OKAY WE SHOULDN’T ARGUE WITH BFAS, WHAT SHOULD WE DO? We should not bury our head in the sand about these beliefs, but amplifying problematic, anti-social ideas is does not help. We can’t win in debates but we can't do nothing. And for me, that starts by understanding the tolerance paradox.

Read Popper's Original Work (for free): https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.59272/page/n211/mode/2up?view=theater

The summary: https://unearnedwisdom.com/a-summary-of-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-by-karl-popper-8-10/

Other Sources:

1. "Troll Wars": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201411/troll-wars-and-narcissistic-rage
2. "The Case for NOT Debating Fascists": https://criticalresist.medium.com/the-case-for-not-debating-fascists-3608623f00e
3. "Why are political discussions with fascists impossible?": https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.951236/full
4. "Lose the Debate": https://armoxon.substack.com/p/lose-the-debate

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.net

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OR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcast

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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Bad Faith Actors (or BFA's) don't give a fuck about the argument itself, they're playing a very different game altogether.

PROBLEM #1: The point is: You cannot win because the game is rigged and the points don’t matter.

PROBLEM #2: You are validating and platforming the position of the agitator, even if you “win” because (see problem #1).

Other Sources:

1. "Troll Wars": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201411/troll-wars-and-narcissistic-rage
2. "The Case for NOT Debating Fascists": https://criticalresist.medium.com/the-case-for-not-debating-fascists-3608623f00e
3. "Why are political discussions with fascists impossible?": https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.951236/full
4. "Lose the Debate": https://armoxon.substack.com/p/lose-the-debate
5. "Why you shouldn't debate fascists": https://www.vaia.com/en-us/magazine/troll-on-the-internet/https://aurelmondon.medium.com/why-you-should-never-debate-fascists-racists-and-other-reactionaries-6478572c16a
6. Toni Morrison's words: https://medicalhumanities.georgetown.edu/media-and-scholarship/media/racism-as-distraction/

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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Tune into the full episode on Patreon: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcast

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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fascists don't give a shit about facts, logic, or reality. They only care about framing their narrative as legitimate, and as soon as you engage with them, you lose.

"A lie can travel half way around the world before the truth can even get its boots on."

Sartre's Words: https://redsails.org/sartre-reason-falsely/

Other Sources:

1. "Troll Wars": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201411/troll-wars-and-narcissistic-rage
2. "The Case for NOT Debating Fascists": https://criticalresist.medium.com/the-case-for-not-debating-fascists-3608623f00e
3. "Why are political discussions with fascists impossible?": https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.951236/full
4. "Lose the Debate": https://armoxon.substack.com/p/lose-the-debate
5. "Why you shouldn't debate fascists": https://www.vaia.com/en-us/magazine/troll-on-the-internet/https://aurelmondon.medium.com/why-you-should-never-debate-fascists-racists-and-other-reactionaries-6478572c16a

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.net

GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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OR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcast

OR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica 

The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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BFA's are hell bent on preserving their identity, and they'd rather avoid reality completely than address the contradictions in theirs. Trolls don't care about reality at all, as long as they can engage you at all? They win.

And it bears repeating: You cannot reason with the unreasonable. 

The Sources:

"Fascism is not an idea to be debated but a set of actions to fight": https://lithub.com/fascism-is-not-an-idea-to-be-debated-its-a-set-of-actions-to-fight/

Psychology Today's "Troll Wars": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201411/troll-wars-and-narcissistic-rage

"The Case for Not Debating Fascists": https://criticalresist.medium.com/the-case-for-not-debating-fascists-3608623f00e

"Why are political discussions with fascists impossible?": https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.951236/full

"Lose the Debate": https://armoxon.substack.com/p/lose-the-debate

"Why you shouldn't debate fascists": https://www.vaia.com/en-us/magazine/troll-on-the-internet/https://aurelmondon.medium.com/why-you-should-never-debate-fascists-racists-and-other-reactionaries-6478572c16a

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.net

GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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OR BE A REAL GEM + TUNE IN ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/MYDBpodcast

OR WATCH ON YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/juliemerica 

The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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Bad Faith Actors - meaning going into interactions with either 1. the intention to deceive or 2. A belief and conviction and faith so profound that they become unable to confront facts or logic or reality that contradicts that belief in any way. 

