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On April 14 2018 09:13 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2018 09:06 Tachion wrote:On April 14 2018 08:49 Plansix wrote:On April 14 2018 08:45 Tachion wrote:On April 14 2018 06:56 Sermokala wrote:On April 14 2018 05:58 Plansix wrote:
We are all guilty of some high level bullshit. I can shit post with the best of them. But do you have specific examples of you being attacked? Or is this more about over generalization about conservatives? Do I need examples of being personally attacked in order to comment about the general tone the thread takes twords my identity? My comment was that people hate Trump. Not just despise him for his comments and condemn him for allegations against him but specifically hate him and the people that support him. That spills over to any conservative that tangentially have to be near him for what they believe in. Trump isn't important enough to me to change who I am. Hes not important enough to take away my agency for having morals. You seem like a pretty level headed person, so I hope people take that into consideration when speaking to you directly. There are many times though where posters will want to talk in a politics thread about the direction of the Republican party, or about the values of modern day conservatism. In that area, you're stuck being represented by someone who appears to be morally reprehensible. You can't avoid being judged for the company you keep. I don't think there is any comforting solution to the hate that troubles you. The political climate is divisive, people are furious, and there is an antagonistic bully in the news every day fanning the flames. The best you can probably do is bring the discussion to a more personal level where possible. I don't think anyone here is going to hate on you in a one on one conversation. This is the worst part of identity politics. He is not responsible for all people that label themselves as conservative. Just like I am not responsible for all the past sins of the party that I vote for. Was he not implanting himself in identity politics with his first sentence? I was under the impression that he identifies as a conservative, and was taking issue with peoples vitriol when they talk about conservatives in the thread. Yes, and your plan about calling him out on the “company he keeps” feeds into the worst aspects of that. You are basically backing him into a corner. This is Fox News saying “why are the Muslims not speaking out against terrorism” when Muslims are totally doing that.
When a Nazi like Arthur Jones runs for public office under the Republican party, Republican leadership denounces him because they don't want to be associated with Nazis. When 80% of Republicans support politician X, it's fair to have a discussion on why Republicans (in general) support them. That's all I was getting at. For the purpose of discussion, some generalizations are just a must. From his last posts, I'm assuming that Sermokala took issue with the abhorrent tone of the discussions more so than the unfair association.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On April 14 2018 06:43 ChristianS wrote:
He was responding to "nobody should hate anyone" with "really? Not even Nazis?", he wasn't calling anyone here a Nazi. I did something similar one time and LL got mad, so I guess it might be a good rule to just never bring up Nazis, even if it's purely as a rhetorical stand-in for "group I know none of us agree with," because people tend to misunderstand and think you're equating them with Nazis.
Since I was curious what happened back then I went back and found the quote in question:
+ Show Spoiler +On January 09 2017 07:26 ChristianS wrote:
That Russian interference is a convenient argument doesn't make it true or false. ("The Holocaust is just SUCH a convenient argument that the Nazis were bad.")
As an "in hindsight" comment, what I'd say is that there's probably a lot of ways to get the same point across without invoking the comparison. Which kind of seems to be the intended nature of Godwin: don't make the comparison if it isn't very apt or necessary. It tends to descend very quickly into hyperbole and awful comparisons.
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You and I had and have a fundamentally different understanding of Godwin - I'd think it's about comparing opponents to Nazis, not using them as a rhetorical stand-in for "people that were bad and wrong" - but like I said, I would agree at this point that no matter your intention, there's too high a chance that someone interprets it otherwise and everything goes bad. So I guess we're on the same page?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
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At the same time you need something everyone agrees is bad to make ad absurdums (which are very useful rethorical tools) and with the political moral consensus having been blown away so bad in the last years, there’s not much else left than Hitler.
I meet regularly russians who think Stalin was in fact a rather good leader, torture is totally ok for half of americans, democracy is in fact not so great for many people and so on and so on. All those opinions would have made anyone a complete outcast a decade or two ago (rightfully so if you ask me).
Since the last people everyone agrees are despicable pond scums are nazis, we’ll have to either reassess our morals , or accept that the argumentum ad hitlerium is there to stay.
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On April 14 2018 01:18 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +iamthedave wrote:
I think there's a degree of truth to the idea that generalisations work better when talking about the right than the left.
One of the great strengths of right wing politics is that people on that political spectrum seem to agree with each other on a broad swath of ideas and come together behind their guys when it matters. See: Trump. A looooooot of people swallowed personal misgivings in the sake of political identity. Like bo1b was saying. My side is diverse and argues/thinks, and is thus not easily generalizable, but generalizations work just fine on your side! Ugh.
While Plansix already pointed out the obvious problem with what you did here, I feel I should add a little more, since you clearly got the wrong end of the stick.
