I got into an argument in a discord the other day. I didn’t want to, but someone (the server owner) was being very pro-“AI” in a way that was frankly kind of insulting to the people who didn’t share his opinion, so I lightly weighed in and lent emote-based support to the people arguing against him. He kept shifting his position, arguing on behalf of “AI” being inescapable and a forever part of our future now while also hedging every time someone confronted him about its various issues with some variation of “I never said it didn’t have issues!” So, when he tried to pull me in following a comment where I said I completely agreed with someone’s lengthy, well-reasoned statement, I tried to disengage and my attempt do so only led to another branch of the argument forming since he turned to trying to pin me down to saying “AI” is impossible to remove. I can’t agree to that statement because I think that Artificial Intelligence doesn’t exist and might never while the algorithmic bullshit that is modern ML-based “AI” is bad enough that I think it might be worth doing whatever it takes to eradicate completely. Other than the programs modern “genAI” are built from, which always had a use and still have a use in their very specific contexts, of course. So I tried to split the hair because my stances requires it and he didn’t like that. Then things took a turn for the worse between him (as he continued to shift his position such that no one could ever tell him that he was wrong without ever really engaging with the arguments other people brought up) and another person (who was much less polite in his arguing than the rest of us were and has a bad habit of dismissing viewpoints he disagrees with) and now a friend of mine has been demoted in that server for doing their job as a moderator and forcing the argument to end by deleting comments after the final two refused to stop.

I didn’t set out to have an arguement. I agreed with someone who expressed relief that something wasn’t “AI” generated and backed up someone who took issue with the server owner’s pro-“AI” statements when the server owner dismissed her statements with a “the future is now, old man” gif because that’s shitty, and then the whole server was basically silent an hour later aside from the officers who rarely post suddenly deciding to take an active interest in discussing a video game in the channel in what was a clear attempt to drive the posts out of the channel’s recent history and cover up the tension. As a result… I don’t really feel much like posting there anymore. Which sucks, since this is the discord for the Free Company (player guild) I’m a part of in Final Fantasy 14. The whole experience, from the dismissive arguments to the insulting descriptions of people’s responses has really soured me on him as a person in a way none of his other refusals to engage with other people’s ideas ever did. I mean, he literally called the behavior of the officer he demoted “manic” simply because they did the right thing and started deleting posts when people wouldn’t stop arguing with increasingly inflammatory statements! And the response from the remaining officers has made it clear that the only thing to be done at this point is just accept what happened and move on, with a side of pretending nothing’s wrong. Which is honestly kind of triggering for me in a way I didn’t expect it to be. And I don’t use that word lightly, considering how much it gets bandied about to dismiss people’s emotional responses to things. I mean it genuinely in the way it was coined for use in psychology: it reminded me of my brother and my parents’ reponse to my brother so much that it triggered an emotional response more in-line with the abuse I went through as a kid than a dumb argument with a shitty person in a discord.

I’m not sure what to do from here on. Currently, I’ve muted the discord and am just ignoring it. Other people are still talking and posting stuff, but I’m ignoring it all. I need some time and distance, clearly. Two days of that not being enough to lessen how bad I feel about the experience is telling me a lot, though. I’m not sure I can go back. I swore to myself once, long ago, that I was never going to let myself feel trapped in an environment where not talking about problems was the way someone’s version of “peace” was enforced. And while it’s not the same as the situations that caused me to make that personal vow, I can’t say that the parallels aren’t strong enough to make me want to bail out. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve thought about it. It’s been at the back of my mind for months now, as I increasingly run into issues with the FC’s leader and related inaction of the FC’s officers, but I’ve always wound up with reasons to stay and no reasons to leave, just a bunch of frustration that I usually got over. This time… I’ve got a reason to leave, now. Nothing’s going to change. We’re just going to carry on under the gaze of a man who would rather endlessly and often hypocritically argue than consider changing his mind, where anything you say might be what pushes him to start an argument because he doesn’t agree with what you said. And sure, that’s clearly always been the case, but now I know how deep it goes and I can’t look past it anymore.

I don’t know what’s going to make up my mind about this. Maybe how things go with my friend. If they wind up being permanently demoted… Well, I don’t know. I’ll probably talk to them about it since I don’t want to do anything to protest their treatment if they don’t want a fuss raised. Maybe I’ll be able to talk it through with my therapist the day after this post goes up and that’ll help me come down one way or another. I just… I don’t see the point in staying someplace that I don’t feel comfortable, that makes me self-conscious about what I want to say because of how other people are going to react to it. And while I could just brush it all aside, I could just continue to participate in things without substance… That’s just not who I am. I’ve put in a lot of time and energy to this group because it was doing stuff I care about. Because it was with people I care about. Because nothing happens if no one is willing to work at it. And if I’m no longer willing to spend my time and energy there, why am I still there? Is this place going to become just another discord I ignore aside from occasionally looking up some tidbit of information I need, consigned to the “ignore this” pile of discords I can’t leave because of social obligations or the foresight that I’ll eventually want access? I don’t like that thought. I’d rather make a clean break. I’d rather spend my time usefully elsewhere. I don’t know. I might be the only one to leave over this, if I do, but I’ve always set my own standards for this stuff anyway. I don’t expect everyone else to live by my vow to never accept peace bought by silence. I just need to make a decision I can live with and that isn’t going to add to my daily stress the way this is right now…