Wow, there’s some dog whistles up in here.

I’m totally fine with my spaces being an “echo chamber” if it’s full of respectful people who can work & play well with others.

People who are choosing to be jerks are doing so on purpose. They had a choice to do better and they didn’t. They aren’t socially awkward, they are using social awkwardness as a shield for bad behavior. They aren’t ignorant, they are using ignorance as the basis of plausible deniability for their actions. They aren’t asking questions in order to understand others, they are actively being hostile to others while doubling down on their shitty behavior.

Those folks cannot be reached, and they won’t change unless we reject their harmful behavior in our communities. And, in some cases, they won’t change even then.

I am not willing to allow bad actors to exploit my good will and benefit of the doubt so they can harm others repeatedly while someone who hasn’t been a target of their awful behavior sits back and treats the whole thing like a thought experiment.

We’re talking about actual people who think it’s OK to harm other real people as an essential and inalienable part of their pretendy-fun-times. Why is that something we’d permit to continue under some false flag of outreach? Why would anyone be comfortable letting others — especially more vulnerable others — be harmed over and over again so we can keep a toxic element in the community? Why should people who are horrible disrespectful trolls be permitted to be comfortable in this community? Why is their comfort valued over and above that of their victims?