I'm not saying people on the right don't argue or don't think, more that they come together when they feel their side is under attack. The left/liberals are more likely to respond with an 'I agree, but'. I don't think you'd disagree that a lot of people on the right spend a lot of time defending the indefensible concerning Trump. He literally calls a lie the truth, and people on the right either don't know better, or choose not to and defend him doing so, Even if we exclude Fox News and simply rule it as propoganda, lots of your right wing politicians are happy to defend the President's falsehoods, no matter how egregious. I've never personally seen someone on the left get away with that. Obama was generally well-liked on the left but I saw him get called out repeatedly, and in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is loved by the left wing, but he also gets called out constantly for being too weak on some issues and rubbish at PMQs.
This makes generalisations easier because a broader swatch of right wing individuals respond the same way to the same situation. Whether or not they secretly hate Trump or not, they'll stand up and do the same thing in the name of party defense. I'm quite certain that a lot of the talk behind the scenes is people saying how much it sickens them to defend Trump, but they feel they have to and are obligated to.
People on the left are far more likely to refuse the public obligation and either say nothing or condemn the individual in question.
Related to the thread, though, the problem with the generalisations you and other right wing posters engage in is that 'the left' in the thread don't really agree on much. I personally received a rather rude and aggressive PM from GH just before his ban over one such disagreement. So it's hard for those generalisations to actually lead anywhere productive, because it's hard for us to know if we're actually being talked to, which leads to silly situations where one poster is assuming another poster is saying something they're not, and spending half a page either defending a position they never proposed, or trying to clarify that they weren't talking to that person in the first place. That the majority of the posters lean left only exacerbates the problem.
I also think that those generalisations often lead to the circular arguments and pointless asides that led in part to your thread ban; half of the interactions with you are spent parsing just what you meant to say and to whom you meant to say it, all while you proclaim it was clear all along... but it often isn't. All of which is assuming you aren't just trolling lefties for kicks, which I've always partially suspected given your usual pattern of posting something in a manner guaranteed to get people's backs up, then replying with nothing but evasions until you arbitrarily claim the moral high ground and stop replying, before repeating the schtick a week or so later.
re: left wing shitposting, of course it should be moderated fairly, and warnings issued where appropriate.
From the moderators' point of view though, they have a thread that goes on just fine for pages and pages, and then certain posters make a comment and suddenly everything turns into a flame fest. Coincidentally, it's always the same posters, posting in the same manner, to the same people, that causes said degeneration. The fact that several of the thread's right-wing posters have an obvious, glaring victim mentality doesn't really help with that, nor that on occasion they post clearly looking for a fight, like Kickboxer did a few pages ago.
This is how echo chambers are formed, and I'm glad that for the most part we've avoided it, and hope to keep doing so. I think the moderation is maybe a little zealous here and there, but I don't think any of the thread bans so far have been genuinely unwarranted. I got a warning myself near the thread's start, and I agree with it and have modified my posting accordingly.
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On April 15 2018 22:07 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On April 14 2018 01:18 Danglars wrote:iamthedave wrote:
I think there's a degree of truth to the idea that generalisations work better when talking about the right than the left.
One of the great strengths of right wing politics is that people on that political spectrum seem to agree with each other on a broad swath of ideas and come together behind their guys when it matters. See: Trump. A looooooot of people swallowed personal misgivings in the sake of political identity. Like bo1b was saying. My side is diverse and argues/thinks, and is thus not easily generalizable, but generalizations work just fine on your side! Ugh. While Plansix already pointed out the obvious problem with what you did here, I feel I should add a little more, since you clearly got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying people on the right don't argue or don't think, more that they come together when they feel their side is under attack. The left/liberals are more likely to respond with an 'I agree, but'. I don't think you'd disagree that a lot of people on the right spend a lot of time defending the indefensible concerning Trump. He literally calls a lie the truth, and people on the right either don't know better, or choose not to and defend him doing so, Even if we exclude Fox News and simply rule it as propoganda, lots of your right wing politicians are happy to defend the President's falsehoods, no matter how egregious. I've never personally seen someone on the left get away with that. Obama was generally well-liked on the left but I saw him get called out repeatedly, and in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is loved by the left wing, but he also gets called out constantly for being too weak on some issues and rubbish at PMQs. This makes generalisations easier because a broader swatch of right wing individuals respond the same way to the same situation. Whether or not they secretly hate Trump or not, they'll stand up and do the same thing in the name of party defense. I'm quite certain that a lot of the talk behind the scenes is people saying how much it sickens them to defend Trump, but they feel they have to and are obligated to. People on the left are far more likely to refuse the public obligation and either say nothing or condemn the individual in question. Related to the thread, though, the problem with the generalisations you and other right wing posters engage in is that 'the left' in the thread don't really agree on much. I personally received a rather rude and aggressive PM from GH just before his ban over one such disagreement. So it's hard for those generalisations to actually lead anywhere productive, because it's hard for us to know if we're actually being talked to, which leads to silly situations where one poster is assuming another poster is saying something they're not, and spending half a page either defending a position they never proposed, or trying to clarify that they weren't talking to that person in the first place. That the majority of the posters lean left only exacerbates the problem. I also think that those generalisations often lead to the circular arguments and pointless asides that led in part to your thread ban; half of the interactions with you are spent parsing just what you meant to say and to whom you meant to say it, all while you proclaim it was clear all along... but it often isn't. All of which is assuming you aren't just trolling lefties for kicks, which I've always partially suspected given your usual pattern of posting something in a manner guaranteed to get people's backs up, then replying with nothing but evasions until you arbitrarily claim the moral high ground and stop replying, before repeating the schtick a week or so later. re: left wing shitposting, of course it should be moderated fairly, and warnings issued where appropriate. From the moderators' point of view though, they have a thread that goes on just fine for pages and pages, and then certain posters make a comment and suddenly everything turns into a flame fest. Coincidentally, it's always the same posters, posting in the same manner, to the same people, that causes said degeneration. The fact that several of the thread's right-wing posters have an obvious, glaring victim mentality doesn't really help with that, nor that on occasion they post clearly looking for a fight, like Kickboxer did a few pages ago. This is how echo chambers are formed, and I'm glad that for the most part we've avoided it, and hope to keep doing so. I think the moderation is maybe a little zealous here and there, but I don't think any of the thread bans so far have been genuinely unwarranted. I got a warning myself near the thread's start, and I agree with it and have modified my posting accordingly.
