Are you a Slav?
I couldn’t think of a title so I modified one of the lines from Fallout 4 to use as a title for now.
In the late 1990s Kayla was with her family as a child. The Germans had won World War II and installed their own government in the United States. Everyone else was happy that day, but Kayla felt disconnected from her family and didn’t have a sense that she really belonged with them. It was the earliest memory she would have of being different.
As Kayla grew up she noticed that she wasn’t treated the same as the other girls in school but didn’t know why. She tried to discover the difference between her and the other children but couldn’t come up with anything that separated her from them. When she asked her parents and teachers why she was treated differently they denied that there was anything fundamentally different about her. They said that kids were mean sometimes and everyone got treated badly and there was nothing different about what she was going through even if it felt like there was. Kayla believed it at first but realized that there had to be something different about her.
When Kayla was in high school, she started to notice that she wasn’t like the other kids. She knew that there was something different about her but she couldn’t identify it. The was the point where she started having regular dreams about living in Russia which was still communist. The border had been pushed eastward by the Germans. These dreams made Kayla feel like a freak. Everything that she had learned about the Slavs said that they were backward and disgusting freaks. It felt like there was a weight constantly present and some force was eating away inside her when she felt a connection with Slavs and no idea what her problem was. Kayla read about depression and her family concluded with a psychiatrist that it was what she was experiencing, but medication never worked. Nothing she did made the daily fog go away.
A few years later when Kayla was 20 she came across a conspiracy theory online that she couldn’t stop thinking about. The Nazis had replaced children they wanted to turn into Einsatzkommandos who were engineered super humans patrolled the Reich. They replaced the missing children with Slavs who they thought could be integrated into their society. This theory was almost complete dismissed as creative imagination but there were people who had come out as the children who had been replaced. Their experiences were covered up as being delusional. Kayla was fascinated and couldn’t stop reading about the theory. It explained why she had always felt disconnected from her family, even in her earliest memories. She had a high paying job with the Nazis, so she never mentioned her discovery to anyone.
After another year Kayla found a forum run by someone named Dima who claimed to have a refuge where Slavs could live and be accepted. It was filled with people like her who had always known that something was wrong but never had any idea what was wrong with themselves. She started asking how to know if she was a Slav. Several people came to tell her that there was no test that could be done, but she could figure out herself if she was a Slav by examining her memories and any strange dreams that pointed toward being a Slav. It was hard for her to accept coming from the atheist Reich, but she felt sure enough that she was a Slav that she decided to listen to her feelings. They told her it wasn’t just about feelings and to look for particular signs that she was a Slav. She mentioned the dreams she had about living in Russia and how she had been ashamed of them and how completed she felt when she had first learned that she might be a Slav and how it felt like an answer to the life long fog she had lived through. The other users on the forum told her that it sounded like she was a Slav and she felt immense joy in finally being able to connect with people who had lived through the same experiences as her.
Over the next several months Kayla spent time at home with the Slavs on the forum. She had started using a Polish name and worked on open source projects with the other members. She discussed plans to go and live with other Slavs and learned that many of them lived in the refuge but some of them continued to live where they already were and tried to make the best of their situation. Kayla wanted to go live with them, but she already had everything she wanted where she already was.
As Kayla started to accept her new identity as a Slav, she stopped being able to take the weight of hiding it. She told her parents why she had felt different growing up and that she had discovered that she was a Slav. They responded by disowning her and her father told her that he wasn’t going to waste time and money on a Slav. A man named Ryan she worked with took her in.
One day when Kayla was at work, two Einsatzkommandos came in to the building and took her to one of their interrogation rooms. One of them introduced himself as Officer Smith.
“You’ve been living as another person late at night. You’ve even found a name for this other life.” Kayla stayed slient. “You seem to believe that you’re a Slav and you were replaced at birth because that’s what they told you. It’s a lie they told you to manipulate you. All they want is to take advantage of you. This other life that they’ve tricked you into creating has no future. Right now you have a future filled with everything you want working with technology for the Reich. If you want you could throw it all away chasing this fantasy that you’ve clung to as a way of explaining your history of mental illness. You’re depressed. The Reich will pay for medication to treat you. If having an easy and productive life isn’t what you want then you can chose your other life based on lies. Once everyone knows you’re a Slav you lose everything. They’ll treat you as an abomination. You can continue living your delusion and lose everything or you can live the life intended for you had have the wealth and support you still have.”
