Emotions vs Facts (Just a couple of posts to the Youtubes)

Just a couple of posts I am making to the youtubes right now. Maybe they are just reiterations of things I've said before but I want to jot them down for now.

If someone says that they don't like something or someone, then that is their opinion, which is subjective, and cannot be verified of falsified. On the other hand, if a person says that someone is "sick" or "wrong," these are factual statements. Those making a claim are subject to the burden of proof.

I would not call them "close minded" or a "bigot" because that is an ad hominem and not relevant to the topic of discussion. What matters is they are responsible for backing up their claim.

And a separate, but very much related comment:

People have emotions and emotions are not always rational. When someone has an emotional reaction, that is not something that they can control, so I am not going to blame them for that. What matters is people's actions. 

Posting to a public forum is an action,  but merely expressing your emotions is at worst rude, and there are lots of rude people out in the real world, so I have no argument with their emotions, even if I disagree with them.

Their emotions are their problem, not mine.

The above comments were not made to anyone in particular, but are a reaction to the general discussion over the last couple days.

Here is a comment that is a direct reply to a specific post. You can read between the lines to guess what they wrote.

You might think it is "too much" but that is not your decision to make. Riley's life belongs to her. Unless she is violating the life, liberty or property of another she is free to live her life as she chooses.

If you don't like the way that she lives her life then that is OK because that is your problem, not hers and not mine. Just don't pretend that you can draw factual conclusions based entirely upon your emotions.

Does anyone think I should repost most of my comments here? Or is anyone actually reading this stuff?

Haters Gonna Hate

If you are going to respond to haters, one thing that I feel cannot be said enough is don't take it personally. For one thing, often it is hard to tell the difference between a sincere hater and a troll. A troll does not necessarily care about what we do, they may just be pretending to be a hater. The only thing a troll cares about is eliciting an emotional reaction. How to tell the difference between a troll and a hater can be tricky. There is a similar situation with religious extremism known as Poe's Law.

At the end of the day it doesn't make much of a difference since they both tend to act the same. This illustrates another point that I would like to make. When you are responding to a hater, do not think that you are going to change their mind. If they really are a hater you are unlikely to change their mind. If they are a troll they don't really care in the first place, they just want to get your goat.

If I am not trying to change people's minds, what am I trying to accomplish when I respond to their comments? I am trying to be a voice of reason and give some perspective to other people who might be reading the comments. Not everyone is going to have a strong opinion on this subject. If the only posts they see are negative then they may see the issue as one sided. On the other hand, if you come off as a reactionary, or just as much of a jerk as the hater, then people will get a negative impression of the ABDL community.

It is very important not to allow yourself to be upset by the comments of haters. For one thing, it will reflect in your posts, and distract from the real issues at hand. Maybe they are a bigot, maybe they are not. It does not matter though because it distracts from the issue at hand. Tolerance goes both ways, and remember tolerance does not mean acceptance. You can tolerate a person being a bigot and still think that their position is wrong.

Freedom of speech applies to everyone regardless of if they are right or wrong. Bigots have freedom of speech to post comments in a public forum, and we have the freedom of speech to respond to their comments and call their BS BS. Remember that they are the one making a factual claim so they have the burden of proof to provide evidence to support their claim.

I think the best way to do this is to respond apathetically with logic and reason, and respect whether they deserve it or not. If they are a troll they will get bored when no one gets upset. If they are really a hater then love, tolerance and respect will drive them completely up the wall. I find it quite amusing myself. They get progressively more upset with each rational comment you make, and they reveal themselves as the raving lunatics they really are.

Another thing, who really gives a dirty diaper what some loser on the internet who you've never met thinks about you? They are not worthy of your ire. Besides, even if you were not an Adult Baby there would still be people out there who would hate you. For anything that a person could be or do there is someone out there that will hate them for it. I am tempted to propose this to be Rule 43, as it is sort of the antithesis of Rule 34. I did a search and there are already three separate definitions for Rule 43 on Urban Dictionary, but I don't know if any of them have wide acceptance.

Anyway, you don't need the acceptance of anyone except those who mutually consent to participate with you. Tolerance can be a tricky issue, but if you are conservative about who you tell about this, and I think you should be, that should not be much of an issue. If you are considering telling someone that you are an ABDL, you need to ask the question, do they really need to know? Remember, a person cannot discriminate against you for being an ABDL if they don't know you are an ABDL.

The Philosophy of Liberty is based on the principle of Self-Ownership. You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life, nor do you own the lives of others. You may live your life as you choose so long as you do not violate the life, liberty or property of another person. Never mind the haters. Life is precious. You should enjoy it.

Responding to Religious Based Arguments

Recently an antagonist has been making a lot of comments, mostly, or entirely, based on their religious beliefs. The first comment I made was not in reply to any of their comments, but when they replied to my comment I replied back. What they wrote was not particularly noteworthy so I will not bother to post any of it here.