Yes, you may take my response to mean it is only your partisan thinking that wants to assign the right to unified thinking, and the left to more diversity of thinking. These are circular arguments akin to Bo1b’s principle charge. It relies on the normal left/right divide in perception, and I don’t think any of it is helpful in debate.
I thought people would be more receptive acknowledging the state of partisan bickering considering how much they resisted xDaunt’s “y’all on the left” formulations. He and I could both get I to why it’s an accurate grouping, despite the protestations of diversity, for multiple reasons ... maybe similar Trump derangement pretending everything he does is unprecedented or similar belief or passive acceptance of identity politics. He’s the lawyer so he probably remembers more of the herd mentality that characterizes liberals on this forum. It just isn’t useful to point it out, so don’t make the mistake of assuming it’s for lack of proof. It just doesn’t lead anywhere. I’m not under the delusion that liberals will accept the label, much less conservatives, for any proof or accuracy.
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On April 15 2018 22:38 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2018 22:07 iamthedave wrote:On April 14 2018 01:18 Danglars wrote:iamthedave wrote:
I think there's a degree of truth to the idea that generalisations work better when talking about the right than the left.
One of the great strengths of right wing politics is that people on that political spectrum seem to agree with each other on a broad swath of ideas and come together behind their guys when it matters. See: Trump. A looooooot of people swallowed personal misgivings in the sake of political identity. Like bo1b was saying. My side is diverse and argues/thinks, and is thus not easily generalizable, but generalizations work just fine on your side! Ugh. While Plansix already pointed out the obvious problem with what you did here, I feel I should add a little more, since you clearly got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying people on the right don't argue or don't think, more that they come together when they feel their side is under attack. The left/liberals are more likely to respond with an 'I agree, but'. I don't think you'd disagree that a lot of people on the right spend a lot of time defending the indefensible concerning Trump. He literally calls a lie the truth, and people on the right either don't know better, or choose not to and defend him doing so, Even if we exclude Fox News and simply rule it as propoganda, lots of your right wing politicians are happy to defend the President's falsehoods, no matter how egregious. I've never personally seen someone on the left get away with that. Obama was generally well-liked on the left but I saw him get called out repeatedly, and in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is loved by the left wing, but he also gets called out constantly for being too weak on some issues and rubbish at PMQs. This makes generalisations easier because a broader swatch of right wing individuals respond the same way to the same situation. Whether or not they secretly hate Trump or not, they'll stand up and do the same thing in the name of party defense. I'm quite certain that a lot of the talk behind the scenes is people saying how much it sickens them to defend Trump, but they feel they have to and are obligated to. People on the left are far more likely to refuse the public obligation and either say nothing or condemn the individual in question. Related to the thread, though, the problem with the generalisations you and other right wing posters engage in is that 'the left' in the thread don't really agree on much. I personally received a rather rude and aggressive PM from GH just before his ban over one such disagreement. So it's hard for those generalisations to actually lead anywhere productive, because it's hard for us to know if we're actually being talked to, which leads to silly situations where one poster is assuming another poster is saying something they're not, and spending half a page either defending a position they never proposed, or trying to clarify that they weren't talking to that person in the first place. That the majority of the posters lean left only exacerbates the problem. I also think that those generalisations often lead to the circular arguments and pointless asides that led in part to your thread ban; half of the interactions with you are spent parsing just what you meant to say and to whom you meant to say it, all while you proclaim it was clear all along... but it often isn't. All of which is assuming you aren't just trolling lefties for kicks, which I've always partially suspected given your usual pattern of posting something in a manner guaranteed to get people's backs up, then replying with nothing but evasions until you arbitrarily claim the moral high ground and stop replying, before repeating the schtick a week or so later. re: left wing shitposting, of course it should be moderated fairly, and warnings issued where appropriate. From the moderators' point of view though, they have a thread that goes on just fine for pages and pages, and then certain posters make a comment and suddenly everything turns into a flame fest. Coincidentally, it's always the same posters, posting in the same manner, to the same people, that causes said degeneration. The fact that several of the thread's right-wing posters have an obvious, glaring victim mentality doesn't really help with that, nor that on occasion they post clearly looking for a fight, like Kickboxer did a few pages ago. This is how echo chambers are formed, and I'm glad that for the most part we've avoided it, and hope to keep doing so. I think the moderation is maybe a little zealous here and there, but I don't think any of the thread bans so far have been genuinely unwarranted. I got a warning myself near the thread's start, and I agree with it and have modified my posting accordingly. Yes, you may take my response to mean it is only your partisan thinking that wants to assign the right to unified thinking, and the left to more diversity of thinking. These are circular arguments akin to Bo1b’s principle charge. It relies on the normal left/right divide in perception, and I don’t think any of it is helpful in debate. I thought people would be more receptive acknowledging the state of partisan bickering considering how much they resisted xDaunt’s “y’all on the left” formulations. He and I could both get I to why it’s an accurate grouping, despite the protestations of diversity, for multiple reasons ... maybe similar Trump derangement pretending everything he does is unprecedented or similar belief or passive acceptance of identity politics. He’s the lawyer so he probably remembers more of the herd mentality that characterizes liberals on this forum. It just isn’t useful to point it out, so don’t make the mistake of assuming it’s for lack of proof. It just doesn’t lead anywhere. I’m not under the delusion that liberals will accept the label, much less conservatives, for any proof or accuracy.
I consider myself persuadable, and have been persuaded of things in the past by right wing talkers. But normally when someone on the right says they have 'proof' of things like that it ends up with a link to a conspiracy video or something that only counts as proof if you assume it's right before starting out.
Nonetheless, my central point stands; those formulations aren't productive to discussions in that thread, because it assumes a general agreement that often isn't present, with the exception of 'Trump is an ass' which I think everyone agrees with across the political spectrum in that thread, save maybe two people who are proper Trump supporters.
I mean, you don't even like him, though you like some of what he's got done in office.
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On April 15 2018 22:56 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2018 22:38 Danglars wrote:On April 15 2018 22:07 iamthedave wrote:On April 14 2018 01:18 Danglars wrote:iamthedave wrote:
I think there's a degree of truth to the idea that generalisations work better when talking about the right than the left.
One of the great strengths of right wing politics is that people on that political spectrum seem to agree with each other on a broad swath of ideas and come together behind their guys when it matters. See: Trump. A looooooot of people swallowed personal misgivings in the sake of political identity. Like bo1b was saying. My side is diverse and argues/thinks, and is thus not easily generalizable, but generalizations work just fine on your side! Ugh. While Plansix already pointed out the obvious problem with what you did here, I feel I should add a little more, since you clearly got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying people on the right don't argue or don't think, more that they come together when they feel their side is under attack. The left/liberals are more likely to respond with an 'I agree, but'. I don't think you'd disagree that a lot of people on the right spend a lot of time defending the indefensible concerning Trump. He literally calls a lie the truth, and people on the right either don't know better, or choose not to and defend him doing so, Even if we exclude Fox News and simply rule it as propoganda, lots of your right wing politicians are happy to defend the President's falsehoods, no matter how egregious. I've never personally seen someone on the left get away with that. Obama was generally well-liked on the left but I saw him get called out repeatedly, and in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is loved by the left wing, but he also gets called out constantly for being too weak on some issues and rubbish at PMQs. This makes generalisations easier because a broader swatch of right wing individuals respond the same way to the same situation. Whether or not they secretly hate Trump or not, they'll stand up and do the same thing in the name of party defense. I'm quite certain that a lot of the talk behind the scenes is people saying how much it sickens them to defend Trump, but they feel they have to and are obligated to. People on the left are far more likely to refuse the public obligation and either say nothing or condemn the individual in question. Related to the thread, though, the problem with the generalisations you and other right wing posters engage in is that 'the left' in the thread don't really agree on much. I personally received a rather rude and aggressive PM from GH just before his ban over one such disagreement. So it's hard for those generalisations to actually lead anywhere productive, because it's hard for us to know if we're actually being talked to, which leads to silly situations where one poster is assuming another poster is saying something they're not, and spending half a page either defending a position they never proposed, or trying to clarify that they weren't talking to that person in the first place. That the majority of the posters lean left only exacerbates the problem. I also think that those generalisations often lead to the circular arguments and pointless asides that led in part to your thread ban; half of the interactions with you are spent parsing just what you meant to say and to whom you meant to say it, all while you proclaim it was clear all along... but it often isn't. All of which is assuming you aren't just trolling lefties for kicks, which I've always partially suspected given your usual pattern of posting something in a manner guaranteed to get people's backs up, then replying with nothing but evasions until you arbitrarily claim the moral high ground and stop replying, before repeating the schtick a week or so later. re: left wing shitposting, of course it should be moderated fairly, and warnings issued where appropriate. From the moderators' point of view though, they have a thread that goes on just fine for pages and pages, and then certain posters make a comment and suddenly everything turns into a flame fest. Coincidentally, it's always the same posters, posting in the same manner, to the same people, that causes said degeneration. The fact that several of the thread's right-wing posters have an obvious, glaring victim mentality doesn't really help with that, nor that on occasion they post clearly looking for a fight, like Kickboxer did a few pages ago. This is how echo chambers are formed, and I'm glad that for the most part we've avoided it, and hope to keep doing so. I think the moderation is maybe a little zealous here and there, but I don't think any of the thread bans so far have been genuinely unwarranted. I got a warning myself near the thread's start, and I agree with it and have modified my posting accordingly. Yes, you may take my response to mean it is only your partisan thinking that wants to assign the right to unified thinking, and the left to more diversity of thinking. These are circular arguments akin to Bo1b’s principle charge. It relies on the normal left/right divide in perception, and I don’t think any of it is helpful in debate. I thought people would be more receptive acknowledging the state of partisan bickering considering how much they resisted xDaunt’s “y’all on the left” formulations. He and I could both get I to why it’s an accurate grouping, despite the protestations of diversity, for multiple reasons ... maybe similar Trump derangement pretending everything he does is unprecedented or similar belief or passive acceptance of identity politics. He’s the lawyer so he probably remembers more of the herd mentality that characterizes liberals on this forum. It just isn’t useful to point it out, so don’t make the mistake of assuming it’s for lack of proof. It just doesn’t lead anywhere. I’m not under the delusion that liberals will accept the label, much less conservatives, for any proof or accuracy. I consider myself persuadable, and have been persuaded of things in the past by right wing talkers. But normally when someone on the right says they have 'proof' of things like that it ends up with a link to a conspiracy video or something that only counts as proof if you assume it's right before starting out. Nonetheless, my central point stands; those formulations aren't productive to discussions in that thread, because it assumes a general agreement that often isn't present, with the exception of 'Trump is an ass' which I think everyone agrees with across the political spectrum in that thread, save maybe two people who are proper Trump supporters. I mean, you don't even like him, though you like some of what he's got done in office.
If you want to see all the reasons why the left has gotten so consumed by singular #resist, and all the things I mentioned before, then carry on. I’m sure you’d like to hear how everybody got herded I into ideological partisanship, to the point where compromise on the left is virtually impossible. We could go into a twelve post series on how what you assert to be a unique feature on the right is actually more true on the left (and that’s including the view that the right has become unhinged recently). In fact, the conformity on the left is one very big reason why the left projects their thinking obto the right, and seeks to heighten smaller differences among their own side to try not to fall prey to the same argument.
I hope for a return to compromise now that so much of the left is shocked by what it leads to (Trump). It probably will take another battering in the polls, perhaps in 2020, perhaps in 2024. Right now, too many on the left are still sad their lass lost in 2016, and are grasping at straws like Russian collusion, Russian Facebook ads, and local TV conglomerates instead of admitting they lost fair and square. I’m sure you’d like to hear more reasons for why the left is so eminently generalizable, but I’m only here to give you a taste of the kind of arguments and examples that could fill the thread if you think the “reasons why they come together when under attack” is a useful thing to talk about. Maybe next we talk about why the left has generally been seeking ideological conformity and silencing debate in the decades prior to the Trump campaign that made it such a nice fit today? Or maybe the Brexit comparisons, where one side was demonized as a bunch of racist xenophobes? (but they are! Reasons!). There’s a plethora of avenues for critique if you think your point in the thread is useful and productive to point out.
Of course, my point still stands. You don’t really want to go down that road, hearing how your cognitive biases developed without your knowledge, and how your side became so intolerant. Neither should you think the point you made takes US politics debate in the right direction from the left. Return to the current events and arching themes in light of them, and stop this foolish partisan bickering. I see no point to throwing it back in your face until you recognize both sides can do it for hundreds of posts if they felt like it.
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On April 13 2018 03:18 Seeker wrote:
I'm working on a public statement for the US Politics Mega-thread. I just haven't had the chance to finalize it because I've been busy with work.
did we ever get this statement? i'm not sure whether we did or not.
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On April 15 2018 23:49 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 15 2018 22:56 iamthedave wrote:On April 15 2018 22:38 Danglars wrote:On April 15 2018 22:07 iamthedave wrote:On April 14 2018 01:18 Danglars wrote:iamthedave wrote:
I think there's a degree of truth to the idea that generalisations work better when talking about the right than the left.