Kayla agreed to stop living the life she had discovered and to go back under the impression that she was simply delusional and had clung to a conspiracy theory in order to explain her mental illness. She spent the next few years living with her boyfriend who had accepted her after learning that she was a Slav. She tried to avoid thinking about it and reminded herself that she was just believing a conspiracy theory if she ever started to wonder about it, and believing that theory would cause her to lose everything for nothing.
In 2015 Ryan came home and told Kayla that he would be meeting with a family in the morning to discuss what happened to their daughter who had left suddenly. She was 18 and had suddenly disappeared without giving any details. Kayla didn’t have any idea what had happened.
The next day Ryan went to meet with the parents of the girl who disappeared. They said that she had left a note saying that she had gone to live with other people and they shouldn’t worry, but no other information then that. Her father wondered if the note had been faked by someone else. Ryan spent an hour asking questions to learn about their daughter Kate and learned that her grandfather had died a few months earlier and the two of them had been very close. The parents showed Ryan where Kate’s computer was and asked if he could use it to find out where she had gone. He took out a Linux USB drive and got to work checking it to see what information it could offer about what had been going on with Kate before she disappeared.
Kate had constantly visited the same conspiracy website in the months since her grandfather died where other people posted stories about concluding that they were Slavs. Kate had been very active and posted about strange dreams she had been having and a sense of pointlessness she had been experiencing. Other users told her that those were signs that she was a Slav. Ryan felt disgusted that these people were taking advantage of teenagers who were clearly suffering from depression.
Ryan went to Kate’s parents and told them what he had found.
“There’s no way she can be a Slav.” Her mother said. “We raised her.”
“There’s a conspiracy theory that the Nazis replaced children they wanted with Slavs.” Ryan said. “There’s a whole community of people online who believe that they’re Slavs.”
“That’s impossible.” Her father said. “Why would the government replace children with Slavs? There are so many other options if they wanted to run a secret program.”
“Teenagers feel angst and get depressed and they want something to make themselves feel special.” Ryan said. “Then these sick adults encourage their delusion because they want validation that they haven’t completely ruined their lives by turning themselves into outcasts by claiming to be degenerates. My girlfriend went through the same phase. I’ll get your daughter back. The Reich has treatment for depression so she can get the help she needs.”
“We’ve already tried everything and her depression never goes away.” Her mother said.
“I’m sure there’s something we can do. There’s a safe space in the mountains where some of these people go to live. I’ll go there and see if I can find Kate and bring her back.” Ryan said.
Ryan went home to tell Kayla about the website he had found that led to the location where Kate might be. Kayla said that she had been to the same site, and for the first time she had trouble convincing herself that she was delusional for thinking she was a Slav. Everything she remembered came back and she felt validated in a way she had never felt before to have a connection with someone who experienced the same things as her. The thoughts that she had about being a Slav came tumbling back and she started to doubt what she had been told about being delusional. She didn’t mention them to Ryan.
It took several days for Ryan to get to the Slav refuge. He entered the main compound and was directed to the building where new arrivals went. He felt strange walking past the residents who were all there because they were considered subhuman back home. Inside the old building he met Dima who was the leader of the refuge. Ryan asked where to find Kate because she was missing and had been planning to live in the refuge.
“Kate is here.” Dima answered. “She is dealing with questions in her own way to figure out her identity.”
“What is she trying to figure out?” Ryan asked. “She thinks she’s a Slav. Isn’t that why she came here?”
“Kate is going through a difficult transition. Every person who comes here is facing the possibility that their entire life has been a lie. We try to make it as easy for them as possible. It’s not easy to learn that your entire identity was taken from you and replaced to suit someone else.” Dima said.
“Do you really think Kate is a Slav?” Ryan asked.
“That is her decision to make. Only she can decide who she really is.” Dima said.
“Her grandfather died recently and her parents said she was depressed because of it. Haven’t you considered that as a possibility for why she’s clinging to this identity? You’ve taken a vulnerable teenager away from a loving family.” Ryan said.
“I’ve considered that. It would be sad to take a child needlessly away from their family, but most people who are depressed don’t conclude that they are Slavs. It usually takes a long time before people will even admit that possibility.” Dima said.
