Two unrelated things (should I make these in separate posts or...?):
1.) Given recent discussion on social justice advocates and their… I don’t know the best way to describe this, sometimes poor epistemological habits? I thought I would post this
Is this it just me, or is this, like, literally the worst concept ever? It literally just means “someone slightly to the right of me” or “someone does anything that could be considering cheering for the other side”, backed with a dubious claim that these people are usually acting in bad faith. Is that even a thing people actually do, go on websites with people they disagree with and “troll” by claiming that they mostly agree except on certain issues? Outside of this context I have never seen this or had any reason to consider the possibility. Isn’t it more likely, that you know… people mostly agree with you except on certain issues?
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
I just don’t get it. How does a movement with motives so noble become this horrible? I mean, I kind of do get it, but still… fuck.
2.) How can I train myself to speak more eloquently? Like most people my generation, I say “like” every ten words or so (although I’ve gotten better at avoiding this), say um and other filler sounds a lot, and often say “you know”, “you see what I mean”, etc. I also tend to repeat phrases for “filler”—I’ll say things like “Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently.” (This looks really weird written out, trust me, it’s not that weird in real life.) I want to stop doing this because doing so will let me sound more authoritative, and also I’m kind of disgusted by this pattern of speech even though everyone does it.
Note that I don’t want to be one of those people who fetishizes the past and goes around forcing old-timey turns of phrase like “Great Scott!” into conversation and wears (yes) a fedora. I just want to be better at communicating concrete ideas in complete sentences in my daily life.
Concern trolling is a widespread phenomenon, not specific to feminist communities. The definition given in the first two sentences of that article is the exact concept that the phrase was coined to name:
A concern troll is a person who participates in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has some concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause. In reality they are a critic.
The article does then go on to broaden the concept to the point where it can be used as a club to invalidate anyone:
Concern trolls are not always self-aware, they may also view themselves as potential allies
Well, no. The whole point of the concept is that a concern troll is lying. They are, in fact, an enemy deliberately, consciously, intentionally, posing as a friend in order to undermine discourse. Someone who is actually a friend with genuine questions that they actually want to be constructively discussed is not a concern troll, even if those who do not wish the questions to be raised at all call them that.
I think there’s a Poe’s law type thing going on here: looking at behavior alone, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between a concern troll and a tentative ally with the right ideological background. That’s probably especially true for cultures like social justice that use a lot of endogenous concepts and terminology: within those movements, any concerns that don’t speak the language are going to pattern-match to “enemy” on linguistic grounds and suffer from the corresponding horns effect.
With that in mind, I suspect they exist but are pretty rare.
Incidentally Poe’s law is also highly misleading, specifically it’s mostly a statement about the person attempting to tell the difference not about the person being parodied.
I’ve seen them, and unlike Nornagest, I don’t think they’re at all rare. They’re one of the common forms that trolling takes. A certain person who was run out of here on a rail a few months ago fitted the form. (I’m not going to link, but his username in rot13 was WbfuRyqref.)
As for how you tell, well, how do you ever tell pretence from truth?
Would you mind sharing your evidence that (rot13: WbfuRyqref) was concern trolling, via PM if you’d prefer? I wasn’t involved in that little spat, and looking over his comment history it doesn’t seem entirely implausible, but on the other hand I’ve elsewhere seen people with, er, similar opinions posting in what I’m pretty sure is deadly earnest.
I have only the evidence of his own postings. This comment of mine was about him, and the pattern I describe there, running through all his postings, is a pretty clear sign to me. He appeared out of nowhere, made an unusual claim about himself that no-one in that position would have any good reason to disclose, then sat back and never engaged with anyone, instead trying to keep the pot boiling by muttering disingenuously about forbidden topics. Fortunately it didn’t work and he left (or was kicked, I don’t know.)
It is possible that he was also what he said he was (although I wouldn’t take the “celibate” part on his word), and using the cover of trolling to indulge a desire to talk freely about these things without the danger of being believed.
Of course, none of this is definitive. But we have to make judgements of people’s honesty all the time, and do the best we can. This is mine.
Concern trolling in the false flag political operation sense is a thing that happened
An example of this occurred in 2006 when Tad Furtado, a staffer for then-Congressman Charles Bass (R-NH), was caught posing as a “concerned” supporter of Bass’ opponent, Democrat Paul Hodes, on several liberal New Hampshire blogs, using the pseudonyms “IndieNH” or “IndyNH”. “IndyNH” expressed concern that Democrats might just be wasting their time or money on Hodes, because Bass was unbeatable.[37][38] Hodes eventually won the election.
