I don't think the distinctions are stupid and meaningless per se, but they way that they are often used here is so simplistic as to be meaningless in the end. You would consider me an anti, and yet much of society, when presented with my position in full, probably wouldn't. I do not fit easily into your categories.

Dude, have you been living in a cave for the past ten years? Are you sure you have truly been involved in this community for a long time?

Ad hominem attacks aside, why don't you actually try to see where kea is coming from here. He has a valid point.

Newsflash: there are people in this community who have differing ideologies. You need to accept this fact, because trying to deny it when it's glaringly obvious to everyone who has been in this community for even a short time for reasons of political expediency is both disingenuous and flat out ridiculous.

This is insulting and has little to do with the reality of our situation. Of course people here have different ideologies--more so, I think, than many of the "pros" are willing to acknowledge. Even within the pro-contacters there is disagreement about how much contact is too much, etc. Shall we also make up some categories for them? Pro-blowjobbers vs. anti-blowjobbers, for example? Why aren't we discussing that distinction every day here? I'll tell you why: because you and a few others have taken it upon yourselves to set the agenda for the entirety of GC, and that means putting people in one of the three categories you've set up for us.

Acknowledging these differences are important, and it's far from a distraction from what we are attending to:

Yes, but you are setting up a class system where the "pros" are the special ones at GC and everyone else is barely tolerated. You suggest we serve a purpose, so we who do not conform strictly to your distinctions are useful, but otherwise you'd be trying to drum us out of the movement.

not all MAAs are going to be able to co-exist harmoniously in the various groups we are gradually forming solely on the basis that they share an attraction base unless the organization is entirely based upon support issues (and even then, it can get "sticky" sometimes).

Spoken like a true cult leader: Cult Characteristics ⚠️ ↗

AFA - 8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society.

UC Berkeley - All The Answers - Provide simple answers to the confusion they, themselves, create. Support these answers with material produced or "approved" by the group.

Totalism - "Us against them" thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

Motive Questioning - When sound evidence against the group is presented, members are taught to question the motivation of the presenter. The verifiable (sound documentation) is ignored because of doubts over the unverifiable (presenter's motives). See Opposer Warnings (#2 above).

Coercion - Disobedience, including even minor disagreement with group doctrine, may result in expulsion and shunning.

Cult Information Centre - 2. Peer Group Pressure
Suppressing doubt and resistance to new ideas by exploiting the need to belong.

4. Rejection of Old Values
Accelerating acceptance of new life style by constantly denouncing former values and beliefs.

6. Metacommunication
Implanting subliminal messages by stressing certain key words or phrases in long, confusing lectures.

17. Finger Pointing
Creating a false sense of righteousness by pointing to the shortcomings of the outside world and other cults.

Rick Ross

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions. (For example, telling people to stay away from counselors because all or most of them are out to get you.)

And so on. Now, I know what you're going to say: just because GC shares a few of the characteristics of a cult doesn't make it a cult. You're right, but it indicates that it is on the wrong path. I have a feeling that if you all could meet in real life and form a large group, it would be a cult before long. The anonymity provided by the Net is partly a protection against that.

Sharing an attraction base does not mean that you share goals, either immediate or ultimate, nor does it mean you share an ideology, a common perception of minors, or much of anything else, for that matter.

No, but odds are we all share at least some goals, and in my opinion the most important one--that of assuring we are not persecuted just because of who we are.

There are a lot of good reasons not to trust anti-contact people with personal info, and for that reason alone, I think it's very important to know someone's ideological stance in this community because I do enjoy making friends and I do like to extend my hand in trust with certain people here.

Right, because "anti-contact" people are all untrustworthy, no exceptions. Number 4 of Rick Ross's list applies here--you are setting up a false dichotomy using fear to persuade people here that only those who belong to the in-group are trustworthy. It's a load of horseshit. You may not be aware of this, Dissident, but I already know who you are, and that's because someone you trusted leaked that info to me. I won't say who it is, but he doesn't seem to post here anymore anyway. The fact is, I just don't care about any of that.

None of the people on this board I have trusted with my personal info would ever have received that info if they were anti-contact, so you're incredibly wrong that the distinction is meaningless.

And yet I have it because someone you did trust gave it to me. That's something I never would've done, ever.

If it was actually meaningless, no debates of this nature would ever occur. This is a perfect example of what happens when you take a stance based entirely on emotion and it clashes with reason and empirically observable phenomena: the former always comes up wanting. This is also what happens when you put politics over truth and reality.

Says the guy who's afraid to trust anyone who doesn't fit into his preapproved ideology.