I'm generally a pretty damn tolerant person. But tolerance isn't in anymore.

I'm moderate in the way that I can almost always see an argument from both sides. And despite considering myself liberal for most of my life, the left shifted away from me and I couldn't get behind the circlejerk that has become leftist thinking. I had to start shutting up, because even implying that the other side might have legit reasons for their ideology was enough to get me not just banned online, but outed and demonized in real life. I searched on Google for MONTHS trying to find a thread of common sense in all the bullshit. Or even just acknowledgement that one other person felt the same way I did. And meanwhile, the left got lefter and the right got righter, and everyone got fucken angrier and lost the rest of their chill.

Anyways it took me an entire year to even find these differing opinions online. I searched a lot, and I still have no idea why it's so damn hard to get those things to come up on google. Eventually I landed on lgbdropthet, gender critical discussions and I forget what else. I was on a lot of subs, I disagreed with a lot of them, but I respected them a lot for speaking the things that nobody else would say. And for having discussions without losing their shit and throwing accusations.

I am tired of media controlling our emotions to get views and clicks and loyal readers. I'm tired of targeted ads and advertising psychology. I'm tired of the division, the money that drives it, and if I had more energy I'd try to explain the mechanisms behind that, but I think you guys get it. Which is refreshing.

I don't give a shit if you're Republican, Democrat, leftist, Marxist, gay, black, white, depressed, otherkin, whatever the fuck you are. I don't care if you came from theredpill. I may think your beliefs are stupid, delusional, and harmful as fuck, but making you shut up about them is just gonna make you angrier anyways, right?

All I care about anymore is if you can have a decent conversation with another human being who disagrees with you. The issue isn't what you believe. The issue is that we've learned to shut out other opinions, and these isolated communities have taught us it's wrong to grow or change our perspectives based on new information from outside our own circles. Fuck that.

I'm so sick of the division but I'm relieved that so many other people have been feeling the same way as me. I've been holding this fear for over a decade.