Self-Confidence: I Know I’m Good

I don’t think I’m good, I know I’m good.

I can now imagine you thinking: Such arrogance! Such an inflated sense of self-worth!

Hear me out! Please, let me explain!

In my life, I’ve met people who were taller than me, stronger than me, and faster than me. I’ve met people who were better educated, more well-traveled, spoke more languages, and were more talented in the arts, such as music, painting, and writing. I’ve met people who were smarter than me and even on the level of being a genius. In other words, I have been humbled by meeting people better than me. Yes, better than me: more money, more accomplishments, and more brains.

Then how can I say I’m good?

I take out a ten-dollar bill and lay it on the table. It’s worth ten dollars.

I then take out a twenty-dollar bill and lay it on the table. We can all agree that the twenty-dollar bill is worth more than the ten-dollar bill.

But guess what?

The ten-dollar bill is still worth ten dollars. Just because I’ve put a twenty-dollar bill beside it, I have not diminished the value of the ten-dollar bill. It’s still worth ten dollars.

I’m good. I have stood beside people better than me but I’m still good. I’ve been humbled but I have not been diminished. Being with somebody better is an opportunity to learn and hopefully better myself. But I’m still good. I’m still worth ten dollars.

In my previous piece “Aggressive Males and the Stupidity of Inexperience”, I spoke of males being impolite, demanding, and not acting very well. I even spoke about the phenomenon of “Incels”, probably the ultimate in modern day male craziness. Racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. are all signs, in my book, of weakness. I’m better than you. Such a person may think they’re good, but they don’t know it. As a consequence, they always have a doubt; they must always prove themselves, and what better way of doing so that denigrating somebody else so as to feel superior. Think about that for a second. Somebody feels better about themselves by putting down someone else. I can’t help feeling there’s something sorely lacking internally if a person feels so badly about themselves that they must attack somebody else in order to feel good about themselves.

I have met just about everybody: all ages, all classes, all levels of education, all races, all sexual orientations, all genders, and I am delighted by the diversity in the world. This is a wonderful planet.

But note I’m not in competition with any of these people. I’m good. I accept them; I don’t judge them. I’m good. I have no need to feel superior to them or anybody. I’m good. I know I’m good. And in the same way somebody better than me can be compassionate and help me; I want to be compassionate and help others. Pay it forward.

You can easily judge the character of a man

by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.

—Malcolm S. Forbes

Woe is me! Nobody likes me!
At one point is my life, I was mulling over that I didn’t like somebody. I don’t mean I was indifferent to him; I mean I really couldn’t stand the guy. I found his behaviour and his mannerisms irritating.

Suddenly, I had a flash of insight. If I didn’t like 100% of the people I meet, it stood to reason that 100% of the people who met me would not like me. Statistically, it seemed to be inevitable.

I walk down the street and randomly stop 100 people. There is bound to be at least one person I’m not going to care for. And the opposite must be true. If I stop 100 people, there is bound to be somebody who doesn’t care for me. It’s got to happen. I don’t see how anybody can avoid it.

The insight for me was that meeting somebody and not hitting off wasn’t quite so bad. Statistically, it was inevitable. Sure, it may sting a bit but I’m still good. I’m still a worthwhile human being. I’ve not been demoted and relegated to the back row. Of course, I would sometimes humorously look at somebody not liking me by saying that they don’t have a sophisticated enough palette to appreciate me as the fine wine I actually am. Your loss! Ain’t I a card?

My point is that I’m good, and I know I’m good. And I know that periodically I’m not going to hit it off with somebody. It’s unfortunate but I move on. I’ve heard it said that Second Life has over 800,000 active monthly users so if it doesn’t work out with somebody, I say that I still have 799,999 people to talk to.

Weak Men
I’m talking about men, but this could be applicable to women, to anybody! A true story:

My female friend M is confronted by a male who TPs into some area. The man demands sex from my friend. She refuses. He gets angry and begins to denigrate her looks.

What’s wrong with this scenario?

The man meets my friend and immediately demands sex. Demands. Not asks but demands. No, hello how do you do, just an immediate cut to the chase.

My friend refuses. She has the right to refuse. But the man gets angry as though it is his privilege to get sex.

He feels as though he’s lost his position of superiority, so he tries to regain it by belittling my friend.

I found this story bizarre and unsettling. As M suggested, this is an “Incel” type of personality, an inexperienced and insecure man who has the expectation of privilege but also has a sense of powerlessness. And on top of it, he does not understand what’s going on and gets frustrated because he’s unable to deal with the situation properly.