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
It may help if you consider the possibility that some feminist communities do not exist for the sake of rational dispassionate and balanced discussion of feminism. Rather, a feminist community may be a meeting place for the members of a feminist movement of some kind, which exists to achieve its goals. Like any other political movement.
TL;DR. LW is not the real world. In the real world, arguments are always soldiers (even if you pretend them not to be), discussion requires resources, and resources are finite.
Mere fact that the resources are finite is enough reason to use heuristics and—inevitably—biases.
If there are hundreds of comments I am not able to fully reaseach, I need to use some filters. Such as “trust the comments from people from the beginning of the alphabet and ignore the comments from people from the end of the alphabet” or “trust the comments from respected long-time users and ignore the comments from unknown new users”. Obviously, some of these heuristics are much reliable than the others, but none of them is perfect.
Then, as abstractly thinking people we may play the game on a higher level, inventing meta-heuristics for accepting or rejecting heuristics. Such as: “if a more experienced member of my tribe recommends me a heuristic, I will use it; and I will ignore the heuristics promoted from unknown people or other tribes”. Actually, this seems like a decent heuristic; you probably won’t find a better one with comparable simplicity. And one of its consequences is that when an experienced member says “ignore concern trolls”, you follow that. Plus you need some operational definition of what a concern troll is, which is something like: “expresses concern for our tribe, but does not pattern-match to a typical member of our tribe”. There.
It’s imperfect because all heuristics are imperfect.
And of course smart people always find a way to abuse it. Because all imperfect rules can be abused creatively. For example some people may start using it as a fully general counteragument against anyone who disagrees with them and happens to have lower status in given community.
And the only way to fix it would be to send all internet users to CFAR’s reeducation camps. Which, unfortunately, are still under construction. :P
Well, you tell me: have you seen examples here of people engaging each other in order to learn from each other rather than convince each other of the rightness of their views?
It’s not a rhetorical question. When I first joined this site there was rather a lot of that, which was largely what pulled me in. These days it’s largely displaced by various other things, and it’s quite possible that a new arrival simply won’t notice it amidst all the noise. So I’m asking.
Oh there’s plenty of people engaging to learn from each other, right alongside a major echo chamber of people pushing a very particular cluster of mythologies and ideologies. I like it here a lot for the former and enjoy watching the latter go on while its participants insist it is something else.
(nods) Ah. So you’re agreeing that they’re not always soldiers here, you’re merely asserting additionally that they are not never soldiers? Yeah, that’s certainly true. Thanks for clarifying.
The site you linked gives a method for detecting concern trollery, so the concept is at least somewhat operationalized:
Concern trolls can be identified primarily because they will retreat from, rather than engage with or be convinced by, answers to the questions they pose. They may repeatedly ask a certain question in feminist discussions without ever absorbing or replying to answers from previous discussions. They will often back into typical anti-feminist arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too “extreme” or a feminist too “strident” or even “hysterical”. Another common tactic is insisting that some subjects are more important than others, for example, that media depictions of women shouldn’t be criticised while violence against women continues.
This seems quite distinct from “someone slightly to the right of me”. If this description is correct, then someone who goes into a feminist space and argues forcefully against some tenet of feminism, replying substantively to the feminists’ objections (rather than criticizing their tone), would not qualify as a concern troll.
Pretty sure that LW would also look badly upon people who showed up here and kept repeating the same questions over and over, without ever acknowledging the previous times when people had replied to them.
Yup. Even more so if they backed into typical anti-rational arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too “extreme” or a rationalist too “cold” or even “unfeeling.”
If this description is correct, then someone who goes into a feminist space and argues forcefully against some tenet of feminism, replying substantively to the feminists’ objections (rather than criticizing their tone), would not qualify as a concern troll.
Yes, such person would be labeled an outright “enemy” and kicked out even faster than a troll.
re: public speaking: There are in person groups like Toastmasters. Alternately, you can record yourself speaking about something and try to give yourself a self-critique.