One of the great strengths of right wing politics is that people on that political spectrum seem to agree with each other on a broad swath of ideas and come together behind their guys when it matters. See: Trump. A looooooot of people swallowed personal misgivings in the sake of political identity. Like bo1b was saying. My side is diverse and argues/thinks, and is thus not easily generalizable, but generalizations work just fine on your side! Ugh. While Plansix already pointed out the obvious problem with what you did here, I feel I should add a little more, since you clearly got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying people on the right don't argue or don't think, more that they come together when they feel their side is under attack. The left/liberals are more likely to respond with an 'I agree, but'. I don't think you'd disagree that a lot of people on the right spend a lot of time defending the indefensible concerning Trump. He literally calls a lie the truth, and people on the right either don't know better, or choose not to and defend him doing so, Even if we exclude Fox News and simply rule it as propoganda, lots of your right wing politicians are happy to defend the President's falsehoods, no matter how egregious. I've never personally seen someone on the left get away with that. Obama was generally well-liked on the left but I saw him get called out repeatedly, and in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn is loved by the left wing, but he also gets called out constantly for being too weak on some issues and rubbish at PMQs. This makes generalisations easier because a broader swatch of right wing individuals respond the same way to the same situation. Whether or not they secretly hate Trump or not, they'll stand up and do the same thing in the name of party defense. I'm quite certain that a lot of the talk behind the scenes is people saying how much it sickens them to defend Trump, but they feel they have to and are obligated to. People on the left are far more likely to refuse the public obligation and either say nothing or condemn the individual in question. Related to the thread, though, the problem with the generalisations you and other right wing posters engage in is that 'the left' in the thread don't really agree on much. I personally received a rather rude and aggressive PM from GH just before his ban over one such disagreement. So it's hard for those generalisations to actually lead anywhere productive, because it's hard for us to know if we're actually being talked to, which leads to silly situations where one poster is assuming another poster is saying something they're not, and spending half a page either defending a position they never proposed, or trying to clarify that they weren't talking to that person in the first place. That the majority of the posters lean left only exacerbates the problem. I also think that those generalisations often lead to the circular arguments and pointless asides that led in part to your thread ban; half of the interactions with you are spent parsing just what you meant to say and to whom you meant to say it, all while you proclaim it was clear all along... but it often isn't. All of which is assuming you aren't just trolling lefties for kicks, which I've always partially suspected given your usual pattern of posting something in a manner guaranteed to get people's backs up, then replying with nothing but evasions until you arbitrarily claim the moral high ground and stop replying, before repeating the schtick a week or so later. re: left wing shitposting, of course it should be moderated fairly, and warnings issued where appropriate. From the moderators' point of view though, they have a thread that goes on just fine for pages and pages, and then certain posters make a comment and suddenly everything turns into a flame fest. Coincidentally, it's always the same posters, posting in the same manner, to the same people, that causes said degeneration. The fact that several of the thread's right-wing posters have an obvious, glaring victim mentality doesn't really help with that, nor that on occasion they post clearly looking for a fight, like Kickboxer did a few pages ago. This is how echo chambers are formed, and I'm glad that for the most part we've avoided it, and hope to keep doing so. I think the moderation is maybe a little zealous here and there, but I don't think any of the thread bans so far have been genuinely unwarranted. I got a warning myself near the thread's start, and I agree with it and have modified my posting accordingly. Yes, you may take my response to mean it is only your partisan thinking that wants to assign the right to unified thinking, and the left to more diversity of thinking. These are circular arguments akin to Bo1b’s principle charge. It relies on the normal left/right divide in perception, and I don’t think any of it is helpful in debate. I thought people would be more receptive acknowledging the state of partisan bickering considering how much they resisted xDaunt’s “y’all on the left” formulations. He and I could both get I to why it’s an accurate grouping, despite the protestations of diversity, for multiple reasons ... maybe similar Trump derangement pretending everything he does is unprecedented or similar belief or passive acceptance of identity politics. He’s the lawyer so he probably remembers more of the herd mentality that characterizes liberals on this forum. It just isn’t useful to point it out, so don’t make the mistake of assuming it’s for lack of proof. It just doesn’t lead anywhere. I’m not under the delusion that liberals will accept the label, much less conservatives, for any proof or accuracy. I consider myself persuadable, and have been persuaded of things in the past by right wing talkers. But normally when someone on the right says they have 'proof' of things like that it ends up with a link to a conspiracy video or something that only counts as proof if you assume it's right before starting out. Nonetheless, my central point stands; those formulations aren't productive to discussions in that thread, because it assumes a general agreement that often isn't present, with the exception of 'Trump is an ass' which I think everyone agrees with across the political spectrum in that thread, save maybe two people who are proper Trump supporters. I mean, you don't even like him, though you like some of what he's got done in office. If you want to see all the reasons why the left has gotten so consumed by singular #resist, and all the things I mentioned before, then carry on. I’m sure you’d like to hear how everybody got herded I into ideological partisanship, to the point where compromise on the left is virtually impossible. We could go into a twelve post series on how what you assert to be a unique feature on the right is actually more true on the left (and that’s including the view that the right has become unhinged recently). In fact, the conformity on the left is one very big reason why the left projects their thinking obto the right, and seeks to heighten smaller differences among their own side to try not to fall prey to the same argument. I hope for a return to compromise now that so much of the left is shocked by what it leads to (Trump). It probably will take another battering in the polls, perhaps in 2020, perhaps in 2024. Right now, too many on the left are still sad their lass lost in 2016, and are grasping at straws like Russian collusion, Russian Facebook ads, and local TV conglomerates instead of admitting they lost fair and square. I’m sure you’d like to hear more reasons for why the left is so eminently generalizable, but I’m only here to give you a taste of the kind of arguments and examples that could fill the thread if you think the “reasons why they come together when under attack” is a useful thing to talk about. Maybe next we talk about why the left has generally been seeking ideological conformity and silencing debate in the decades prior to the Trump campaign that made it such a nice fit today? Or maybe the Brexit comparisons, where one side was demonized as a bunch of racist xenophobes? (but they are! Reasons!). There’s a plethora of avenues for critique if you think your point in the thread is useful and productive to point out. Of course, my point still stands. You don’t really want to go down that road, hearing how your cognitive biases developed without your knowledge, and how your side became so intolerant. Neither should you think the point you made takes US politics debate in the right direction from the left. Return to the current events and arching themes in light of them, and stop this foolish partisan bickering. I see no point to throwing it back in your face until you recognize both sides can do it for hundreds of posts if they felt like it.
I have to ask now, because I'm not sure you're getting it; what precise point do you think I was making? Because this seems to be an answer to something else. Like you're reading what I write, but not reading the actual words I wrote.
But yes, I'll concede that whataboutism can go on for a long time. Which is why I don't advocate for it.
And in case it isn't clear, I'm not advocating that people should use 'the right' formulations a lot either. I don't think I've ever used that when speaking to you, Daunt and company. I use it only when making general statements about right wing politics, in the same way you would when referring to broad trends in left wing politics, as you did in the post above (none of which I have an issue with, whether or not I agree with your actual points). All I was saying was that it's generally more applicable, not that it's necessarily productive, and even if you contest that it was still just a gateway statement to a larger point.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37032 Posts
On April 16 2018 01:00 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On April 13 2018 03:18 Seeker wrote:
I'm working on a public statement for the US Politics Mega-thread. I just haven't had the chance to finalize it because I've been busy with work. did we ever get this statement? i'm not sure whether we did or not.
Nope. This week is super hectic for me. So is next week...
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On April 16 2018 05:16 Seeker wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 01:00 zlefin wrote:On April 13 2018 03:18 Seeker wrote:
I'm working on a public statement for the US Politics Mega-thread. I just haven't had the chance to finalize it because I've been busy with work. did we ever get this statement? i'm not sure whether we did or not. Nope. This week is super hectic for me. So is next week...
ok, I won't expect it for awhile then.
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A reason I think of the thread as a left leaning, occasional echo chamber (though not always), are posts like these, yet again from Grumbles:
On April 16 2018 02:26 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 00:08 Excludos wrote:On April 15 2018 23:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think arts degrees are just as valuable as stem degrees. Probably not for a developing country, but in Norway? Absolutely. Oh, I didn't mean to scoff art degrees. I think they're useful too, absolutely. They provide value of their own, which is unfortunately hard to quantify. But it doesn't provide the same type of value as, say, a medical degree. An arts degree is almost universally going to be bad if you only look at the economical aspect, while a medical degree is practically required for a society not to destroy itself. Another way to look at what college provides: In most of Europe, police academy is a college degree. And in most of Europe, police works as they should. In the US it is not, and there is pretty much a universal agreement that the police in the US is not working like it should be doing. You can of course argue that there are other aspects making it difficult too (Like way too many guns floating around, making cops paranoid), but the lack of proper training/education is in my mind doubtless a large reason for it. But if you only look at it from a pure economical aspect, then having cops finish a college degree is obviously not going to be worth it. Hell, how do you even look at just the pure economics of it? How can you tell if a cop possibly not shooting 10 children is an economical benefit or not? How can you possibly calculate how much worth an arts student brings to society in money alone? I honestly think this whole conversation is a bit stupid, and smells a bit of willfully ignoring nuance and actual depth. The second you look beneath the surface it falls apart. In the USA, the role of the police is to oppress the poor and black people in particular. The lack of education for police officers might be a cause of their unartful approach, but it is also a symptom of their role. e.g. the war on drugs, which was literally invented to punish hippies and poor communities as a backlash against the civil rights movements, and which had nothing much to do with a rational approach to solving crime. It is well-known that if you want to reduce crime you invest into education, employment, neighborhoods, reducing inequality etc. This isn't considered, because that would require helping black people. What is considered is to criminalize the black community and control them by thugs masquerading as benign police force. A comparison I heard is to think of black people as a colonized people. When Indians start to rebel in one of the provinces of the British Empire, the solution is not to increase their civil liberties, invest into their villages, give them more democratic control over their own lives and commit to a peaceful solution and mutual disarmament. Instead it is framed as a security issue and the military is called in. You see this also in the discussion of gun control by some elements of the Democratic party. Disarming the police is never considered, only disarming the population. The role of the police as the protectors of property and a tool to control the poor is never reconsidered.