“How did you end up here?” Ryan asked.
“I was put in a mental hospital after I discovered that I was a Slav. One day I escaped and came here. I spent a year just existing until I realized I could help other Slavs, and I built this place. I wanted a place where Slavs could be who they are without the prejudice that they would face in the Reich.” Dima said.
“How many people have you brought here?” Ryan asked.
“We’ve brought in hundreds of people over the years, but many Slavs choose to stay where they are. Some of them eventually move here when the pressure of living in the Reich becomes too much. Some of them have to go into hiding and deny who they really are.” Dima said.
“That’s what happened to my girlfriend. She said that she was just depressed.” Ryan said.
“I remember a girl who reached out to us a few years ago. She was so excited by discovering our community and created a Polish name that she used with us. I felt excited and filled with purpose. Then she posted that her parents disowned her and shortly after we lost contact. The Einsatzkommandos probably got to her and convinced her she was delusional. It’s what they do. They present Slavs with a choice of being who they are as an outcast or continuing their current life and chance at prosperity.” Dima said.
“What if some of those people really aren’t Slavs? If they believe they are then they’re facing a life of discrimination.” Ryan asked.
“People should be free to make their own decision. If they’re not a Slav then they’ll come to understand that on their own.” Dima said. “I have a question if you feel like you can answer. Are you a Slav?” Dima asked.
“Why would I be a Slav?” Ryan said, completely surprised.
“You mentioned that your girlfriend is a Slav. You’re also here. You didn’t have to follow Kate all the way here. Most people aren’t that interested in us.”
“How would I even know?” Ryan asked.
“There isn’t only one way that everyone realizes. Try going though your memories. Look for any feelings of isolation or not fitting in that are like splinters in the mind.” Dima said.
“I’ve been having strange dreams since I started watching Jordan Peterson’s lectures. I’m fighting in a city somewhere in Russia and there’s a girl. We never fight each other.” Ryan said.
“That is usually a sign. Strange dreams like that are hinting at some other identity. I know this might not make sense, but please give it time. This can be a lot to process.” Dima said.
“I don’t think I could possibly be a Slav.” Ryan said.
“When you go home, please let your girlfriend know what you learned here and try to support her if she changes her mind. I hope that she can find peace.” Dima said.
Dima went to look for Kate. She was working on projects for the refuge since she had experience building things with her grandfather. He asked why she had decided to live with a group of Slavs and why she thought she was one of them. She went through the story starting with being alone after her grandfather died. In all the time she had by herself she started going online constantly. One day she came across a thread discussing the conspiracy theory that children had been replaced with Slavs. She started researching it out of curiosity and found Dima’s website where she got lost reading all the personal accounts of people who believed they were Slavs. Over time she started to consider the possibility that she was a Slav. Then she started having strange dreams. Kate ended up contacting the other users on the forum and eventually started making plans to go live in the refuge but decided to keep it a secret from her parents because she didn’t want them to know she was a Slav. Other users on the forum had posted that telling their parents was like telling them that their child had died, since their actual child was long gone and many parents reacted with denial or disowned them.
When Kate arrived in the refuge she was welcomed by Dima. He introduced her to the compound where they lived and told her that she was finally with people who would accept her. When they were discussing the refuge, Dima offered her help deciding if she was a Slav and told her to take as much time as she needed to transition.
This is why conservatives keep ending up with the alt-right
Regressive leftists love to godwin-attack conservatives and libertarians. It’s mostly unjustified attacks, but there’s an element of truth to the liberal talking point that conservatives and centrists end up with fascist ideas. One reason that it looks like conservatives agree with fascists is because they’re both right wing and they have some goals in common. Fascists are very skilled at playing on these commonalities to get the support of conservatives. Immigration has been a tool used by fascists to reach conservatives for years. Regressives have used it to smear anyone who disagrees with their immigration views. This is where we get to an important point about the damage the regressive left does by persistently throwing around accusations of racism and Godwin’s Law. When conservatives are repeatedly godwin’d for their political views, any accusation of racism or fascism starts to lose it’s meaning. When dialog shuts down with conservatives, it makes them more likely to be manipulated by fascists.