Here’s an exercise I’ve run before: Person 1 picks a word at random; Person 2 immediately starting speaking about something relevant. At 15 second intervals for 1-2 minutes, Person 1 throws out new words; Person 2 needs to keep speaking about the new words, and to flow smoothly between topics. (You can substitute Wikipedia’s random article button for Person 1.)
Imagine we often saw people coming to LW and saying things like
“Hello. I wholeheartedly agree with the basic goals of LW and I think rationality is awesome! But, if I may make a small criticism, I think LW is being a bit irrational itself in its complete dismissal of religion. Yes, many forms of religion are irrational, but others may not be so, and one must no throw the baby with the bathwater, etc. etc.”
If there was a recurring pattern of this happening, with the pro-religion arguments being made by “newbies” and being things we have seen many times before, wouldn’t we get impatient with it, give it a label (such as “concern trolling”) and apply the label dismissively from then on? Perhaps this is not the most open-minded attitude, and it would be very inappropriate in a forum dedicated to open discussion between theists and atheists. But in a forum where most people have decided to their own satisfaction that these criticisms are incorrect, and are more interested in discussing other topics while taking atheism for granted than in rehashing what they see as basic stuff, can they really be faulted for taking it?
I endorse the newbie statement as well! (Kinda, under some interpretations and expansions).
My point was not that the impatient, dismissive reaction is the best one, or the one an ideal truth seeker would take; just that it is understandable for a group of humans with limited time and energy and who are not interested in having a discussion on matters that they perceive as settled. I was reacting against words like “literally the worst concept ever” and “horrible” in the parent comment.
And it appears that’s the option we actually took, in exactly that situation! So all the more kudos to you—I think it puts this discussion in a slightly different light, myself.
2.) In my experience, filling your rhetoric with filler words is a result of being uncertain speaking, or not being sure what you want to say.
For the first item, find public speaking practice/training. This does not have to be toastmasters, volunteer or join a club and step into a leadership position. Take a part time job at a tourist attraction and spend an afternoon a week telling stories to groups of strangers. You may be already at home talking to anyone, but if you are not, this will help.
For the second item, find public speaking practice/training. Too often I find myself repeating my last statement and using other filler methods to hold my place in the conversation while I order my thoughts. Take a breath, pause, figure out what you are going to say before you say it. It feels like an eternity to you, but it is only a moment’s pause to the listener. Also, instead of holding your place with filler, practice body language, establish through posture and eye contact that you are still talking. Public speaking is again great practice for holding interest by body language alone.
Disclaimer: I’m from a very Wait Culture, results may vary in a Interrupt Culture
Edit for emphasis: Decide what you want to say then say it! You will use more precise language and less filler.
Thanks. I’m a college student so the obvious choice is to be a tour guide, but for some reason this is a really popular job and it’s hard to get even though you don’t get paid? Maybe I could find some sort of club that would be good for this purpose.
Decide what you want to say then say it! You will use more precise language and less filler.
I’ve tried to do this but it’s a lot easier said than done. Maybe I’ll have to redouble my efforts.
EDIT: What culture are you from? The idea of a wait culture sounds very alien to me outside of classroom discussions.
College is full of student groups, find one you like for its own merits and as a side project strive for a role that includes a little bit of audience addressing. I took on a secretary role in my fraternity that involved frequently addressing the whole chapter, and joined the 4-H alumni that volunteered as leaders for 4-H youth events. Unfortunately it is a skill that benefits less from dedicated practice and more from repetition and familiarity.
College is a great opportunity to develop these skills, but it does seem that the low-hanging fruit has been picked over (tour guides, student council, excreta).
I’m from Canada, I hate to reinforce the polite/sorry meme. but ya.
Ad two: I have no particular expertise in this area, so all I can offer is a few remarks based on what I myself do when I want to change something about my speech (e.g. my accent, but also vocabulary). Basically, it’s one of those things where what you need to do is train yourself to pay attention. In order to do this, it’s important not to be afraid to speak slowly. There might be an unconscious inhibition to speaking slowly for fear of appearing dumb. If you overcome that, you have time to consciously double-check what you’re saying, and to consciously intervene by actively thinking about what you’re going to say, and then saying it, or by stopping yourself when you feel that you’re about to say something undesirable (like “like”).
