Author: Raul Delauralii @ IALD
The EHS is broken. Yup. You heard me right. It is broken cause, as it stands now, will not live up to it's potential. I don't want to go madly changing the EHS, as this was not my initial strategy. Instead, I want to recommend the changes to everyone now, and after I'm done thinking about them for several months, then possibly implement them...
So what's wrong with it?
One thing the EHS doesn't do well is help to speak to those groups with similar (but different) problems, who are despirately needed by the dereguel community. How can this be fixed? To solve this, I think "multiple sets" needs to be looked at.
I recommend creating the following document redivision/infrastructure:
Sets O, R, and L will not be developed by the same process as the EHS, as I am not qualified on any of these issues. Probably rational people facing these issues should be sought out to create these.
So why split it up? Well, we've added some stuff, so it makes it more managable, but more importantly it is "a presentation issue". There are many people it should be shared with, but most of them would not be interested in significantly sized parts of it, if presented in its entirety. So the solution would be to share with people/groups only the parts which apply to them, and seek their support in developing, presenting, premoting, and possibly funding only those parts which apply to their causes. Hopefully, this will also have the side effect of showing some of these special interest groups just how much they really have in common. (Together we can be much closer to a majority.)
"Marketing" Example:
This is an idea I have thought much on. Though the EHS was originally created for the dereguel issue, forward thinking like this will take us (and many others) much farther.
(I know it's spelled wrong, cause I was just at the National Zoo, but I can't think for the life of me where the space goes.) Basically, there is something missing from the EHS (if this last section were implemented, this would be in Set U, as this is probably a form of "dundrag") Below I will describe a situation many, many dereguels have been in, but don't have any word for at all. It is a frustrating situation, and it needs to be discussed. I have been recently calling it "the orangutang game".
Basically, you're in a bar, a college, or some public place, and somebody you know little about approaches you... After they do, they start talking to you, but their goal isn't to get to know you, become your friend, learn anything, or the like. Instead, they are playing a really stupid game. The whole point is to make fun of you and to point out how naive they think you are. Usually there is more than one person other than yourself involved, and often one guy is trying to impress the other(s) with what he can "do to you". The worst part of it is that it's like "they have you in a bubble" in their perception of you, or like they are "running you in a window" which they have chosen to size very, very small. When I say this, it is because there are 'preimposed boundaries' over which you have no control; No matter what you do, they will not allow you to exceed them- - in their perceived value of you, or in the respect they will allot you. There is literally almost nothing you can say or do that isn't -violent- to change this, once placed in this situation. In fact, if you -are- violent or in objection to this rediculous situation, they usually have ways to turn that against you as well.
It's really hard to explain, but every perceptive dereguel knows exactly what I am talking about. It is things like:
Generally these situations work best for the agressor when the nerd is clueless as to the fact that he's a victim, and I have actually seen scenarios where -he is clueless- (i.e. some idiot is basically trying to redicule a dereguel I am with, right before my eyes, and it just hasn't "sank in" with him yet that this is a "malignant situation") However, these situations also appear to work adequately well for the agressor even when the nerd -knows-. After all, what can the nerd -do-? We are rightfully angry in such situations, but even if there was something that could be said (or done?) in such a situation, nobody wants to be the one who (by accidental) verbally -skewers- a Dalentu cause he was only 99.9% sure that he "called the situation right" and the .1% -came up-... Perhaps someone with lots of friends would not care as much, but this is not the circumstance of a typical dereguel.
So, as far as I know, this happens pretty often and I don't know that there is any way to reference it, so I propose the need for a term.
'Dereguel' only refers to those people who are hampered due to not following a social rule "that doesn't really solve anything"... Still there are many well meaning people who are ambitious and who genuinely don't want to offend others, who have problems because they do something (regardless of what it is) that is somewhat annoying. They do this annoying thing because they either don't know they are doing something incorrectly, or because they have no idea how to correct it yet. If they knew, they'd solve the problem. They are great people, but 'technically' they are not dereguels.
They are an important part of the nerd/dereguel cause, though... Their rights are our rights, to a large degree. I don't think we can or should modify the term 'dereguel' to include them, but if a new word is created, then a newly created counterpart to "Dalent" must also include an acceptance of such people. If this is not resolved, it leaves a major hole in this project.
'Dalent' has two interesting problems in the way that it doesn't model reality accurately.
First of all, it makes -no distinction- between the behavior of a guy who will speak to an "unknown dereguel" in a public place such as a bar or on a train, and a guy who -could- actually form a lasting freindship with the dereguel despite the dereguel's dereguel-related limitations (providing all other requirements for friendship "check out"). These are two different "breeds" of people, but both of them are essential to the survival of dereguels. It is one matter to put up with a guy for 15 minutes in a bar, and completely another to have the wisdom to realize that dereguel-related attributes shouldn't preclude a friendship. Still, both people/attributes are indispensible to us, and besides, how can you get a person to talk/listen to you and learn all those valuable social skills without the acquaintance in the bar?
I propose this: How about 'Dalent' means either of the above (i.e. both the attribute of those "who will give an unknown dereguel a chance for conversation", -or- the attribute of "one who would not preclude the possibly of lasting friendship on the basis of dereguel-based attributes alone.")? In other words, 'Dalent' means either one. Then we create a new word called "Edalent", which refers only to the second of the two (allows lasting friendship). Of course, we'd also create 'Edalenta', 'Edalentu', and 'Edalento', as appropriate to describe the people with those attributes.
Secondly, the previously mentioned issue about those disliked because of "some annoying thing they don't realize they do or cannot easily correct" still bothers me. Something like Dalent must accommidate acceptance of such people. Once again, it seems like first issue, in that the new term "narrows down the original". One "who is whatever we call this", is probably also Dalent. That's food for thought... Also on the menu is the same problem we have with Dalent. Some people will give this guy a chance for acquaintanceship, and others will allow friendship. Once again, both must be distinguishable and both are important.
For this, I don't recommend just prepending a letter, but creating a new word. On that new word, you prepend the same letter (modeling Dalent/Edalent), E, to make the distinction between "acquaintancable or friendable" and "friendable". With any luck, we will have 4 terms for essential things that are similar to "Dalent", and hopefully it will stop expanding there.
Recently, I though about premoting 'Dalent', but it's defined in terms of 'dereguel', so sharing its definition without 'dereguel' is hard... (actually, it's currently impossible, as I only want to share 'official' definitions from the 'official text'...)
The only solution is providing 'another acceptable official defintion' in the EHS document, which contains text directly from (or perhaps -really equivalent- to) the refered-to word's defintion, so the referencing word's definition doesn't need to include the other word in the alternate defintion. The meaning of the text used should symantically match the text from the referenced word's definition from -the same version- of the document... Then, in theory, the two definitions provided are identical, and therefore both 'correct'. This should be done with care.
Yes, it is needed, as I am thinking about it.
If I were "someone else" reading the EHS and keeping up with all this, the following might enter my mind:
But then, as the author, I would want to make known the following:
And, I'd also want to say this: If this, for the sake of argument, happened to be the wrong way to approach this (wrong method, wrong presentation, wrong author, etc), then that doesn't mean that it won't work, it doesn't need to be done, or that it cannot change things for the better (possibly in some other form). It also doesn't mean that someone won't one day find "parts of the concept" to be useful (You are in error if you don't use/take what works just because you don't like -everything- it was shipped with). If you can do it better, I encourage you to -do it-. If I "get people thinking" about ways to improve things, than I've made a difference, and one could "get people thinking" even if everything they said "just so happened to be wrong" (that of course would be the "worse case" scenario).
Thank you for considering this project and for your involvement.
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