The Sources:

"Fascism is not an idea to be debated but a set of actions to fight": https://lithub.com/fascism-is-not-an-idea-to-be-debated-its-a-set-of-actions-to-fight/

Psychology Today's "Troll Wars": https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culture-shrink/201411/troll-wars-and-narcissistic-rage

"The Case for Not Debating Fascists": https://criticalresist.medium.com/the-case-for-not-debating-fascists-3608623f00e

"Why are political discussions with fascists impossible?": https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.951236/full

"Lose the Debate": https://armoxon.substack.com/p/lose-the-debate

"Why you shouldn't debate fascists": https://www.vaia.com/en-us/magazine/troll-on-the-internet/https://aurelmondon.medium.com/why-you-should-never-debate-fascists-racists-and-other-reactionaries-6478572c16a

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.net

GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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"He had sown chaos between me and my friend and he truly didn’t give a fuck. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying it. He was manipulating me and I was watching it happen but unaware of how to make it stop. I couldn’t let a man who didn’t deny being a nazi get away with this, but I truly had no idea how to stop him."

Later I learned, defusing and mediating and compromising ONLY works with people who are willing to compromise, mediate, and be defused. 

THE LESSON: DON’T DEBATE WITH FASCISTS, DON’T FEED THE TROLLS (THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT A FASCIST IS TO SHAME + FIGHT)

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

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According to Meg-John Barker at rewriting the rules, "My own way of dealing with meaninglessness in life, has also been to embrace it as an inevitable part of life which will happen with some regularity.

There will be times – perhaps quite frequently – when we feel that our projects are pointless in the grand scheme of things, or when the world feels an overwhelming and cold place to live in, or when disconnections and conflicts with others feel unbearable and we feel utterly broken by life.

If we see such times as evidence that we are ‘getting it wrong’ and try desperately to find some meaning quickly, we are – perhaps – likely to spiral even further into hopelessness.

When we have such moments, it can be useful to focus on the very basic mundane activities of life (walking the dog, making our breakfast, having a shower), getting on with it until it has passed. And sometimes we just have to be with the horror of the meaninglessness while it is there without trying to change it, and without being able to do anything whilst it is happening."

The Sources:

A blog post breakdown of "The Case for Tragic Optimism" https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/tragic-optimism/ 

Lit Charts for "The Case for Tragic Optimism": https://www.litcharts.com/lit/man-s-search-for-meaning/postscript-1984-the-case-for-tragic-optimism

Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and "The Case for Tragic Optimism" https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/mans-search-for-meaning.pdf

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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Because humanity has been here a while, and books exist where people write down what they do to deal with hard shit, there are plenty of first hand accounts of people not just surviving but thriving after dealing with the impossible.

Survival is context based and has no rules or generalizations that would be fair, so I’ll skip that - but beyond surviving, if you want to feel like you’re actually filling that deep, dark void that has been strategically implanted into all of us when we were born into a society that puts profits over people, you have to sometimes face or shoulder shit that shouldn’t be your responsibility to face or shoulder. 

So how do we do it?

Victor Frankl makes a case for tragic optimism. Today we discuss what that means.

The Sources:

Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and "The Case for Tragic Optimism" https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/mans-search-for-meaning.pdf

A blog post breakdown of "The Case for Tragic Optimism" https://www.rewriting-the-rules.com/self/tragic-optimism/ 

Lit Charts for "The Case for Tragic Optimism": https://www.litcharts.com/lit/man-s-search-for-meaning/postscript-1984-the-case-for-tragic-optimism

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

DONATE to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund: www.pcrf.net

GET AN OCCASIONAL PERSONAL EMAIL FROM ME: www.makeyourdamnbedpodcast.com

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

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Maybe you don't need more things, you just need a thing.

What happens when the shit that surrounds us starts to feel like it’s weighing us down rather than free us? When it feels like more shit to deal with, rather than tools and resources, or sources of joy. 

Resources for Resisting a Coup: https://makeyourdamnbed.medium.com/practical-guides-to-resisting-a-coup-b44571b9ad66

SUPPORT Julie (and the show!): https://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed

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The opinions expressed by Julie Merica and Make Your Damn Bed Podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. Make Your Damn Bed podcast is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/make-your-damn-bed.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.