Also, you couldn’t be old-fashioned by wearing a fedora, if I’m correct in deducing from you username that you’re a girl. ;-)
Two unrelated things (should I make these in separate posts or...?):
1.) Given recent discussion on social justice advocates and their… I don’t know the best way to describe this, sometimes poor epistemological habits? I thought I would post this
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Concern_troll
Is this it just me, or is this, like, literally the worst concept ever? It literally just means “someone slightly to the right of me” or “someone does anything that could be considering cheering for the other side”, backed with a dubious claim that these people are usually acting in bad faith. Is that even a thing people actually do, go on websites with people they disagree with and “troll” by claiming that they mostly agree except on certain issues? Outside of this context I have never seen this or had any reason to consider the possibility. Isn’t it more likely, that you know… people mostly agree with you except on certain issues?
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
“Concern trolling is frequently banned in feminist communities.”
I just don’t get it. How does a movement with motives so noble become this horrible? I mean, I kind of do get it, but still… fuck.
2.) How can I train myself to speak more eloquently? Like most people my generation, I say “like” every ten words or so (although I’ve gotten better at avoiding this), say um and other filler sounds a lot, and often say “you know”, “you see what I mean”, etc. I also tend to repeat phrases for “filler”—I’ll say things like “Yeah, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently.” (This looks really weird written out, trust me, it’s not that weird in real life.) I want to stop doing this because doing so will let me sound more authoritative, and also I’m kind of disgusted by this pattern of speech even though everyone does it.
Note that I don’t want to be one of those people who fetishizes the past and goes around forcing old-timey turns of phrase like “Great Scott!” into conversation and wears (yes) a fedora. I just want to be better at communicating concrete ideas in complete sentences in my daily life.
Concern trolling is a widespread phenomenon, not specific to feminist communities. The definition given in the first two sentences of that article is the exact concept that the phrase was coined to name:
The article does then go on to broaden the concept to the point where it can be used as a club to invalidate anyone:
Well, no. The whole point of the concept is that a concern troll is lying. They are, in fact, an enemy deliberately, consciously, intentionally, posing as a friend in order to undermine discourse. Someone who is actually a friend with genuine questions that they actually want to be constructively discussed is not a concern troll, even if those who do not wish the questions to be raised at all call them that.
Do concern trolls actually exist? I’ve never seen one (or maybe they were subtle enough that I didn’t notice).
I think there’s a Poe’s law type thing going on here: looking at behavior alone, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between a concern troll and a tentative ally with the right ideological background. That’s probably especially true for cultures like social justice that use a lot of endogenous concepts and terminology: within those movements, any concerns that don’t speak the language are going to pattern-match to “enemy” on linguistic grounds and suffer from the corresponding horns effect.
With that in mind, I suspect they exist but are pretty rare.
Incidentally Poe’s law is also highly misleading, specifically it’s mostly a statement about the person attempting to tell the difference not about the person being parodied.
I’ve seen them, and unlike Nornagest, I don’t think they’re at all rare. They’re one of the common forms that trolling takes. A certain person who was run out of here on a rail a few months ago fitted the form. (I’m not going to link, but his username in rot13 was WbfuRyqref.)
As for how you tell, well, how do you ever tell pretence from truth?
Would you mind sharing your evidence that (rot13: WbfuRyqref) was concern trolling, via PM if you’d prefer? I wasn’t involved in that little spat, and looking over his comment history it doesn’t seem entirely implausible, but on the other hand I’ve elsewhere seen people with, er, similar opinions posting in what I’m pretty sure is deadly earnest.
I have only the evidence of his own postings. This comment of mine was about him, and the pattern I describe there, running through all his postings, is a pretty clear sign to me. He appeared out of nowhere, made an unusual claim about himself that no-one in that position would have any good reason to disclose, then sat back and never engaged with anyone, instead trying to keep the pot boiling by muttering disingenuously about forbidden topics. Fortunately it didn’t work and he left (or was kicked, I don’t know.)
It is possible that he was also what he said he was (although I wouldn’t take the “celibate” part on his word), and using the cover of trolling to indulge a desire to talk freely about these things without the danger of being believed.
Of course, none of this is definitive. But we have to make judgements of people’s honesty all the time, and do the best we can. This is mine.
I’d like to agree with you, but how do I know you’re not a concern troll?
Concern trolling in the false flag political operation sense is a thing that happened
It may help if you consider the possibility that some feminist communities do not exist for the sake of rational dispassionate and balanced discussion of feminism. Rather, a feminist community may be a meeting place for the members of a feminist movement of some kind, which exists to achieve its goals. Like any other political movement.
