#punch bug

the punchbug article is basically lauding having agency removed and being forced to experience minor injustice from your friends on a regular basis which you can't complain about and can't reply to in kind (unless you're sufficiently good / lucky at the game) it's a semi-official structure supporting bad behavior people already do to abuse people who are not as good at things or aren't as popular the pain isn't the point - the point is the fact that the victim just has to take it where it gets really gross is that the article writer talks about the fact that you can't opt out and then lauds it while being so unbelievably obtuse he doesn't see why that would be at all a problem that you don't have an escape from this around the people who are supposed to be your friends and, uh, if this is traumatic, which it definitely could be part of (probably in combination with a lot of other things) - having it precipitated by your friend group would make it so much worse beyond this, the author completely and absolutely misses the point of microaggressions microaggressions are like little pushes under the water when you're being drowned the fact you're being drowned is a big deal, and the drowning is a composite of a hundred little pushes it is unsurprising the person being drowned is rather displeased at the drowning even if each little push is not a massive contributor, or that they become hypersensitive to anyone trying to push them into the river they might be more amenable to little pushes if they were not being pushed into the river at that moment by someone who is completely unwilling to notice that they are part of the river-pushing the author seems to be mentally modeling this as an equal-opportunity thing where everybody takes some hits and becomes better for it in reality, of course, these dynamics almost invariably end up with some people on top and some people not-so-on-top - from british boarding schools to american public schools - and people not so on top having their self esteem crushed and learning where their place in life is and not to complain about it and having a big thick layer of emotional scar tissue built up which can often lead to hurting others in the same way through life because that's what you were taught was normal this is the opposite of healing and being vulnerable and expressive and empathetic to the hurts of others

my entire family is really physically tough.  all of my siblings can Do What Needs To Be Done when it needs to be done regardless of how hard it is or how long it takes, and i have a variety of siblings i wonder how much of that is genetics, how much of that is a resilience which comes from being taught to view things in a certain way as a result of religion, and how much of that is other parts of upbringing like, why is it that everyone can just work until they physically drop if necessary and "when they physically drop" is way, way longer than it should even be possible why did they have that response to the pressures put on them instead of, say, developing CFS there is a valuable thing there!  resilience is super great.  and I do think that learning to confront minor trauma in the proper way so that you can build past it is a key part of developing that but I think the punchbug approach doesn't discriminate between "building resilience" and "knocking someone down" it is.. sometimes freeing to be around non-rat people where i'm like holy shit i can actually live and exist i don't have to be constantly paranoid, walking on eggshells because everyone is that super fragile in certain ways

right, but mentioning something does not suffice if your entire argument hand-waves that away that byline is, in fact, the core of the microaggressions argument ok, granted, i'm being hyperbolic here he does in fact mention this but then why have an entire section which ignores it it does not feel like he actually groks how this works that line is not refuting anything, it's just handwaving it away

one reason i have this impression is because he thinks (the entire reason microaggressions are bad) only affects 1% of people

and he has various friends who have a problem with microaggressions this tells me that he never listened to ANY of these people enough to figure out why the fuck they were actually unhappy

and/or couldn't understand thenm which is really problematic either that, or he thinks the amount of trauma and social-hierarchy bullying which is common esp in adolescence is actually a-okay a lot of people take shit because they don't have a better option because people really really don't want to be alone not because they like it or because they don't have the option to be alone

so fiddle with the #s i definitely see more than 15% being negatively impacted in a significant way

a related thing: i like going on vacation with people who are extremely resilient to insult because traveling involves lots of shit going wrong, lots of people being tired and upset at the wrong time and lots of minor injustices which can cause grievance and if you have someone who just does Not Give A Fuck because they realize everything comes with the territory it makes everything 1000x better this tends to go along with "being willing to try things you dont like" and "have a great time anyway"

this is an amazing thing that i like in a person.  like, i know someone like this and i have traveled with him and it's 1000x better than with anyone else because i can be like WE'RE GONNA GO TO THIS FUCKIN HEAVY METAL CONCERT and he'll have a BADASS TIME even tho he doesnt like heavy metal and he'll go.  and he'll rock out and he'll experience it to the most and vice versa you cannot travel with someone who isn't like this because you can't do anything because there will be something about everything at least one of you doesn't like.  you can't experience things to the fullest. you need someone who is like "yes let's do the fuckin' thing" the difference here is that I don't force people to travel with me and then be like this. you can't I don't know how to make people more like this.  and i have a fear that duncan's thing is (part) of the solution in some cases, but i'm not even sure if that is true.  i do agree with the immune-response paradigm.  the problem with duncan's piece is (everything i said earlier.)  yes i agree with parts of his paradigm, i get a viscerally strong negative reaction to his portrayal of it. just because someone has parts of the system understood and I intensely agree with certain subconcepts doesn't mean I think the entire thing is well structured being resilient and open to experience is good.  however, it's really strongly genetic imho

and trying to force people to be that who aren't is a recipe for TRAUMA

and punch-bug is not the best way to get there to the extent you can train someone.  making them feel safe, and then venture forward at a rate they are okay with - that is better yes agreed also rats tend to fail strongly on physical stamina type factors because of not growing up doing farm work or labor jobs or things which train you in that manner and that is big for a lot of things that is part of why i think gym is huuuuge for rats, to avoid back problems, sometimes RSI, and the various physical ailments that being stronger protects against to an extent and to just have a body that is better at doing what you want it to do and not collapsing on you.

Here's the version I knew growing up: