I have just recently (I think it was this year, but could have been late December) reconsidered my views and slightly changed them, too. But the view that each individual should be responsible solely for getting the best possible outcome for themselves is just so good it's going to take a lot of really compelling arguments to change that. Even this whole thread is a very good example of why that is the case — when you have the following views:
- when you disagree with someone, it's the other person's fault for being a person who disagrees for the sake of disagreeing
- when you derail your own thread, it was the "trolls" who derailed it
- when you're posting stupid and offensive stuff on the Internet it's the fault of a lot of negative crap in your life coming up to the surface on its own without you having any influence on it at all
- when people have actual data showing that you've been more rude and insulting than the other posters after you've accused the others of being rude and insulting, your being rude and insulting is also a direct consequence of the (non-existent) rudeness and insults by the other people and you were completely devoid of any agency on that matter and the person collecting the data is also at fault for going through all that trouble just to have one more thing to scold you for
- when you don't have data about the subject you're making a thread on and you make estimates as a substitute, and a bit later someone (presumably the first person who still remembered where that data was) comes and has the relevant data, all of your false estimates were false because other people didn't tell you you could have looked up the data yourself
, you tend to cause shitstorms and get banned. And the next time you join a forum, it's going to happen again because somehow after the last incident, the other people haven't managed to improve themselves so that they could cater to you. Feeling entitled to certain kind of special treatment from other people causes trouble for the people around you, not receiving that special treatment causes you to hold stupid grudges against people, perceivably not being able to influence things in your own life is very unsatisfying and things suck for yourself and everyone involved.
If I'm participating in a discussion online with someone who disagrees with me even though I don't like it, it's my own fault for participating in it. If I derail a thread that I'd rather not have derailed, it's my own fault. If people call me out on posting stupid stuff on the Internet, it's my own fault, and if a lot of negative crap is going on in my life, that's also my own fault. Even if people were being rude and insulting towards me, that would be my own fault for not deserving better treatment, and taking offense from lighthearted jokes would most certainly be my own fault. Then I can learn from the experience, become a better person, and hopefully next time things will work out better.
As it turns out, with these views, I managed to have this discussion without appearing overly antagonistic while thoroughly enjoying the entire thread. I've also been under the impression that most people who are important to me actually do like me, and I don't really see how it would make them like me more if I stopped intentionally trying to be a person that they would like and started demanding that they have to do their best to be the kind of people that I like instead.