Every time I see that little red number in my inbox, my first thought is: Did I mess up? My brain jumps to the worst-case scenario—maybe I said something controversial, and now everyone’s correcting me and downvoting my stupid comments. Even though, most of the time, the messages are actually helpful and fun, that number still triggers some sort of insecurity and anxiety. The bigger it gets, the louder my worries grow.
Logically, I know I don’t screw up that often, and most feedback is neutral or even positive. But deep down, my insecure monkey brain panics at the thought of being wrong—or worse, publicly called out. Even when I’m right, the number still makes my stress levels spike up. What if people disagree with me? What if they don’t like what I wrote?
And yes, I see the irony in posting this. Writing about it is basically asking for it and feeding the very anxiety I’m trying to ignore. Maybe it’s my version of exposure therapy.
“Oh here we go. Why do I keep posting honest takes on things instead of getting a feel for the general vibe and blindly agreeing with the majority?”
I feel this comment acutely.
Try mentioning that you’re a Christian that despises the GOP.
All they hear is Christian and the comments begin.
If I blindly agreed with everyone, I probably would be dead, having killed myself from the lack of moral obligation and common decency this species seems to be deficient in. I’m only sticking around because I feel like this is the end of the Anthropocene and I want to witness it. Is that honest enough for ya?
Some times you just roll the dice and see what happens. Make a risky comment of the day, pay the price, get back up again and do the same thing next week. Basically, just spread your unpopular opinions in places that weren’t designated for it.
I’ve burned my fingers a few times, but also found some unexpected supporters. Write a teasing remark about a particular group, and you’ll find that everyone hates you and you get downvoted to oblivion. Say the same thing in a different place, and all you get is upvotes and comments that go even further than you did. It’s a dangerous game for those who like to live dangerously.
Blindly agree with the majority if you want to play it safe. Not a very spicy way to live your life, but I can see the appeal of it.
More like a resigned sigh and wondering which comment pissed off the tankies this time.
At least one of those notifications will be calling you a liberal.
Its funny when you get called “fascist” by tankies, but also get called “communist” by the conservatives.
Then Reactionary by jai.lu
Yeah, but you don’t respect those pissed off commenters, so it’s easier to distance yourself from them. Maybe that’s my problem. I don’t usually try to be abrasive enough to cause such reactions, so I take each comment more seriously than I should.
Knowing how to be abrasive is a very useful social skill, I think.
I saw a YouTube video from this guy who just liked to yap and tell stories. He was friends with a trans man, though I don’t think he knew at the time. Probably figured it out at some point, but it never changed their relationship. They were just best buds.
Well anyway, this trans man passed away, and the youtuber went to his funeral. The guy’s deadname was all over the memorial display. They’d prettied him up to look more feminine. Even clothed his body in a dress, I think. People gave eulogies about her memory, her significance, her this, her that.
The youtuber (and this was all before he was even on youtube, by the way) finally had his turn to go up and give a eulogy. He went up and said a few words about his friend, and then absolutely laid into these people for their callousness; for barely understanding who this guy, the deceased, even was; for amending his history and mourning only the parts of him they could actually stomach. And then he left. Not much point in staying in the service after that.
Being able to do things like that, though, requires some emotional strength. It’s a skill you have to practice. That youtuber wasn’t the only one there who felt that way, but he was the only one to say anything.
That was a pretty good example. He was defending a minority by being abrasive towards those who just go with the flow and perpetuate injustice. If some people got offended, they got what they deserve.
Nah, I like seeing big numbers in the notification box. Monkey brain likes big numbers going up. And it feeds my validation, that my comment is important enough for people to respond to.
Yes, but what if they’re also infuriating enough. I have very mixed feelings about that number.
Humblebrag.
Most I’ve ever had is 1-2. Guess I’m not that interesting.
I think you’re somewhat interesting.
I appreciate your kind words.
The number of comments, likes, upvotes, responses and other metrics rarely tell you about how interesting you and your comments are. Let’s say there’s a post with 100 upvotes, and the top comment has like 50 upvotes. If you drop a comment there, you can expect to get 10-30 upvotes. Not more than 50, because the the parent comment already has 50. In some rare cases, the child comment can get more upvotes than the parent, but don’t count on it.
You are still a wonderful person even if you get only a handful of comments or upvotes. Even if you got zero, that doesn’t change who you are or how good your comments are. These metrics usually tell you something about the time and place of the comment.
The content matters too, but to a lesser extent. If the comment is all middle fingers, don’t expect many upvotes. Although, there are always exceptions. Posting the classic “fuck spez” is the kind of hostility people can get behind.
I should add “fuck spez” at the end of all my posts just in case. :p
That makes me miss the old forum days where everyone had some fancy bonus text (a signature) at the bottom of each post. Why don’t we have signatures any more on any platform? Was it really such a bad idea that it died with the forums?
Sometimes I’ll be super active commenting and posting on lemmy and it actually gains traction and the next day I’m like “what have I done?!”
Yeah, that’s a familiar feeling. One evening, you find interesting things to write about, and the next morning you have a stack of replies from the other side of the world.
