to the rules, arguments are rare.  

I think you are right 👍 the rule was implemented for a specific player. whenever a bad roll was made or a bad thing happened... he would complain

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Guest MormonGator

I have to admit that I find this a little strange. After I graduated college, I can't really remember anyone making a fool out of themselves like Penny did in a social situation. Oh sure, my friends and I discuss politics and we do not agree with each other all the time. But we always stop before someone does something really stupid. The same goes for religion. We argue and debate about religion but it never escalates to this level. 

 

Does this happen a lot to others? Serious question. 

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Guest Mores
8 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

I have to admit that I find this a little strange. After I graduated college, I can't really remember anyone making a fool out of themselves like Penny did in a social situation. Oh sure, my friends and I discuss politics and we do not agree with each other all the time. But we always stop before someone does something really stupid. The same goes for religion. We argue and debate about religion but it never escalates to this level. 

Does this happen a lot to others? Serious question. 

No, it does not.  Most sensible people know to stop before it gets to that level.  But not everyone is sensible.

As a manager, I make it a policy to not bring up politics or religion in the office.  But if a subbordinate interjects something, I will correct him.  Then he goes and reports it to HR. I've only seen liberals do this to their managers: Bring up the topic and then report others for responding.

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Guest MormonGator
Just now, Mores said:

No, it does not.  Most sensible people know to stop before it gets to that level.  But not everyone is sensible.

As a manager, I make it a policy to not bring up politics or religion in the office.  But if a subbordinate interjects something, I will correct him.  Then he goes and reports it to HR.

 Thanks bud. 

In college one girl stopped talking to me because I dared to believe something different than her. I was hurt by it because I thought we were friends, than I found out that she had pulled the exact same thing with about four other people. So I chalked it up to being on her, and it's never happened to me again in my life. 

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1 hour ago, mirkwood said:

You should have laughed and then told her bigots have no place in your campaign.

I really wish I'd thought of it at the time.  My problem is I really try to see things from others' point of view, and normally it takes a while for it to really sink in and I realize that no, they're just being unreasonable/irrational/words I won't use on this forum.

I wish I could share the E-mail exchange between Penny and me afterward, but that wouldn't be appropriate since it was a private conversation.  There was one element that really stuck with me that I wish I'd handled differently.

Keep in mind, this E-mail exchange was mostly calm and cordial.

So early on, she said that there had been an incident around 11 years ago or so, in which some of us (meaning the conservatives) were saying homophobic things and she sat silently and said nothing.  Afterward, she berated herself for not standing up for the gay people in her life.  She presented it in a lot of detail so even though I don't remember such an incident, and it doesn't sound like something any of us in the group would do, I extended her an apology, solely on the basis of my belief that she was a) rational and b) remembered correctly.

Later, as the discussion proceeded, and combined with her behavior at the game, I began to realize that the incident she was talking about probably had a lot more to do with her perceptions and assumptions than anything legitimately hateful on our part.  Maybe somebody commented on homosexual behavior being sinful, or maybe I expressed my lack of support for same sex marriage or something.  Add a few years and a lot of emotion and presto!  You get someone whose memory has been colored by time and extra baggage.  I do not hate homosexuals and I never have, and the same can be said for the others on the conservative side of my group.  I wish I hadn't apologized, because that apology was based on my faith in her, which I now know is not justified.

At any rate, this was her motive for causing a scene at that last game session.  Her regret over not speaking up 11 years before moved her to melt down on this occasion.  I can understand that, in a way, but afterward she was unwilling to discuss anything in the E-mail "I'm not going to discuss this with you" became a mantra.

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On 3/26/2019 at 12:28 PM, unixknight said:

Penny first joined us in D&D back in 2002 or 2003.  She was a young high schooler and I quickly began to regard her as a niece.   In those days, my group was about half adults and half kids, and we even played in the church building with our Bishop's permission.  She has been described as one of the nicest people you could ever meet, and I really believed that until last August.  Now, I'm forced to wonder.  How long has she been so contemptuous of my views and beliefs?  How long has she been wearing the mask? 

Is she in college?  There is lots of indoctrination that goes on there these days.

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Back in the early 2000's where I worked the guy at the desk next to me was openly gay and we often had lunch together.  Up here in Canada this was when the debate over gay marriage was going strong and we talked about it many times at length.  It never got heated and while he never agreed with my side of it, he did come to see that it wasn't about hate and bigotry.  I think the chances of that happening now are much lower than back then and it is sad.

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5 hours ago, Mores said:

It is stuff like this:

https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/27/chris-evans-tom-brady-donald-trump-new-england-patriots/

that reinforces my belief that we're on the verge. 

Just because someone has differing political views, they refuse to be friends with people.

Yeah... pretty hypocritical for a guy who makes his money from people with differing political views.

But no, we're not on the verge more so than before.  It's always been this way.  We just have MSM who are not hiding their views anymore and the internet to magnify every stupid comment made by celebrities.

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Guest Mores
42 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Yeah... pretty hypocritical for a guy who makes his money from people with differing political views.