Centrists contribute toward right wing agendas through their constant one-sided bashing of the left. Up until about 2014, centrists were ardent progressives who defended marginalized people and rallied against the Christian fundamentalist boogeyman. They mocked left wing fringe groups that held more extreme views then they did, but overall they were progressive. Things started to change after 2010 once the fringe groups started forming large communities online and attracting support from more mainstream leftists and turning into cults. The average social justice warrior has very little political power, but their connection with the mainstream left who don’t heavily value the Constitution and who have spent the past few decades ramming through undemocratic legislation and turning the Supreme Court into their Politburo lends apparent validity to SJW conspiracy theories. The centrists went into overdrive against the regressive left even though stereotypical SJWs are only a very small minority of kooks. Centrists have latched onto SJWs as a boogeyman that is out to ruin video games and discriminate against white men. Affirmative action has resulted in discrimination, so they’re partially right but they act like shitheads about it and use it to justify regressive right political views. Centrists almost exclusively target the left for ridicule, even though there is plenty of cringe among the right and center. The torrent of anti left wing sentiment feeds directly into right wing political views. Even if someone starts out as a center leftist and genuinely believes that’s what they are, they can very easily fall down a rabbit hole laughing at SJWs and end up preparing to bro-fist with Neo Nazis the way the Americans bro-fisted with the Soviets.
Digital Ocean now has separation for different projects
The VM hosting service Digital Ocean started offering separation for hosting resources into different projects. This is a feature I wanted to see for a long time because I host many different servers for different purposes and different people. Digital Ocean has gone a step above just separating cloud servers and they allow projects to have all of their self contained resources. This makes it much easier to manage servers, domain names using Digital Ocean’s name servers, firewalls and any other components needed for a project. Before this feature all hosting resources were combined together and it could be hard to keep track of resources for different projects when you had multiple projects you manage and you host projects for other people.
When Digital Ocean added this feature I created multiple projects for each of things I’m doing on Digital Ocean including the various projects that I’m hosting for other people. This is a very exciting feature that I’ve been waiting for since I started using the service several years ago. They’ve done a good job adding features since then but this is one of the best that I’ve seen so far. The other best feature they added recently was doubling the server resources and now their minimum $5 plan includes 1GB of memory making it useful for any non-intensive hosting project.
This is not a paid promotion. This is my thought.
Anti SJWs are NPCs
NPC theory perfectly explains why anti SJWs act the way they do. For anyone who isn’t already familiar, there is a theory that some people aren’t actually real people organic bots that act like the real thing and are indistinguishable from real people. The difference is that they lack any sense of self awareness and they don’t experience things in the traditional sense. In a way they’re like super advanced chat bots; the bots themselves don’t think and neither do NPCs. They only simulate human awareness.
Anti-SJWs show clear evidence of being pre-programmed. They’re like NPCs in video games that constantly repeat the same few lines every time you see them. They don’t learn from experience and instead repeat the same few talking points. No matter how obvious it’s brought to their attention that they’re in the wrong, they’ll always reject facts and continue repeating their own assertions. Whenever they detect women in a video game, without fail they’ll immediately attribute the detection to supposed SJW agendas and begin railing against it regardless of the context or what the actual reason was. When confronted with facts, NPCs will refute the facts by any means necessary and continue with their assertions. Any responses given by anti-SJWs are very predictable and they’ve been frequently refuted yet programmed responses continue. The extent to which anti-SJWs will continue arguing their assertions in the face of overwhelming evidence with limited responses proves that they’re NPCs.
I can’t stand Tim Pool anymore
I’ve never really liked him because he’s a centrist and he’s not racist or part of the alt-right, but he has always struck me as being a quasi useful idiot of the alt-right. Maybe I’m partly an SJW but he has seemed to give too much validity to bad opinions in a way that goes beyond just debating people one disagrees with. Maybe I’m wrong. It seems like he has actually taken a stand against the regressive left and stopped being centrist with them which is a step in the right direction even if it might not be the best one.
What is really getting to me that I can’t stand about him is that he isn’t even remotely close to being a journalist anymore. He used to actually report on things but now all he does is find articles online and then pump out a 10-20 minute video ranting about it. It’s nothing that other people can’t do themselves and it would be much faster to just read the article then to listen to someone else complain about it. He’s not a traditional anti-SJW which is good, but he has this problem of his own and I’m sure most of his audience is becoming a bunch of centrist neckbeards who think that repeating someone else’s words is worth spending a few hours a day listening to.