Not worried exactly - but aware that I probably said something factually incorrect and now dozens of helpful people are lined up to set me straight.
I would have to post something that people interact with… I’m not that kind of person. I usually get none to one reply to stuff I post, I think the highest mine has ever gone is three. I also couldn’t keep up with it.
It’s mostly about time and place. What the post actually contains matters far less. Post in a big community or at a time when most people are awake, and you’re guaranteed to get lots of upvotes and comments. Post in a niche community, and you’ll be lucky to get a handful of upvotes, and maybe even a single comment.
It’s like a box of candies…
Surprising constructive discussion or did I clumsily step on someone’s ego again?
Yeah, that randomness can be addictive… and anxiety inducing. You never know which seemingly harmelss comment kicks up the hornet’s nest and which doesn’t until it’s too late.
I guess I don’t comment enough for that to happen. Or I’m too old and don’t gaf if even I myself sometimes can’t follow my thoughts.
I do, and not only on Lemmy, but also Whatsapp, Teams, email etc. It’s the fear of screwing up and/or missing out, and a wave of anxiety combs over me when I see a number >0. I’ve been talking with my therapist about it, there are reasons and methods to overcome this…
Teams is hell, on a job we had all teams having their channels (so like 30?) and you were “supposed to follow them” but they churned out hundreds and hundreds of messages every week, add your own channel and emails and gasp your work… So productive.
Same here - any notification, for anything, my immediate assumption is that it’s someone who (rightly or wrongly) is angry with me or has bad news, or whatever. It’s fucking exhausting.
I feel you.
Same thing when your boss calls.
[tele tubbies ring tone]
Gulp. The whole office must be on fire and it’s all my fault, isn’t it.
[answers the phone]
Oh ok. Lunch at 11.30. Sure, no problem. See you there. Bye.
Phew.
Wow! Anything above zero? That must be agonizing. At work, I get lots of Teams messages, but I don’t find that so crippling. It’s just social media stuff like Lemmy where I have such mixed feelings about the numbers.
Oh, and sorry for the reply. Hope you can handle it. Here, have some flowers to cheer you up. 💐
Haha, thanks :)
Well, I don’t use any social media (besides Lemmy), so that helps :) There are a couple of Whatsapp group chats where I rarely participate, but I muted those, so I don’t get any alerts.
Oh WhatApp group chats? I can still remember the time when I had those. What an awful waste of time. Don’t miss those bad old days at all.
Lol sorta. For me, I run official accounts in these sorts of circles mainly because I despise modern corporate social media platforms, I’d still be on newsgroups if it weren’t so much work lol.
So, I do enjoy seeing notifs, mainly in the hope (like every other boring ass economist) that I get to have some dialog on an interesting topic.
Wait, you’re an actual real-life economist?
Don’t mind if I do. I’ve wanted talk to economists for such a long time, because that’s one of the many areas I couldn’t include in my formal studies. Yeah, you gotta graduate eventually, and you can’t keep on adding more and more courses that have nothing to do with what you’re really trying to achieve, LOL.
Anyway, I’m really curious about the state of economics as a discipline. Do you see it as a mature science, or do you think economics still has a long way to go? Are there widely accepted solid theories that no longer change? You know, like a solid foundation you can confidently build upon? Is every new recession a hurricane that tares through the walls and buries the previous foundation under a mountain of mud?
Lol yea, think tank thing is real as well. First-gen student and all that, so thought hell I have the education might as well use it, even if I’m a one man show here. This is genuinely turning into a whole lecture here lmao so uh, good luck lol.
Funny you say that, that’s actually one of the reasons I’m trying to push my local library to host a few community education semminars and the such, in a perfect world I would spend my life going from one subject to another just soaking in everything I can.
Economics as a whole, and the economists themselves, can either end up being practically stuck in the 19th or 20th century, or standing right on the bleeding edge of theory and application. While as a field in and of itself, economics equally relies on existing mathematical principles for use, so it’s a rarity to find an economist trying to create new mathematical principle like you would with a mathematician, but you will find lots of economists working to use new mathematics to integrate into economics models. A good example of this, is how often models used in the world of physics end up being used in modeling economies, or specific sectors. Even right now, the most common model used for determining market averages is a 19th century equation developed to determine the temperature of a room. Though that’s not even looking at the priciples of the subject, which are as old as know written language, if I recall you can still find basic economic principles on old cuneiform tablets. As for actual acceptance of theory, it’s pretty much always up for grabs, given it’s a field of observations on the real world, it’s impossible by it’s nature to have a universal proof, mathematically speaking at least.
As for currently widely accepted theory, the easiest to point to in the modern world are two basic assumptions. First, is that in any given economy, growth is considered a perpetuity. In the junior economics world (aka business leaders lol) they take that as the mantra “expand or die,” though it’s quite a bit more accurate to see each part of an economy, whether that’s a single business or entire sector, as limited in it’s current full potential, but the additions to the economy as a whole tend to be stay within the whole, in one form or another, even if that firm or sector disappears. Mostly this is through research, infrastructure, even how taxes paid get redistributed. So, you can technically have “infinite” future growth, while still operating within a limited resource world.
