You’re assuming a lot. This isn’t actually about me I prefer dark themes too a lot of the time. I just know people who have that particular need and so I’d forgo some initial discomfort if it made things easier for them.

Also, nice whataboutism there, but to answer your question, yes things in general should be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. I get that it might not ever be perfect, but your inane points seek to hold us back instead of considering others and their accessibility needs which software and computer based technology is severely lacking, especially in spaces like open source.

Or you know, people are knowledgeable about such things, genuinely care and want to reduce harm.

[Sarcasm] But no, it’s all down to some imagined ‘identity’ people are going to lose based on arguing for more care and a little bit of awareness.

Thank you for asking!

One that I know about (though I am sure there are others) is that many people have an astigmatism in their eyes and so it is very difficult to see anything in dark conditions as the light blurs across their vision when put on a black/dark background (this has other effects like making it awful to drive at night, for example).

The correct solution is to not have any theme as a default, either base it on what folks already have it set at a system level or ask on startup.

I am sorry to hear about your eyes. However, hopefully either of the solutions can be implimented instead of developers making a choice or impliment both a light theme and dark theme, with imo light being the default being the currently ‘best’ option, can be implimented with the option to change it in apps that don’t follow system theming nor ask, so hopefully the most amount of people can see it well enough to change it.

🙄

Yes, this is a good solution too.

If they’re going to insist on a ‘default’ though, they shouldn’t and should ask instead.

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This is bad though, what about all the people who have a really difficult time seeing with dark themes and thus would find it difficult to change it?

Really they should have asked people what they want on startup or some such, not make decisions for them.

Use dark theme by default?

Wow, how ableist, a lot of people cannot see with dark themes well due to no fault of their own and they’re expected to change it when that will be difficult because they cannot see anything suddenly? Sigh.

Why not just let people choose what they want at startup or keep people’s choices based on what they had before or the system theme?

Software devs need to seriously start consulting people about their needs and not just making choices for them.

The Narcissist Scare by Sarah Z — This explains a lot, the term has been wildly misused and thus people don’t really understand what it actually means.

Plus there is a focus on punitive ‘justice’ very much in the systems we live under instead of either trying to understand people and trying to help them either directly or indirectly.

Allegedly, it is a difficult neurodivergence to live with in a healthy, non toxic way. However, I’ve never personally seen that from anyone I know officially diagnosed with it, in fact they are well aware that they have it and are trying to do better, a lot of people are armchair psychologists and love to diagnose with no proof, misattributing it to other things, either trauma or the systems we all live under which causes people to act in terrible ways.

For those who have genuinely been affected by the actions of those who genuinely have it though, I suspect they feel as if they have to see as everybody with it as exactly the same to try to defend themselves. However, in actuallity this likely just makes people worse because not having community or people to point out when you are doing harmful things or getting you help is likely going to make people act out or seek out others who will reinforce their beliefs instead of encouraging them to get help in ways that actually work instead of the vitriolic hating ways most do to them. Though yes, I get that people shouldn’t have to be around those that do them harm but by seeing anyone of any group as all the same it may be doing more harm than good instead of getting to know individuals.

Personally, I think a lot of the systems we live under don’t help with the behaviour of anyone with neurodiverse conditions nor those that need protection from actual toxicity because they are stagnating and do not allow those that need help to get it due to being alienating and often lacking the resources they need to get help.

We have been thinking long and hard about this and figured out it isn’t just one thing, it is a mixture of:

• Capitalism
• Colonialism
• Patriarchy
• Misogyny
• Racism
• Cops
• Constant surveillance
• Monoallocisbinaryhetnormativity
• Queer{phobia/misia}
• Representative democracy
• Monarchies
• The legal system in most places
• Heirarchy in general
• Authoritarianism etc etc

All these things keep causing extreme harm to the people who live under them yet we keep being told it is for our own good by those who have everything to gain from keeping things the way they are leading to people either tearing themselves apart by trying to live up to the impossible system/standards or failing to do so and dying or worse.

Actual gaslighting or lying, disagreeing etc that people have taken the word gaslighting for and misused it?