{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://www.jacky.wtf//essays/2026/nice-for-what",
  "description": "The only obligations I have are to be good to my people and to my community.\n",
  "path": "/essays/2026/nice-for-what",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-03T18:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:e2ctbutx6kya6si4if5ngjmm/site.standard.publication/3mniussyp2d2g",
  "tags": "essay",
  "textContent": "I _think_ I've managed to cultivate a online personality that makes it clear\nthat I'm _not nice_ to everyone who comes across my way. I'll be kind to\nstrangers — without a doubt; but not everyone deserves the expending of\nenergy that comes with being nice. Depending on who you are, I either have good\nthings or bad things to say about you — which is how humans with some\nlevel of social interactivity and opinion forming tend to be. Just ask someone\ninto sports or music — they have a minefield of opinions (some factually\nsounding but opinions nonetheless). I'm writing this mainly to expand on\nsomething in my Atmosphere account's bio, that \"I'm not your friend and I\nread more than you\". The second half of that is my cheeky statement as a former\nNew Yorker armed with a library card. But that first half is a reminder (to\nmyself) that not everyone deserves _constant_ good will or benefit of the\ndoubt. Folks like Kissinger _definitely_ would have gleefully eradicated Haiti\n(if not turned into a plantation-as-country) and folks who hold offsets of\nhis ideals do not need to be given any sort of grace.\n\nThis is something I'm going to link when folks decide to label me as a \"bad\nfaith actor\" or someone that they expect/demand constant good-will from. I am\nnot your emotional or social mule. I will not acquiesce to your need to have\nsomeone validate that you are a good person — my bar is higher than most,\nI think! Especially if you're of the genre of folks who are routinely\nbenefiting from systems that exist and choke the rest of the world. I've\nrefused to choose the \"high road\" a lot when it comes to the space I work in -\nI am not cognitively capable of doing this thing where folks ignore or overlook\nthe malice of people for personal gain or for security. Especially in the tech\nindustry, one _can_ find options - you do not have to comply to bullshit in\nadvance (in fact, compliance _enables_ the bullshit to fester longer, look at\nGitHub and Microsoft).\n\nAnyway, point of this story is that niceness is expensive the further way from\na white person one presents as (cishetereonormativity be damned - constant\nniceness is an extension of whiteness but that's a later post) and kindness is a\ncurrency of being in community, but not everyone IS meant to be part of it.",
  "title": "Being nice for free is a bad idea"
}