TL;DR. LW is not the real world. In the real world, arguments are always soldiers (even if you pretend them not to be), discussion requires resources, and resources are finite.
Mere fact that the resources are finite is enough reason to use heuristics and—inevitably—biases.
If there are hundreds of comments I am not able to fully reaseach, I need to use some filters. Such as “trust the comments from people from the beginning of the alphabet and ignore the comments from people from the end of the alphabet” or “trust the comments from respected long-time users and ignore the comments from unknown new users”. Obviously, some of these heuristics are much reliable than the others, but none of them is perfect.
Then, as abstractly thinking people we may play the game on a higher level, inventing meta-heuristics for accepting or rejecting heuristics. Such as: “if a more experienced member of my tribe recommends me a heuristic, I will use it; and I will ignore the heuristics promoted from unknown people or other tribes”. Actually, this seems like a decent heuristic; you probably won’t find a better one with comparable simplicity. And one of its consequences is that when an experienced member says “ignore concern trolls”, you follow that. Plus you need some operational definition of what a concern troll is, which is something like: “expresses concern for our tribe, but does not pattern-match to a typical member of our tribe”. There.
It’s imperfect because all heuristics are imperfect.
And of course smart people always find a way to abuse it. Because all imperfect rules can be abused creatively. For example some people may start using it as a fully general counteragument against anyone who disagrees with them and happens to have lower status in given community.
And the only way to fix it would be to send all internet users to CFAR’s reeducation camps. Which, unfortunately, are still under construction. :P
This is implies that all discussions are adversarial and cannot be anything else. I do not think this is the case.
All interactions are adversarial to some extent. Even your post that I’m replying to.
Maybe in your world. Not in mine.
said the pacifist to the conqueror
Do I really look like a pacifist to you? :-D
A trivial example: imagine that you have kids. Are all your interactions with them adversarial?
And they’re not here?
Well, you tell me: have you seen examples here of people engaging each other in order to learn from each other rather than convince each other of the rightness of their views?
It’s not a rhetorical question. When I first joined this site there was rather a lot of that, which was largely what pulled me in. These days it’s largely displaced by various other things, and it’s quite possible that a new arrival simply won’t notice it amidst all the noise. So I’m asking.
Oh there’s plenty of people engaging to learn from each other, right alongside a major echo chamber of people pushing a very particular cluster of mythologies and ideologies. I like it here a lot for the former and enjoy watching the latter go on while its participants insist it is something else.
(nods) Ah. So you’re agreeing that they’re not always soldiers here, you’re merely asserting additionally that they are not never soldiers? Yeah, that’s certainly true. Thanks for clarifying.
They’re also not always soldiers elsewhere.
Yes, that’s true too.
Hush, you. :-)
The site you linked gives a method for detecting concern trollery, so the concept is at least somewhat operationalized:
This seems quite distinct from “someone slightly to the right of me”. If this description is correct, then someone who goes into a feminist space and argues forcefully against some tenet of feminism, replying substantively to the feminists’ objections (rather than criticizing their tone), would not qualify as a concern troll.
Pretty sure that LW would also look badly upon people who showed up here and kept repeating the same questions over and over, without ever acknowledging the previous times when people had replied to them.
Yup. Even more so if they backed into typical anti-rational arguments, such as expressing concern that an argument is too “extreme” or a rationalist too “cold” or even “unfeeling.”
Yes, such person would be labeled an outright “enemy” and kicked out even faster than a troll.
On some feminist websites, yes. On others, no.
(I can provide examples belonging to the latter category, if you’re interested.)
re: public speaking: There are in person groups like Toastmasters. Alternately, you can record yourself speaking about something and try to give yourself a self-critique.
Here’s an exercise I’ve run before: Person 1 picks a word at random; Person 2 immediately starting speaking about something relevant. At 15 second intervals for 1-2 minutes, Person 1 throws out new words; Person 2 needs to keep speaking about the new words, and to flow smoothly between topics. (You can substitute Wikipedia’s random article button for Person 1.)
Imagine we often saw people coming to LW and saying things like
“Hello. I wholeheartedly agree with the basic goals of LW and I think rationality is awesome! But, if I may make a small criticism, I think LW is being a bit irrational itself in its complete dismissal of religion. Yes, many forms of religion are irrational, but others may not be so, and one must no throw the baby with the bathwater, etc. etc.”
