@kestrel Co-signed on pretty much everything. Additionally I noticed that it seems to increase symptoms of anxiety and compulsive disorders, so my doctor prescribed anxiety meds for me (though I haven’t seen the effects yet). The appetite suppression seems to wane a good bit over time. My meds also seem to wear off at such a time that I can relax in the evening… but I lose a degree of executive function that allows me to decide to go to sleep when I mean to. Ahhhh, brains.

Also, if you get to like 5-6 hours into your day and are just like, “god, why am I so fucking tired today?” go check if you took your meds. (I highly recommend getting a day of the week style pill counter so it’s easy to verify if you did.) Damn near guarantee you forgot. The effect has been pretty profound.

I have a child who's been diagnosed autistic, and haven't ruled out that I might be. A lot of my experience makes a lot of sense when seen through that lens. I remember taking a psychology class in college and proposing to my professor that I could write as an honors paper a reflection on how roleplaying games have allowed me to formalize certain social rules, habits, and cues that otherwise confounded me growing up (including research within the community to find out if this was a common thing). I didn't think I was autistic then. Having an autistic child now hasn't convinced me that I am - I just think it's a little likelier than I did. I'm not neurotypical - and to whatever extent I do share traits or proclivities with autistic people, I think that roleplaying online has been incredibly adaptive for that.

@ganymede Assholes might be assholes, but NT assholes very often asshole at ND folks specifically using the pretense that because they don't need [accomodation X] they don't need to respect anyone else's need for it. It's a really, really common thing, and saying it's just assholes being assholes disappears that NT assholes who mash ND buttons often face no repercussions because the other NT folks can't figure out why ND person is being so insistent, pushy, needy, particular, etc etc etc until the end of time.

@kestrel If you enjoy reading about that thesis, you might enjoy a book called The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh (who argues that the relative dearth of those kinds of stories in western culture has left us unprepared for grappling with climate change). One of the most interesting books I’ve read in recent memory.

@groth said in Dabbling, Mastery, Dunning–Kruger etc:

On the subject of Dunning-Kruger I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you understand something if you're not challenged to it. One thing that happened to me recently was that I had watched a video on induced current from a moving magnetic field and I thought I had a grasp on how it worked, however after getting into a discussion with a physicist, I quickly realized that no, I don't actually understand it at all.

One of the things I've found most helpful in avoiding DKing myself is practicing a discipline of assuming I'm wrong in most* conversations in which someone disagrees with me. It doesn't mean that's where I finish, it's just where I start. If I start from "I'm wrong" then my learn all the things mechanism takes over and I'm likelier to treat someone more like a generous teacher/sharer of knowledge than "that asshole that disagrees with me."

If I can't resolve what I learn from them with stuff I've previously learned - because I'm not in school anymore, it isn't anybody's job to teach me - I'll usually ask for a recommendation for further reading. And sometimes it turns out I was wrong, and I learn something. Sometimes it turns out I was right, and I still learn something.

* Obvious or not so obvious, I don't do this in conversations about my own personal experience, because I take as a given that I am the authority on that.

It's so interesting that people suggest entitlement is a reason not to ask for money. Because... not getting paid doesn't seem to be saving anyone from entitlement? Like what makes it worse if there's money?

@il-volpe Yeah, I've got ADHD for sure. The overlap is... not small. But there's also stuff that ADHD doesn't quite cover, and some of the diagnostic criteria aren't things that cause me any trouble now, but that's also because of significant adaptations in my life. I do Remember When.

I’m sort of baffled by the through-line I’m seeing here - that money would make it worse because what if it gets weird or they turn out to be terrible and entitled? Like, you know that even with money on the table you can back out, right? You can still ban a creep. Toss a refund, part or whole. You can still be selective. That’s what consensual means. You don’t consent once and give up your right to change your mind. Unless I’ve accidentally time traveled back a few decades, in which case I’m gonna need more flannels, I missed my moment with the grunge thing.

I don’t actually know who specifically I’m addressing here. This might just be a thing I don’t get and continue not to get. Thanks for answering my questions anyway, all.

@macha I was legit expecting you to say you then walked out without your groceries and I was so relieved when that never happened.

@saosmash This! I feel like maybe it’s the fact that it’s free that drives the entitlement.

@kestrel Co-signed on pretty much everything. Additionally I noticed that it seems to increase symptoms of anxiety and compulsive disorders, so my doctor prescribed anxiety meds for me (though I haven’t seen the effects yet). The appetite suppression seems to wane a good bit over time. My meds also seem to wear off at such a time that I can relax in the evening… but I lose a degree of executive function that allows me to decide to go to sleep when I mean to. Ahhhh, brains.