Confidence is Sexy
I’ve heard it said that it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it. Confidence, as it goes, is the sexiest of all traits. Some people can walk into a room, and they own it.

In SL, everybody can be beautiful. Marketplace provides all that is necessary to be a good-looking man or woman. But how far do looks go? I like to say that the packaging may catch my eye but it’s the contents which keep me coming back for more. I pay far more attention to the personality than the looks.

We’re all role playing
I contend that by merely logging into Second Life, we’re all role playing. Okay, I’m not playing a vampire, or a Neko, or a furry, or being part of some scenario like Gor; I’m basically playing myself, the RL me within the virtual world of SL but that is a role play. Am I this young? Am I this fit? Does my wardrobe consist of all the wonderful clothes I have in SL? Am I this scandalously flirtatious in RL? Can I actually step out on the dance floor in an RL ballroom and knowledgeably dance the waltz, the tango, and the cha-cha? I may say that I’m playing myself, but I am role playing another version of myself, an idealised version. Is that person self-confident?

Self-confidence vs Conceit
I want to emphasize something: I know I’m good, but I also know I’m not great. I know I can be better, and I strive to improve myself. Conceit is defined as excessive pride in oneself, so let’s not go overboard here. Nobody likes an arrogant show-off.

Final Word
I’ve been disturbed by the occasional story of overzealous men who demand what they want without regard for other people. I can’t help feeling it’s due to a lack of experience and a lack of understanding about other people, and how the world works. Life isn’t supposed to be a contest, fighting to see who’s going to get to the top of the heap. We’re all in this together. But admittedly, a person has to have self-confidence; they must believe in themselves.

References

Quote Investigator: Malcolm Forbes
In conclusion, based on current evidence QI would credit this quotation to Malcolm Forbes.

my blog: Aggressive Males and the Stupidity of Inexperience - Sep 11/2021
I have run across numerous stories, either in profiles or in conversations, of aggressive males demanding sex. No seduction, no chat, let’s just get right to it.

my blog: The S Word - Sep 26/2021
It’s an unwritten rule that white people can’t say the N word. The comedian Chris Rock has some hilarious bits talking about this idea, and the gist of it is that only blacks can use the N word.

2021-10-28

Flickr: What is the risk of having my account terminated?

On Monday, October 25, 2021, I clicked on the bookmarked URL for D’s Flickr and was met with a Page Not Found error. My friend is the admin of a Flickr group, and I discovered her name had disappeared. I contacted D, and she was surprised and shocked by the news. Was this a computer glitch? What else could have gone wrong? She said she was contacting Flickr.

On Tuesday, the following day, in checking other friends, I discovered L’s Flickr account had vanished.

I had an interesting chat with N, a well-known photographer who uses Flickr. She had her Flickr account deleted back in 2020. She requested an investigation. She found out why and even which particular photo was deemed unfit for Flickr, justifying the termination of the whole account. Rather than appeal, a complicated process, N created a new account and started over.

I can’t help thinking of Tumblr, and its mass transition to a non-porn platform, adversely affecting millions of people. Which platform can any of us depend on? Are we all taking a risk using any of these services?

Flickr: Terms of Service
For years, I’ve seen the fine print for services and software which says I can’t hold them liable if I use their stuff and anything goes wrong. It’s an interesting idea: I engage somebody to do something for me but they’re not responsible if they screw up.

On the other hand, how many of us actually read the rules to find out just what we can and can’t do?

Under Terms of Service, I find Community Guidelines which lists Things not to do, prefaced with:

Here's the deal: We like to give second chances. However, when we discover you stepping across any of the lines listed below, we will take action, which may mean deleting your account with or without warning.

I see what I suppose are standard things:

• Don’t violate copyright laws.
• Don’t harm children.
• Don’t be creepy.
• Don’t upload content that is illegal or prohibited.
• Don’t use hate speech.

... etc.

I make specific mention of “Don't forget to moderate your content” as it merits its own explanation page.

Photos and videos should be categorized as:

• Safe - Acceptable to a global, public audience
• Moderate - Partial nudity, like bare breasts and bottoms
• Restricted - full-frontal nudity and sexual acts; photos only–videos cannot contain restricted content and are deleted if reported

This also notes that accounts themselves are categorized using the same safety levels, indicating if the content has been properly categorized or not. It’s not clear to me if this represents grounds for the termination of an account. In the beginning, I posted a tasteful nude of my Second Life avatar with the default of Safe, all naughty bits hidden. A while later, a bot switched the category to Moderate. In that case, I wasn’t terminated. I then noticed the category of my account was Moderate, meaning I had incorrectly classified something, so I went through changing various things to Restricted and ended up with my account listed as Safe.