Religious based arguments are irrelevant. Riley lives in the US where we have freedom of religion. Riley, like everyone else in the US has the right to follow the religion of her choice, or not, as she sees fit. There is no official state religion here.
Also note that ABDLs are a diverse group. It is not surprising that the majority of ABDLs in the US are Christians, as that is the religion of the majority in the US. In Dubai or Iran I expect that the majority of ABDLs there follow Islam.

You have a right to believe whatever you want to believe. You have a right to your own opinion, but you do not have a right to your own facts.
When you express that someone is "sick" you are making a factual claim. Factual claims require evidence based in reality. When you post such claims in a public forum, others may respond by challenging you to provide evidence to support your claim.

Normal is boring. Come to the dark side. We have cookies! :)

I didn't think this was my best comment when I posted it. It was mostly for the humor. As far as I know the poster that I was replying to was not being negative towards ABDLs, at least they were not being overtly so. Anyway, the comment now has a score of +22, and was in the Highest Rated Comments for a few days. Maybe it was a better comment than I thought.

This makes me feel normal.

Normal is boring. Come to the dark side. We have cookies! :)
Seriously though, beyond their AB activities, most ABs are pretty normal.
Personally I don't have any problem with the word weird. There is nothing inherently bad or good about being normal or weird. I prefer to judge things based on their own merits rather than moral relativism.

Suck it Up

Here are my replies to a person on youtube who asked "why can't these people suck it up?" When I asked him to clarify because his question didn't make much sense he talked about coal miners in third world countries and how none of them ever complain, and none of them are ABDL. My reply took up three posts. Maybe I should have made it more concise, but obviously there was a lot to clear up. I could have written even more but three posts is pushing things. In fact, it hasn't accepted the third post yet so maybe I should leave it with the first two for now. I really shouldn't post more than twice in one day to the same video. But it is only in the third post that I address his main question so hopefully this won't get me into trouble. Others are posting a lot more than I do anyway on this particular video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LY5Z6tyrY8 

You seem to be making a number of assumptions.
Adults have responsibilities. They have to earn income to support themselves, they have to pay their bills, keep their home clean and maintained etc. etc. I'll leave it here for lack of space.
After an adult has taken care of their responsibilities they have time for themselves. For people who are adult babies one of the things that they enjoy doing in their free time is wearing diapers and age regression roleplaying. {end p1}


{part 2}
ABDLs are a very diverse group. We come from all ethnic, family, political, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. There are ABDLs in all 50 states of the US, and every region in the world, including the middle east and third world countries.
ABDLs may be employed as Fortune 500 executives, or as truck drivers or construction workers or IT professionals, or small business owners, etc. etc.
We get the job done, and when we are done we have time to ourselves. {end p2}

{part 3}

The amount of complaining a person does is irrelevant to whether they are an ABDL or not. Everyone has to deal with the hand they're dealt. Some people are better off than others. In all walks of life there are people who complain. It is a good guess that ABDLs number over 100k in the U.S. Of course some of them are going to be complainers. Whether ABDLs complain more or less than the general population is another question entirely.

I posted the 3rd comment, but didn't have enough room for my concluding question:

What does being ABDL have to do with complaining?

Don't resurrect old threads

A corollary to the Take it Slow concept is to leave dead threads alone.

If someone was harrasing us and making false accusations months ago, but has not posted in months then just leave them alone. Quite possibly they are a troll but either way do you really want those types of comments on the front page of ABDL videos?

They might be false accusations with no basis in reality, but some people believe the worst and ask questions never.

Both of these fall under the concept of reducing drama.

Take it slow and stay on topic

Today in youtube comments there was a.... there is no polite way to say this, a screaming match clusterfuck.

Two people posted maybe two dozen messages in a few hours.

I try to post a message, or maybe a few messages, and then I quit for the day. For one thing, it allows heads to cool if things get heated. This applies to both sides. For another, maybe someone else has something to add, maybe something more constructive. If you only post once a day that allows others to enter the discussion.

And try to keep it a discussion if you can. Try to keep it civil even if the person you are responding to is not being civil.

Somewhat related to this is staying on topic. For one thing, changing the topic is a fallacy.

Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion^[1] or irrelevant thesis) is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question. "Ignoratio elenchi" can be roughly translated by ignorance of refutation, that is, ignorance of what a refutation could logically be; "elenchi" (genitive singular of the Latin elenchus) is from the Greek ἔλεγχος, meaning an argument of disproof or refutation.^[2] This is one of the fallacies identified by Aristotle in his Organon, and in a broader sense he asserted that all fallacies are a form of ignoratio elenchi.^[3][4]

Another thing is that it makes things very confusing. If you go off and start talking about politics for instance then they will start attacking you for your political opinions. And if you attack them for the political opinions that is just as much a fallacy. And for goodness sake do not make assumptions about what their political opinions might be. At the very least recognize that ABDLs are a very diverse group and there are ABDLs of every sphere in the political spectrum.

Even within the general topic of ABDLs there are many topics of discussion. If you can stick to one point at a time you will make better arguments. This isn't always easy or possible as those who are hostile to ABDLs will spew nonsense with multiple tangents in a single comment. If you yourself go off on random tangents too then it makes things that much more difficult to follow. Having a goal to stay on topic will help you to make your case more clearly.