Also, if you get to like 5-6 hours into your day and are just like, “god, why am I so fucking tired today?” go check if you took your meds. (I highly recommend getting a day of the week style pill counter so it’s easy to verify if you did.) Damn near guarantee you forgot. The effect has been pretty profound.

@saosmash This! I feel like maybe it’s the fact that it’s free that drives the entitlement.

@tinuviel Because I’ve literally been paid for things I enjoyed doing and… nothing bad happened? Or rather, nothing bad happened that seemed fundamentally different from the bad where I additionally wasn’t getting paid. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ It wasn’t a function of the money.

I’m sort of baffled by the through-line I’m seeing here - that money would make it worse because what if it gets weird or they turn out to be terrible and entitled? Like, you know that even with money on the table you can back out, right? You can still ban a creep. Toss a refund, part or whole. You can still be selective. That’s what consensual means. You don’t consent once and give up your right to change your mind. Unless I’ve accidentally time traveled back a few decades, in which case I’m gonna need more flannels, I missed my moment with the grunge thing.

I don’t actually know who specifically I’m addressing here. This might just be a thing I don’t get and continue not to get. Thanks for answering my questions anyway, all.

@tinuviel It's really weird! I'd do the very thing I'm describing in a heartbeat? Like, maybe I couldn't do it every day, but fuck, between the various streaming services I don't watch (and other random services I pay for but almost never use) because I'm busy MUSHing, I'm sure I could pay an ST once a month as outlined, and probably twice.

@mietze LOL same. I think we all have those people.

Ok, so, boundaries on that hypothetical. Assume that transactions are consensual, and it's not for Loathsome McFuckface and their Four Asshole Friends. Maybe not your favorite player/group, but someone reasonably polite, who shows up on time, engages with what you put out. Let's say expectations are that you'll handle whatever planning you're gonna do for a 3 hour scene, and that it's standalone with the potential to be a repeat thing if everyone's having fun. I don't want to pin this solely on people who are staffers empowered to tie into metaplot, so let's say - integrated with meta/game altering stuff if it works with whatever the elevator pitch was for the scene, and not if not. IC rewards, gear, recognition, entirely on par with any other scene on the game - no special benefit to the paid scene, the payment here is explicitly for your time as an ST.

@mietze How much money would it take to tip that, I wonder?

Like, if there's someone who's willing to pay... I dunno. A hundred bucks for an evening of storytelling for, say, a group of four players. Is that worth doing? I can't see how it wouldn't be worth paying (for me), but I'm out $25 anytime I see a movie in the theater and I'm way less engaged. Is that worth doing for you as a storyteller?

I hear a lot of people saying you'll never make a living but could we change that? How do we start demonstrating that the time others put into our stories and our fun is valued? There's a tenor I hear a lot that not only is staffing and storytelling unpaid but it's more broadly thankless, and that's shitty. I whine and grouse about video games that institute pay to play schemes (you can take another action... if you wait an hour for your COINS to refill! or you can pay CASH MONEY to refill them now!) because the actions I can take in those games fundamentally aren't valuable to me, I'm paying to click more. But another person's creative energy is valuable to me. I hit Patreons, I back Kickstarters. I don't quite get why this hobby is The Exception.

It's so interesting that people suggest entitlement is a reason not to ask for money. Because... not getting paid doesn't seem to be saving anyone from entitlement? Like what makes it worse if there's money?

I was reminded in another thread of a thought that's occurred to me several times over the last couple decades (haha, I feel old). I've heard often that staff on MU*s aren't paid, their time is volunteered. Is that unlikely to change? If you were playing on a great game that you really enjoyed, would you be willing to pay? How much? For what purposes (i.e., to support the server, to support staff effort, something else)? On an ongoing basis, or as a tip-jar model? How would you feel about a game that openly asked "if you like what we're doing here, kick in a few bucks?" Do you think there would be side effects?

@macha I absolutely agree, it's not a coherent lunchtime. The issue is that the school started one size, built an addition, but didn't change the size of the lunch room - they had to move kids through the lunch room in groups (well, pre-COVID, my kids haven't attended in-person school since the start of the pandemic) and the very first cohort was 9:45am. (The last was something else ridiculous like 1:45pm.) The principal told me the kindergartners went first because the school day started so early (7:30am) they knew that many of the kids weren't getting breakfast, and they worried about tiny kindergarten tummies being empty any longer than necessary. I get why they made the choices they did, but that doesn't make the end result any better for the kids.