One of the things that really bothers me is how much Tim keeps talking about how “concerned” he is about the political divide and how likely a civil war is, yet he keeps playing into that mentality. I don’t see any reason to think he’s aware of it but it’s still a problem.
When conservatives talk about communists
I’ve noticed that when conservatives start blathering on with their useful far right idiocy on the subject of communism of the former USSR they start acting just like Antifa. When conservatives start railing against communism, they start getting irrationally offended just for the sake of being offended even though there’s no reason why anyone in a western country should have a deep emotional connection with communism. They get this extremely disingenuous righteous anger followed by expressing hope for violence against communists, which can include anyone who doesn’t share their far right views on communism. This is the exact same pattern of behavior as the regressive left. When someone starts expressing irrational anger at something when they have no justification for their level of emotion, it’s a sign of projection. Conservatives use the former USSR to project problems with idealistic political system that can’t work because of human nature and claimed all men are created equal but led to the murder of 100 million people.
Communism doesn’t work because of human nature either. The solution is not “somewhere in the middle.”
My opinion on Jordan Peterson
I haven’t read that far into his book yet and I’m not super familiar with him, so my opinion is likely to change. From what I know so far he seems ok, but he has some pretty glaring flaws that anyone interested in his ideas should really take seriously before they go down his rabbit hole. He has discussed a lot of ideas about psychology that I find interesting. Some of them are probably true, but they’re very theoretical and not very scientific. It’s part of an approach that I think has value but we should be very careful in how much trust we put in it. Freud and Jung had the same approach to psychology back in their time and they were doing what they could using the methods of their time. They’ve largely been debunked and I think of them sort of like the Christianity of psychology. People had a lot of faith in them at one time, but people have learned and matured so they don’t rely on them as much. Christianity is probably correct about many things especially in a metaphorical way, but relying on it too much is the intellectual equivalent of living with your parents.
Peterson’s interaction with Christianity is where I have problems. From what I’ve seen he is not “promoting a Christian agenda” as regressives love to lie about. They’ve lied about him so much they’ve lost all credibility and even as someone who frequently agrees with them, I can’t trust them. Regressives view Peterson the way conservatives view Stalin. JP’s problem with Christianity is he’s an atheist who seems to be hamfisting Christian values (sans anti LGBT hatred) into atheism as a shitty way of avoiding nihilism. If that’s the case he really has failed at his own world view. His association with Jung prevents him from promoting Christianity because Jung believed in all kinds of weird new age ideas. Some of his ideas about psychology are deeply flawed, similar to how Freud over analyzed the mind and believed everyone is bisexual.
Being Polish, one of the biggest problems I have with Jordan Peterson is his repressed slavabooism and unintentional racism. Everything I have seen from him so far has shown that he is very opposed to racism and I don’t believe any of the regressive lies that he secretly supports the alt-right. However he has a very weird projection issue with the former USSR. The things he says about the USSR are wildly incorrect and nothing short of useful idiocy for the far right. The level of obsession that he has with the Soviets while believing so many far right anti Soviet lies shows a very concerning lack of self awareness. It suggests that he really hasn’t gotten a good handle on the things he lectures other people about. It reminds me of one of my friend from college who only ever had sex with his high school girlfriend and was constantly trying to be a pickup artist for inexperienced guys. Such people might not be completely useless and it might be worth listening if you can sort out the things they say -and that’s a very big if- but they’re just as likely to fill your head with bad advice because they don’t have their own house in order. One of his messages is you should put your house in order first before trying to do the same with the world, and it seems like he hasn’t done that. It’s a process that is probably never completed anyway.
It seems that he would be much better if he hadn’t gotten involved with politics and he was just a psychologist and we could just judge and discuss the ideas he proposes. Some of the things he has said make a lot of sense. Some of them get into Freudian over analysis.
I found this video on Call of Duty WWII
I relate to the intro of this video and agree with the rest of it.
People who whine about political correctness are actually politically correct themselves
A lot of people on the right and alienated people on the left like to complain about how burdensome political correctness is and sometimes even brag about how politically incorrect they are. Defenders of the regressive left like to point out that political correctness is simply about being polite. As far as politeness and reasonable sensitivity go, I’m in agreement with political correctness. Unfortunately it doesn’t stop there. Political correctness is an anti-American shit show that aims to control people and override common sense. That’s why political correctness is so hated. Like communism, it calls for a a good system that helps people but collapses into tyranny when it actually gets implemented.
