Let me tell you about how I totally messed up this week.

I recently got more active on Twitter…mainly because I thought it would be fun to just interact with people. Everything I do is so…siloed, if that makes sense. I put my thoughts out there, and then that’s it.

(Here and there I’ll get some of your thoughts—and I absolutely love it when that happens—so I thought, let’s go for more).

But, as I’m sure most of you know: Twitter kinda sucks.

Actually—that’s not fair. If you enter a conversation in the right place, it can be great and positive and full of “I like how you phrased that; here’s how I see it.” That exists. But oooh the other side of what’s there…

So I joined in with a comment on a post made my Steven Crowder. He’s one of the most popular political-commentating douchebags on the market right now. I shouldn’t have done it, knowing what his audience was going to be like, but hey—lessons to learn.

He posted a response to a video in which a news anchor pressed Florida’s governor (or…someone in office) to cite the examples of transgender athletes causing issues in Florida schools. She was looking for justification for new legislation that banned tans athletes for competing.

Of course, the governor (let’s go with governor) didn’t have any, but he—and then Crowder—went off into their canned arguments about biological differences between men and women.

I stayed out of that. Kind of. I chimed in simply to say: the news anchor wasn’t talking about peak potential of a biological male powerlifter vs a biological female powerlifter. She was asking very specifically about transgender children in school.

My only goal was to say, “that can be a separate conversation.”

It didn’t work. I ended up fighting off maybe a dozen attempts to drag the conversation into conservative talking points like that didn’t actually have anything to do with what I—or the initial video—were trying to talk about.

Which was kind of enlightening—having that real-world experience of something I’ve written about in theory.

I’ve talked about the importance of making sure you’re talking about the same thing before you get carried away in debate. That’s really freakin hard to do! It’s not just sticking to our guns or not being open to changing our minds. It’s…a refusal to even talk about the same thing.

One example of this that I can’t remember if I’ve written about is pro-life vs. pro-choice. I think I’ve written about it and never posted…

Anyway, it’s in the names of the sides: they aren’t talking about the same thing. A pro-life supporter would never also identify as anti-choice. A pro-choice advocate would never say they’re anti-life. Already the conversation is off to a terrible start. It’s simply not possible to find any sort of common ground.

I think that’s the biggest (and scariest) issue we face right now regarding the social divides that are forming. No one will even talk about the same thing. Again: it’s not even that people are digging in their heels. They’re actually not listening at all. Hell—sometimes that’s not even their fault though, because what the other side is saying sounds irrelevant.

I’m talking about women’s freedoms.

You’re talking about infanticide.

What?

I may as well be talking about rock and roll while you tell me who’s the best basketball player.

Framing the conversation is something we seem to lack the skill and/or patience to do. We just rush to the headline grabbing bullet points we think makes the other side seem irredeemable and us infallible.

uick… uick.. Apparently my key doesn’t work.

Kwik…wait now I forgot what I was going to say.

Leave it.

We need to be able to communicate. In reality, 90% of us would agree of 90% of issues. We just don’t bother to talk about the same ones at the same time.

I think we can agree Lebron James shouldn’t play in the WNBA. That’s what Crowder was trying to argue. That’s not an insane take. It’s just not the point.

I think he would agree that a thirteen-year-old playing rec-level volleyball won’t lead to the downfall of America. (Which is maybe why he consciously refuses to talk about it).

And so we come to “the point.” What’s the point?

I would say: we (you and I) need to be more aware of what different conversations people are having at the same time, and be more active in holding people accountable when they stray off-topic. I guess that’s a long way of saying, “watch for strawman arguments” but no…it’s more than that. Because you can make a perfectly logical argument based mostly in facts and reality, and present it as a counter-evidence in a debate. It’s often just…not relevant though.

So when we’re on social media nowadays and people are screaming about lockdowns or all lives matter or whatever tomorrow brings: let’s take the time to frame the conversations—and dismiss that which belongs in a separate discussion.

And that it is for today.

Love you for getting this far.

We got this.

Everything’s mostly kinda fine.

Puppies are still being born. The sun will poke through a couple hours this week (even in Ontario). I think the new LOKI tv show starts on Friday. Artists are still making music. Our friends are still alive. We’ll see each other again. And the world might not end in a hundred years. Who knows.

OK bye.