Jay Gabler

philolzophy:

I think the evangelists have it wrong. I think will is entirely irrelevant. If you’re an especially frightened person you can choose to surround yourself with reassurance, sure. You can stack the deck so that a change in thinking will be extremely unlikely. You can read apologetic texts, listen to Christian radio, immerse yourself completely in Evangelical culture. This is a lifestyle in which it’s unlikely you’ll encounter any bumps in the road that might cause you to question your beliefs. The point is that your beliefs are formed by your socio-political place in the world and the family you were born into and are unlikely to be changed because someone tells you “jesus saves” in passing.

True ‘nuf, but there is a way to game this system. Sociologists and psychologists have documented the fact that people’s beliefs tend to fall in line with their actions. Start smiling, and you’ll find yourself weirdly feeling happier. Start spending a lot of time with someone, and more likely than not you’ll start feeling more positive about that person. One study found that a surprisingly high proportion of pro-life activists started becoming activists through social networks, when their thoughts about abortion were mixed or conflicted or even pro-choice; once they started licking envelopes and folding flyers, they came to believe that abortion was a deep moral outrage.

This is why canny evangelists try to get you to come to church before they try to convince you to share their beliefs, and why smooth operators try to get you to “just have a drink” before they put the moves on you. (Also see: intoxication effect.) If your brain sees your body doing something, there’s an unconscious pull for it to snap into line. Pro tip from social science: you can’t make yourself believe something, but you can make yourself act like you do…and you might be surprised to find your beliefs changing to match your actions.

At The Tangential, we have complementary gaming deficiencies. Becky’s bad at trivia, and I suck at word games.

thetangential:

This question has been on my mind lately – by that I mean every Wednesday night, as I contribute next to nothing to a trivia team I go to mostly because it’s an excuse to eat chicken fingers.

Let me back up: I like the idea of trivia. Learning while drinking? Those are two of my favorite…

We are the 50%. Unfortunately, however, I did not do X off Sam Pink’s butt.

philolzophy:

I guess the Pop Serial rager was kind of successful because we are driving back to Minnesota and at least 50% of the people in this car have puked so far this morning leading to a lengthy lunch conversation about the pros and cons of barfing:

Pro:
-you totally feel better immediately after
…

I haven’t studied or experienced eating disorders, so I’ll tread cautiously in anything I say about this issue—but I have studied media and society, and from that perspective I appreciate the suggestion that the way people interact with media is complex, and the effects of media aren’t always what they seem to “obviously” be. This is a tricky case, because these blogging communities are interactive, not just top-down: you could say that watching violent movies doesn’t make someone violent while still arguing that participating in a community of support can lead to codependence and shore up distorted perceptions of reality. It’s a tough issue, and I hope that before making this decision, Tumblr looked at whatever research there’s been into these communities…there may not be much. Hopefully, if nothing else, this move on Tumblr’s part will open up dialogue about eating disorders and their complex causes. Of course, it would also be nice to think that Rihanna’s decision to collaborate with Chris Brown would open up dialogue about why women (and men) return to abusive relationships rather than just a flurry of angry tweets saying how stupid Rihanna is, but I’ve only seen the angry tweets.

In this particular case, my hunch is that Tumblr is responding to a more specific stimulus than a general concern for their users’ welfare. Will Tumblr be the next Twitter, or will it be the next MySpace? Tumblr’s creators and investors want to see the platform grow and become mainstream, and a huge scandal over eating-disorder blogs would certainly throw a wrench in that, whatever the psychological complexities might be. I agree with the PhiLOLZophers that this move puts Tumblr in a content-moderation position that it would be least complicated (and ethically simplest, if not necessarily best) to just avoid altogether—but some kind of moderation was probably inevitable eventually. I hope this situation leads to more discussion about the issues the PhiLOLZophers raise, by people better-informed about eating disorders and their causes than I am.

philolzophy:

Tumblr is shutting down blogs that promote self-harm. This means pro-anorexia, pro-bulimia, and pro-self harm blogs are dunzo.

I have to believe this is because of the misconception that these communities are about encouraging people to have eating disorders and causing existing eating…