Of course the problem is most businness leaders and politicians don’t end up taking that longer run thinking, and just jump into the take everything you can and give nothing back bandwagon.
Recessions are a bit of of a hot-bed in the policy side of things, given the underlying assumption of the post-war economic models implemented in the US after WW2, and copied world-wide, is that consistent inflation on a year to year basis would be able to both foster greater economic growth by increasing total possible credit in an economy (which it does) but, that that year to year constant inflation rates should also prevent recessions and general depressions. Of course that half hasn’t come true, most senior economists over the years have pivoted into the viewpoint that controlled inflation smoothes out larger recessions and depressions, but that’s still up in the air. Since the 2008 recession was very much a depression, with many recessions ocurring pretty much decade after decade since it was enacted in 1945, it’s very much being questioned as a central policy, but for the most part it hasn’t collapsed so it’s still probably going to be enacted.
Thanks for the wall of text. :D Really appreciate it that you took the time to explain these things.
Anyway, I have some follow-up questions about the stability/volatility of theories. Recently, I’ve been thinking about the how firm and solid the models and theories are in different sciences. For example, physics has all the basics pretty well nailed down, whereas in psychology even the basic things tend to get frequent updates as more data becomes available and old ideas get challenged.
In physics, there are models that have known blind spots. Currently, we know that our model of gravity is ok for large objects such as tennis balls, planets, stars and galaxies. In an atomic scale though, our model of gravity just doesn’t line up with our understanding of quantum mechanics. So what about Economics then? Have we identified serious flaws in our economic models, like we have with gravity, or are the models about as solid as the theory of atoms or energy?
Or maybe the models are more like suggestions that kinda work occasionally, but mostly you have to take the predictions with a grain of salt. You mentioned that the idea of controlled inflation smoothing out larger recessions and depressions is still debated, so maybe that concept could be contrasted with the theory of gravity. It works for the most part, but there are known issues with it.
When atoms and electrons were discovered, a whole lot got rewritten, but now that we’ve been working with these fancy new particles for about a hundred years, this part is looking pretty well established. Finer details like string theory is anything but solid, but the big picture is nice and firm. It doesn’t look likely that any new data would lead to us throwing away our idea of atoms. Quite the contrary, now that we’ve even got pictures of individual atoms, and we have the means to manipulate them individually. Obviously, the finer details are absolutely going to change as better data becomes available, but those topics are quite exotic, like dark matter and dark energy.
The whole concept of atoms is about as solid as it gets, but are there comparable theories in economics? Something fundamental that has been tested countless times and nobody has been able to prove that the idea is wrong. Something that is accepted as a foundational cornerstone and is unlikely to get thrown out the window. Maybe something like supply and demand, but is that actually solid enough? Does that stuff get tested, debated and challenged? Have economists found some holes in these kinds of theories?
Lol sorry for taking so long, night classes are totally kicking my ass.
I love the way you put the question, to give you a simple answer, no.
The closest I could say that would fit the bill would be the general assumption that if one person has one thing, another person has another thing, there should be some measurable mutual demand in most cases that will allow for a mutual agreement as to make a trade.
Outside of that, pretty much the entirety of the field is based on various assumptions that compound one another, or build upon earlier assumptions to try and make better theories as to how the markets function, or how to use past and current data to create better predictions of the future markets. While less so do now, many would dedicate their time towards better study and understanding as to past market conditions as well.
Coming from reddit where I used to post on big current affairs subs there isn’t really anything comparable here.
I comment to put my opinion across and also to be challenged. It takes me a long time to change my mind on something but it’s only by hearing opposing views that it ever happens. In the meantime I generally enjoy defending my position and that’s what I’m here for. It’s a different perspective from yours but if a bunch of people disagree with me I don’t think that I’m “being corrected” I think “my correct opinion is in the minority here.”
Sometimes I do get a feeling of “here we go again”, that’s all
You’re approaching it in a more sensible way, and I prefer that style too. It’s just that my immediate emotional response to seeing the number is not in line with that sort of thinking. Most of the comments are totally harmless, so why worry so much. Some part of my mind just does irrational things.
Well, I hope your exposure therapy works!
So far, so good. We’ll see how that works out when I wake up tomorrow and look at a mountain of unread notifications. People on the other side of the planet tend surprise me.
No
Someone disagrees with me.
Someone is pointing out an error I made.
Someone is arguing an exception to prove me wrong.
I made an agreeable statement.
In that order of priority.
Wait, so you’re primarily expecting the responses to be written by people who disagrees with you? You must enjoy politics.
Haha, yeah I do comment a bit in politics. Here it’s not too bad, I tend to have similar views as many here so the disagreements are the “genocide joe” type more often than not.
Not necessarily anxiety, but yeah usually my first thought is, “Oh shit, what ignorant thing did I say now?”
Yeah, anxiety is a pretty strong word, but feeling worried is what I’m really talking about. You know, that uncomfortable feeling that you may have said something wrong and you’re worried about what people might say. It’s in the the same general direction as anxiety, but nowhere near as extreme as actual clinical anxiety. Maybe “worrying for nothing” is a more fitting expression for this thing.
