This internet version of centrism that everyone hates on is bizarre to me, for the reasons you say - the "only commit half a genocide" type of centrism. Are there people who really strike a middle ground on every issue on principle?
I always understood centrism as "I hold enough opinions from both parties that I don't align with either one", which honestly fits me pretty well. I still have strong opinions on individual issues though...
As soon as I noticed this, I immediately grabbed a userscript that removes it. It's incredible how much screen they managed to waste with the shorts display
Granted, I fully acknowledge that. I don't think having state-sponsored suicide is the answer either, just that people need to be able to discuss their feelings freely somehow.
That the mental health system in the US is fundamentally broken due to the general attitude toward suicidality. As I understand it, the general and medical view of suicidality is that suicide cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Anyone acting in ways that seem like they could realistically lead to suicide must be stopped, by force if necessary. To this end, not only is it considered morally correct to report suicidal people to the proper authorities, but it is actually mandated in many cases.
This seems perfectly reasonable from the perspective of most people - suicide wreaks terrible havoc on the lives of the people around the victim, after all, on top of the general loss of life. This holds especially true because most suicide attempts are spur-of-the-moment decisions that have not been thought through, and these cases have a very good chance of recovery if they are talked down. As far as I am aware, the majority of people who have been brought back from suicide attempts are grateful for the second chance.
But this leaves a rather large class of people behind, who are in such anguish for one reason or another that suicide seems like the only option. These are not people who kill themselves on a whim - they are people who have considered the ramifications of such an action for sometimes decades. If one of these people determines that suicide is the right choice, this essentially traps them in a space where they can no longer be helped. They cannot reach out to literally anyone, because everyone from their therapist to their friends to their relatives are likely to call in an intervention and involuntarily imprison them in a psychiatric ward. And even worse - these people do this in a genuine attempt to help, completely unaware of the paradox this creates.
To someone of this mindset, evoking an intervention of that nature is simply not an option. If one is in such pain that suicide seems like the only escape, then removing that escape is by definition worse than a death sentence. It seems a special kind of cruelty, the last remaining thing the world can do to ensure you feel every last second of this pain it has in store for you. To these people, their autonomy is often the very last thing they have left, and it is incredibly precious.
And so, the only route left is to suffer in silence, slowly regressing until the day they actually kill themselves. After a certain threshold where speaking about their mental state risks imprisonment, they are effectively already lost - because even if something could still be done to help them, the perceived risk is too high to ever reach for it.
I was in such a state for many years, and was lucky enough to be able to return on my own to a level where I feel 'eligible for mental help' again. However, I feel as if most people who reach that level are not so fortunate, and it twists my heart to know what we are inadvertently inflicting upon these poor, invisible people. There has to be a better way to approach this.
It's nice to see thoughtful comments like this that aren't overwhelmingly downvoted. It's a breath of fresh air after leaving reddit
Yeah, I dunno how I feel about that lol
I wish the current list view didn't lead people to unknowingly necro years-old threads lol
Agreed, the ability to seamlessly switch between which instance you're viewing from and which account to use is really cool. It makes me wish I had a desktop client with that option (which probably exists honestly, I'm just not aware of one)
Love this guy
Just a tip - head back and check your profile again after a week or so. I've had to reuse the script 4 times at this point because Reddit keeps restoring my comments without my consent.
I really hope that the existing Lemmy instances can handle all the new users
I can see that, you make a fair point. Centrists are probably the least homogenous group by definition, so they don't really stand for anything in particular and the label loses meaning.
However, I do think there is something to be said for using the centrist label to dodge around people trying to pigeonhole you into a specific viewpoint. For example, I've had great discussions with someone about UBI and socialized healthcare before, only for them to feel utterly betrayed and revolted by my stance on gun control (as they naturally assumed the rest of my views would align with theirs along their party lines).
Our political culture is so incredibly hateful and polarized at this point in time that I feel like 'adopting the role of a D or an R' for a single discussion is a recipe for disaster. If there's anything people instinctively hate worse than an enemy, it's a traitor.