If there was a recurring pattern of this happening, with the pro-religion arguments being made by “newbies” and being things we have seen many times before, wouldn’t we get impatient with it, give it a label (such as “concern trolling”) and apply the label dismissively from then on? Perhaps this is not the most open-minded attitude, and it would be very inappropriate in a forum dedicated to open discussion between theists and atheists. But in a forum where most people have decided to their own satisfaction that these criticisms are incorrect, and are more interested in discussing other topics while taking atheism for granted than in rehashing what they see as basic stuff, can they really be faulted for taking it?
You give reasons for having a dismissive label, but the particular label is about other reasons. I think that disconnect is dangerous.
Ahm, don’t we in fact have a warning against doing exactly that on the FAQ?
(I speak as someone who can wholeheartedly endorse that newbie’s statement.)
I endorse the newbie statement as well! (Kinda, under some interpretations and expansions).
My point was not that the impatient, dismissive reaction is the best one, or the one an ideal truth seeker would take; just that it is understandable for a group of humans with limited time and energy and who are not interested in having a discussion on matters that they perceive as settled. I was reacting against words like “literally the worst concept ever” and “horrible” in the parent comment.
And it appears that’s the option we actually took, in exactly that situation! So all the more kudos to you—I think it puts this discussion in a slightly different light, myself.
2.) In my experience, filling your rhetoric with filler words is a result of being uncertain speaking, or not being sure what you want to say.
For the first item, find public speaking practice/training. This does not have to be toastmasters, volunteer or join a club and step into a leadership position. Take a part time job at a tourist attraction and spend an afternoon a week telling stories to groups of strangers. You may be already at home talking to anyone, but if you are not, this will help.
For the second item, find public speaking practice/training. Too often I find myself repeating my last statement and using other filler methods to hold my place in the conversation while I order my thoughts. Take a breath, pause, figure out what you are going to say before you say it. It feels like an eternity to you, but it is only a moment’s pause to the listener. Also, instead of holding your place with filler, practice body language, establish through posture and eye contact that you are still talking. Public speaking is again great practice for holding interest by body language alone.
Disclaimer: I’m from a very Wait Culture, results may vary in a Interrupt Culture
Edit for emphasis: Decide what you want to say then say it! You will use more precise language and less filler.
Thanks. I’m a college student so the obvious choice is to be a tour guide, but for some reason this is a really popular job and it’s hard to get even though you don’t get paid? Maybe I could find some sort of club that would be good for this purpose.
I’ve tried to do this but it’s a lot easier said than done. Maybe I’ll have to redouble my efforts.
EDIT: What culture are you from? The idea of a wait culture sounds very alien to me outside of classroom discussions.
College is full of student groups, find one you like for its own merits and as a side project strive for a role that includes a little bit of audience addressing. I took on a secretary role in my fraternity that involved frequently addressing the whole chapter, and joined the 4-H alumni that volunteered as leaders for 4-H youth events. Unfortunately it is a skill that benefits less from dedicated practice and more from repetition and familiarity.
College is a great opportunity to develop these skills, but it does seem that the low-hanging fruit has been picked over (tour guides, student council, excreta).
I’m from Canada, I hate to reinforce the polite/sorry meme. but ya.
Ad two: I have no particular expertise in this area, so all I can offer is a few remarks based on what I myself do when I want to change something about my speech (e.g. my accent, but also vocabulary). Basically, it’s one of those things where what you need to do is train yourself to pay attention. In order to do this, it’s important not to be afraid to speak slowly. There might be an unconscious inhibition to speaking slowly for fear of appearing dumb. If you overcome that, you have time to consciously double-check what you’re saying, and to consciously intervene by actively thinking about what you’re going to say, and then saying it, or by stopping yourself when you feel that you’re about to say something undesirable (like “like”).
Also, you couldn’t be old-fashioned by wearing a fedora, if I’m correct in deducing from you username that you’re a girl. ;-)
Understandable but incorrect deduction, actually. He’s a guy. I remember being somewhat confused by this at one point, too.
Despite his nickname, Gothgirl420666 is a cis male. Update his level of credibility on gender issues accordingly.
Oh, so your ′ level of credibility on gender issues’ is defined by your gender? That sounds pretty feminist.
Thanks