Even with so much open hatred of political correctness, it can still be found in the strongly politically incorrect. If you take the lower pictured, you can see that the full auto position says “full libturd.” One day that lower is going to create a Mandela Effect where tons of people remember it saying “full libtard.” No one actually says “libturd,” or at least it’s very rare and they’re probably avoiding “libtard,” which is the common expression. This is a perfect example of political correctness among the politically correct. Even when Spikes Tactical is expressing contempt for the regressive left and political correctness, they’re doing it in a way that’s politically correct to avoid offending retarded people. That’s strong irony.
Rags went off about muh historical accuracy without the slightest sense of self awareness
I started watching part of his video about Battlefield V to see how incredibly cringeworthy it would be. I only watched part of it because I don’t feel like listening to an angry virgin rant about something no reasonable person cares about. His incredibly strained, uptight and stressed voice gives away the obvious fact that he’s never so much as even touched a girl, if his hatred of women wasn’t enough to give it away. Rags seems to have very effeminate speech patterns that are common among boys who live with their parents, which make it all the more ironic when he goes off calling people cucks. Look in the fucking mirror dude. There’s a sample subject that feminist and SJW feminization of boys is creating a pandemic of whiny incels. That should be proof I’m not an SJW because I realize I’m sharing a viewpoint with them here.
The part that really stood out as showing how un-self aware Rags is was when he ranted at the “inaccuracy” of including women in World War II. It’s not inaccurate but depending on the situation he has a point. I will admit that I do find the inclusion of white women in World War II games to be very off-putting and it does break immersion, sometimes more then other things. Slavic women are technically white but it’s not like anyone really cared about that, especially during World War II. Rags couldn’t be satisfied with his first complaint and had to drive on stating that previous World War II and World War I games were historically accurate and included an example that is so objectively wrong that he is either dishonest, mentally ill or doesn’t even play these games. He tried to say World War II games don’t include holographic sights when Call of Duty World War II in 2017 included sights that are functionally identical and Battlefield 1 in 2016 included functionally similar sights in World War I. As for his claim about historical accuracy, Battlefield 1 includes late war and experimental sub machine guns as entry level weapons that are available to every player and covers the battlefields of Europe with fully semi automatic rifles. Battlefield 1942 included German soldiers running around Britain with StG-44s in 1940. If that isn’t a giant fuck you to immersion and historical accuracy then I don’t know what should qualify.
One last blow to the arguments of shrieking neckbeards was the game Silent Storm from 2003. It allowed the player to create a female character from any country and included female NPCs that could be added to the player’s squad. I originally only used men and Soviet women in my squad for muh immersion but after I saw other immersion breaking characteristics of the game I stopped caring as much. At one point I was equipping my Soviet female character with a silenced sub machine gun and she said “I bet you are giving me this because I am a woman.” I laughed and then realized what would happen if they made a game like this today. If an incel had a female character say that to them, it would trigger them worse then SJWs when Trump was elected. Back in 2003, there wasn’t this level of outrage over wimminz in video games. Only a year later Call of Duty included a playable female character in their campaign, and no one freaked out. Of course, it was in the Soviet Union and it made sense.
I don’t even like SJWs but I still recognize this bullshit for what it is. I understand what makes the regressive left regressive, and it is because of their tone, accusations and how they force things on people. At the same time, people do want to be progressive and include women in games because it’s popular right now. Most people can put that in perspective and no one is forcing incel soyboys to play video games they don’t like. It is honestly jarring to see non Soviet women in a World War II game, and it does break immersion more then technical inconsistencies like the time period a map takes place in and the weapons that are available. It’s not a huge problem either and I was able to adapt when Call of Duty World at War allowed the Japanese to use Soviet weapons because the classes weren’t specific to each country. My honest opinion is that non Soviet women don’t belong in World War II games. However, I can articulate that clearly and it’s not just a manifestation of latent sexism. I can also put it in perspective and I understand why some games allow women from all countries. In Call of Duty World War II it’s because the character you create is used regardless of what country you play as. Even if one were to make a female Red Army soldier, that same character would be used in every army in the game. The level of outrage and incoherence that these nerds get themselves to is proof of their true feelings.