I also make specific mention of “Don’t forget to set the appropriate content type” as that, too, gets its own explanation page.

The content type categories are as follows:

• Photos / Videos
• Illustration/Art / Animation/CGI or other non-photographic images, or
• Screencasts / Screenshots - what's a screenshot

I had no idea this content type categorization even existed, and I had to hunt around to figure out where to see it and where to set it. Under settings, you can specific the default categories for searching pictures. Under Organize, you can set the category of an image. Oddly enough, you can’t see the category on the page of the image itself. In reading one of the forums, a user said this used to be visible but is no longer. There was also a message from the CEO of Flickr welcoming Second Life photographers and seeming to say the screenshot category is no longer required.

How can my account be deleted?
Good question. I’m not sure I have a clear-cut answer for that. During my chat with N, she explained there are self-appointed arbiters of taste, and there is always the possibility that some random person could file a complaint about any image, triggering an investigation by Flickr. Okay, I slowly say, wondering about differences of opinion. I’ve seen some pretty graphic sexual images from SL photographers: oral sex, penetration, and money shots and so far, those people’s work is still online. What did D and L do to merit being terminated? Am I going to someday offend some stranger’s sensibilities and find my Flickr gone in a flash? In a pre-emptive strike, I’ve taken to classifying all of my photos as Restricted, thinking I’m not going to get my wrist slapped for being overly cautious.

An Observation: Sex vs Violence
Just now, I scanned through a number of photos, checking their safety levels. A photo of a scantily clad woman is rated as Moderate while a Halloween photo of Victorian England street scene where Jack the Ripper is about to stab a woman with a knife is marked as Safe. Sex bad, violence good. It is what it is, and we must accept the culture we live in and follow the rules.

Nevertheless, I’m reminded of George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can't Say On Television where he replaces the word kill with the word f**k and retells a movie cliché: Okay, sheriff, we’re going to f**k you now. But we’re gonna f**k you slow.

Yes, sex is more of a corrupting influence than violence.

Final Word
It would seem that Flickr can terminate any account without warning. According to the Terms of Service, it would seem there may be no recourse for the user. As of this moment, I now personally know three people who’ve had their accounts deleted.

Why am I using this service? If I’m posting anything which bumps into the Community Guidelines, specifically sex related, am I using the right service?

I see thousands of SL users who have posted thousands of photos, representing an unquantifiable amount of time and effort who are all susceptible to being terminated. Now, I’m sure anyone could argue we all face such condemnation in society, that is, we should not cross the line of accepted so-called normal behavior, but is there a question of a difference in taste? Old saying: One person’s pornography is another person’s erotica. What offends them doesn’t offend you.

Recommendations:

• Restricted
  By default, when you set up an account, the Safety Level is Safe. Under my settings, I've changed this to Restricted. Now, when I upload, I don't inadvertently make a mistake. To be quite frank, I do not understand the visibility of the different levels. While I get the Safe means a wider audience, how big of a difference does it make for my viewership?
• Restricted by reference
  While I publish an image which is innocuous, I may include links in the description to other things, like my blog, where I may have restricted content. Consequently, the image should also be restricted.
• Moderate
  Let me repeat Flickr's own words: Partial nudity, like bare breasts and bottoms. Would you walk down the street like that in real life?
• Private
  By default, photos are public. By setting this to Private, I have a chance to review what I'm doing before "publishing" my image by manually switching to Public.
• Backup
  I must have my own backup of all my images. Flickr's ToS specifically says it's not a cloud service so do not rely on it to store your images.

And I add that none of us know whether at some point, some self-appointed arbiter of good taste takes exception to our work and calls in the Flickr police. Good luck to us all. Too harsh? Let me remind you that Flickr is a private company and can do whatever the heck it wants. When we sign up, we agree to their Terms of Service, and if we violate their rules, they have the right to boot us off their platform. Ignorance is not an excuse; the onus is on us to read the ToS and Community Guidelines.

After Tumblr, I discovered newTumbl. After Flickr, will I discover newFlick?

References

Wikipedia: Flickr
Flickr is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and is a popular way for amateur and professional photographers to host high-resolution photos. It has changed ownership several times and has been owned by SmugMug since April 20, 2018.

Flickr: Terms of Service
If you violate the Terms of Use, Flickr at its sole discretion may (i) require you to remedy any violation thereof and/or (ii) take any other actions that Flickr deems appropriate to enforce its rights and pursue available remedies.

Flickr: Community Guidelines
When we discover you stepping across any of the lines listed below, we will take action, which may mean deleting your account with or without warning.

2021-10-26