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I was at the hospital for my bi-monthly treatment today, and I got there an hour earlier, since after taking my daughter to daycare, there was no point in going home or work between. Instead, I sat in the café with a coffee and started writing a [post](https://leofinance.io/@tarazkp/the-immersive-content-value-of-leo), while listening to three old men in their 70s use the "N-word" and a few other religion-based slurs loudly. 

Later, I mentioned this to my wife and she said that they "were from another time" and when they were young, it was normal. I would agree - if this was twenty years earlier - but they were my age in the early 90s and would have been still working at the turn of the millennium, making them part of an internet-connected and globalized-business world - one where Nokia was a world-wide success with a English as a company language. 

"Another time" doesn't really hold up, but we tend to look at *old people* as if they fought in World War Two, but this group would have been born in the mid-1950s, ten years after the end of the war. How long is an adequate amount of time for people to change culturally?


![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/8FymFyuc-image.png)


This is a difficult question to answer of course, because it is driven by personal experience. For example, a couple of weeks ago when I was picking up my daughter, a five year old boy saw me come through the gate and said to his friend, "Finns aren't like that kind" - and it slid out of the mouth smoothly, using language that the average five year old wouldn't use. It reminded me of being in Kindergarten myself - where as I walked in the gate on the first day, I discovered I was colored and extended my vocabulary to include a new "N" word. 

Now, this isn't one of those "poor me" posts, I am no snowflake and I am definitely no victim in this world, but I do find it interesting how pervasive culture is and how sticky it becomes in families. We are products of our environments and our family and close connections growing up have profound affects on our attitudes toward others, as well as our ability to cope with change of the familiar. We create our identities around these attitudes and attach labels to others *and ourselves* in order to differentiate, segment and build a sense of belonging within groups. 

While I understand this, it is also somewhat difficult to put myself in the shoes of people who believe they have to be part of some narrow slice of a group in order to feel belonging. The reason is that I am generally pretty comfortable around most groups, no matter their background, as I have both enough experience with a wide variety of people and I have the social agility to adapt to most groups to the point that even if I am not accepted as a member, I am also not seen as some kind of threat. Because of this, I am able to spend time with people and tend to have open and honest discussions with them, even about some highly contentious topics, including race, religion and politics. 

The adaption doesn't come from mimicry to be like the members of the group to build rapport, it comes through being open, honest and authentic. This requires not getting too emotionally invested to the point where reactions aren't controllable, no matter the topic that arises. This in itself builds rapport, while still leaving the room to actually be in opposition and argument. What ends up happening is that no matter the topic, it never reaches the point where it needs to be defused, because I don't tend to attack in reaction to the things I don't like, I usually react with consideration of what was said. This creates a discussion of two-way communication, where a person can raise hard topics with me and my response sets the tones for their response, when I raise my own. If I react with anger, there is very little chance that they will keep a level head.

This is part of the problem that I find with social media outrage, as people act as if they are victimized by everything that is said, even if it wasn't said to them. They "weigh-in" on discussions as nobodies with the sense that because they can type, their judgement and emotional response is justified - even though there has been no rapport built. This allows them to build all the arguments in their head and bind them to an emotional charge, without any two-way discussion or a face in front of them to temper the reaction. People wind themselves up and then snap, believing that it isn't their fault, it is that of what some random person on the internet said.

I see these stories from time to time about people videoing and publicly reporting on people doing or saying things that have hurt their feelings in some way, posting it to social media for *attention.* Same on Twitter, where people respond to tweets outraged and critical of what someone has said, without actually caring about what is going on - they are just doing it for some "public support" from unknown strangers. 

Imagine getting lots of hearts, shares and impressions on a tweet - and then finding out that the majority of the support came from Pedophiles. Is that the group you would want to resonate with and be socially attached to? 

I think that this is an interesting area, as even though the profiling exists, many of the metrics that we are given on social platforms, don't actually tell us much about who supports us, as they focus on the numbers of supporters. Does it matter to you *who* supports you on Hive or, is it only about the value they provide? You can't choose your supporters - but you can influence the market segment through the type and quality of content.

Going back to the concept of "another time", we have seen over the last few years an increase in the amount of digging being done into digital pasts, where especially celebrities are having questionable Tweets and posts brought into the light from a decade ago. I do not think this is useful behavior as times change and applying todays norms to the norms of even a decade ago is dangerous. 

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*Imagine seeing a picture of an old war plane and emblazoned on it was a Swastika. What goes through your mind? This was a common sight in Finland, as they adopted the Swastika for their air force in 1918 - two years *before* the Nazi party made it their symbol and Nazism spread across Europe. My point is, the cultural rules of today, can't be applied to honestly judge the past.*

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However, while the celebrities are raked over hot social coals for what they have said years earlier while they were younger and in a different life position personally and culturally, what is *never* mentioned, are the supporters who supported at that time. When they dredge up an old Tweet to condemn, do they check the types of people who liked it? This is the same with fake news to a degree also, as while it can spread like wildfire, it is spread by supporters, but they are never held accountable - even though it is they who propagate the lie and they are known by the platforms. 

This dredging up is the anti-thesis of an open and honest discussion held in the moment, as the moment has circumstances that will not be recalled later and, the moment has already passed, unable to be reenacted well. It is a "had to be there" situation and *pretending you were there* and being outraged and victimized by what was said is ridiculous. But, the majority of people do it for attention, not because they are actually hurt by it. In general, people who are genuinely hurt do not advertise their pain on social media, in a similar way that people who are suicidal don't usually tell others they are going to kill themselves, they just do it - which is why it so often comes as a surprise to people close to them.

*In another time* I have said many, many, many things and a lot of them are here on the blockchain. In 4300+ posts and almost 40,000 comments, I have *probably* said some stupid things, but are those things the summation of my life? Unlikely. We are always changing form and this includes the way we see the world. Some of us mature to be wiser and more understanding - some of us mature to become petty and bitter, blaming others for our lot in life. I don't know how much of this is a choice, but I do think that on a daily level, we can affect the outcome by the decisions we make in the moment.

What I find interesting with those old men from another time is, if they had been a little more curious, we probably could have had a decent conversation together. But, if they had been a little more curious, they probably wouldn't have ended up talking like that in the first place, as they would likely have been far less ignorant, after having far more experience. 

Some of the best conversations I have had in my life are with people who are openly racist, as they don't feel the need to hide their attitudes toward me, meaning they can be authentic. And because I approach the conversation openly too, we can have a good time discussing different perspectives, often whilst standing on the same side of the table to be in the other's shoes. The conversation becomes an exploration, not an argument and we can walk away respecting each other, even if we don't agree. 

When people are polarized to the point they can no longer have a calm discussion, that is when the real problems start, as there is no opportunity to discover a solution together. Instead it becomes two, one-sided arguments that look to destroy the other. 


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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