But no, we're not on the verge more so than before.  It's always been this way.  We just have MSM who are not hiding their views anymore and the internet to magnify every stupid comment made by celebrities.

You may be younger than I am.  But I remember the time when people did yell at each other.  But people could still be friends with those with whom they disagreed politically.  And most of the time, people yelled because they actually knew what they were talking about.

Today they de-friend people because of rumor, speculation, and innuendo alone.  So, yes, it is worse than years ago.

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1 minute ago, Mores said:

You may be younger than I am.  But I remember the time when people did yell at each other.  But people could still be friends with those with whom they disagreed politically.  And most of the time, people yelled because they actually knew what they were talking about.

Today they de-friend people because of rumor, speculation, and innuendo alone.  So, yes, it is worse than years ago.

I'm old enough to have heard of stories of Vietnam Vet supporters getting spat on by their hippie families... and I was in the Philippines!

People in the pre-internet days could be friends with those they disagree with because they can close their doors and pull the curtains 95% of the time.  They only have to put up with their "crazy friends" 5% of the time.  In the information age, you can't close the door and pull the curtains on your friends anymore.  They litter your Facebook and troll your Twitter 100% of the time.

 

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Guest Mores
27 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I'm old enough to have heard of stories of Vietnam Vet supporters getting spat on by their hippie families... and I was in the Philippines!

Yes, and such hippies were not the dominant culture in America.  They were simply a rather large minority and fringe group.  But I guess you could say they've grown up and pretty much taken over the Democrat party.

Today, this political intolerance has become a dominant part of American culture on both sides of the aisle.

27 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

People in the pre-internet days could be friends with those they disagree with because they can close their doors and pull the curtains 95% of the time.  They only have to put up with their "crazy friends" 5% of the time.  In the information age, you can't close the door and pull the curtains on your friends anymore.  They litter your Facebook and troll your Twitter 100% of the time.

What Facebook?  What Twitter?  

Oh, the sites you VOLUNTARILY sign up for just so you can say hi to those people you don't want to hear from on a daily basis?  Huh???  Since when was it impossible to simply close an account?

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3 hours ago, Mores said:

Yes, and such hippies were not the dominant culture in America.  They were simply a rather large minority and fringe group.  But I guess you could say they've grown up and pretty much taken over the Democrat party.

Today, this political intolerance has become a dominant part of American culture on both sides of the aisle.

What Facebook?  What Twitter?  

Oh, the sites you VOLUNTARILY sign up for just so you can say hi to those people you don't want to hear from on a daily basis?  Huh???  Since when was it impossible to simply close an account?

We talked about this on another thread.  I would’ve linked to it but I can’t remember what the OP was titled.  We talked extensively about the modern Public Square.

Your position that you can just shut down social media is a generational shift.  It’s like saying “when I was in school we didn’t have calculators!”.  Well, we have calculators today so telling a Statistics student, you should be able to solve that problem without a calculator is well and good but a Statistics student is unnecessarily handicapping himself by avoiding the modern convenience of using one.

Social media is a fact of life today.  It’s how the world communicates now.  We don’t just call our mothers living halfway around the world on the telephone anymore.  We send her texts, respond to her tweets, like her youtube channels, follow her instagram, etc etc etc.

 

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On 3/26/2019 at 5:01 PM, Mores said:

So, here's an example of just how close to civil war we are at:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/45123/shock-video-abortion-advocate-beats-85-year-old-amanda-prestigiacomo

Check out the list of similar occurrences at the bottom of the article.

I have a hard time feeling bad for the old man.  I am very much anti abortion, but I am also very much pro civility and the old man was certainly not being civil and essentially tried to cause an accident.  Of course I don't stand behind the moron that was kicking the old man either.

The old and the young acting like children...

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35 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

I have a hard time feeling bad for the old man.

False equivalence strikes again. The old man was trying to retrieve his property. For you to compare that to the battery committed by the thieving younger thug demonstrates this generation's inability to distinguish evil from other.

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Guest Mores
13 hours ago, anatess2 said:

We talked about this on another thread.  I would’ve linked to it but I can’t remember what the OP was titled.  We talked extensively about the modern Public Square.

Your position that you can just shut down social media is a generational shift.  It’s like saying “when I was in school we didn’t have calculators!”.  Well, we have calculators today so telling a Statistics student, you should be able to solve that problem without a calculator is well and good but a Statistics student is unnecessarily handicapping himself by avoiding the modern convenience of using one.

Social media is a fact of life today.  It’s how the world communicates now.  We don’t just call our mothers living halfway around the world on the telephone anymore.  We send her texts, respond to her tweets, like her youtube channels, follow her instagram, etc etc etc.

Calculators provide a utilitarian benefit with few to no adverse consequences.  Social media has so many negative consequences with few actual benefits, I wonder why people stay on them at all.  While I have a Facebook account, I rarely get on there unless I have a specific purpose in mind.  Then I'm off of it for weeks at a time.  I truly don't understand the benefit or the attraction.

Edited by Mores
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