one thing i see sometimes in Discourse is a post that goes

• (description of a common bad behavior).
• it is unacceptable that (these people) are acting like this.
• how can we stop it?

(“we” apparently meaning, people who want this behavior to stop)

and then none of the answers can make us happy, because:

• any reply that just says “this is the responsibility of the people who are doing this behavior. no one has to change except them” will be an unsatisfactory answer. (Because it puts the responsibility for stopping the behavior on people who have no motivation to do so)
• any reply that actually addresses the question, “how can we stop it,” will be perceived as victim-blaming. (Because it puts the responsibility for stopping the behavior on someone other than the actual offenders)
• Except if it is a strategy that calls for violence, ostracism and overall unkindness toward people who do the behavior. (Because then, even though it still puts the responsibility on the shoulders of the innocent, it does so by giving them a task that they are more likely to want to do)
• But that will also be unsatisfactory, overall. (Because the people who want to do that are not usually the people with the most power to do that.)
• So it usually gets phrased as “this is what people in power should do in order to stop this behavior.” (Which people in power are usually unwilling to do. So it goes back to the problem of putting the responsibility on people who have no motivation to do so.)
• and anything “we” can do to influence “people in power” (voting, protesting, letter-writing, boycotts, phonecalls to representatives) only works if a large enough number of people agree to do the same thing.
• which has pretty much never happened in the history of Discourse.
• therefore
• it is unacceptable that people involved in Discourse are acting like this.
• how do we stop it?

….(lmao. just kidding.)