It's just pointless. Does nothing but start a reply based on an accusation with zero proof of anything.
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On April 16 2018 09:21 bo1b wrote:A reason I think of the thread as a left leaning, occasional echo chamber (though not always), are posts like these, yet again from Grumbles: Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 02:26 Grumbels wrote:On April 16 2018 00:08 Excludos wrote:On April 15 2018 23:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think arts degrees are just as valuable as stem degrees. Probably not for a developing country, but in Norway? Absolutely. Oh, I didn't mean to scoff art degrees. I think they're useful too, absolutely. They provide value of their own, which is unfortunately hard to quantify. But it doesn't provide the same type of value as, say, a medical degree. An arts degree is almost universally going to be bad if you only look at the economical aspect, while a medical degree is practically required for a society not to destroy itself. Another way to look at what college provides: In most of Europe, police academy is a college degree. And in most of Europe, police works as they should. In the US it is not, and there is pretty much a universal agreement that the police in the US is not working like it should be doing. You can of course argue that there are other aspects making it difficult too (Like way too many guns floating around, making cops paranoid), but the lack of proper training/education is in my mind doubtless a large reason for it. But if you only look at it from a pure economical aspect, then having cops finish a college degree is obviously not going to be worth it. Hell, how do you even look at just the pure economics of it? How can you tell if a cop possibly not shooting 10 children is an economical benefit or not? How can you possibly calculate how much worth an arts student brings to society in money alone? I honestly think this whole conversation is a bit stupid, and smells a bit of willfully ignoring nuance and actual depth. The second you look beneath the surface it falls apart. In the USA, the role of the police is to oppress the poor and black people in particular. The lack of education for police officers might be a cause of their unartful approach, but it is also a symptom of their role. e.g. the war on drugs, which was literally invented to punish hippies and poor communities as a backlash against the civil rights movements, and which had nothing much to do with a rational approach to solving crime. It is well-known that if you want to reduce crime you invest into education, employment, neighborhoods, reducing inequality etc. This isn't considered, because that would require helping black people. What is considered is to criminalize the black community and control them by thugs masquerading as benign police force. A comparison I heard is to think of black people as a colonized people. When Indians start to rebel in one of the provinces of the British Empire, the solution is not to increase their civil liberties, invest into their villages, give them more democratic control over their own lives and commit to a peaceful solution and mutual disarmament. Instead it is framed as a security issue and the military is called in. You see this also in the discussion of gun control by some elements of the Democratic party. Disarming the police is never considered, only disarming the population. The role of the police as the protectors of property and a tool to control the poor is never reconsidered. It's just pointless. Does nothing but start a reply based on an accusation with zero proof of anything.
Are you saying that you think there are no posts made by right-wing posters with (loosely) the same characteristics?
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No but the volume of it from non- center left posters is lower yet the ban frequency is higher.
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On April 16 2018 12:58 Aquanim wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 09:21 bo1b wrote:A reason I think of the thread as a left leaning, occasional echo chamber (though not always), are posts like these, yet again from Grumbles: On April 16 2018 02:26 Grumbels wrote:On April 16 2018 00:08 Excludos wrote:On April 15 2018 23:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think arts degrees are just as valuable as stem degrees. Probably not for a developing country, but in Norway? Absolutely. Oh, I didn't mean to scoff art degrees. I think they're useful too, absolutely. They provide value of their own, which is unfortunately hard to quantify. But it doesn't provide the same type of value as, say, a medical degree. An arts degree is almost universally going to be bad if you only look at the economical aspect, while a medical degree is practically required for a society not to destroy itself. Another way to look at what college provides: In most of Europe, police academy is a college degree. And in most of Europe, police works as they should. In the US it is not, and there is pretty much a universal agreement that the police in the US is not working like it should be doing. You can of course argue that there are other aspects making it difficult too (Like way too many guns floating around, making cops paranoid), but the lack of proper training/education is in my mind doubtless a large reason for it. But if you only look at it from a pure economical aspect, then having cops finish a college degree is obviously not going to be worth it. Hell, how do you even look at just the pure economics of it? How can you tell if a cop possibly not shooting 10 children is an economical benefit or not? How can you possibly calculate how much worth an arts student brings to society in money alone? I honestly think this whole conversation is a bit stupid, and smells a bit of willfully ignoring nuance and actual depth. The second you look beneath the surface it falls apart. In the USA, the role of the police is to oppress the poor and black people in particular. The lack of education for police officers might be a cause of their unartful approach, but it is also a symptom of their role. e.g. the war on drugs, which was literally invented to punish hippies and poor communities as a backlash against the civil rights movements, and which had nothing much to do with a rational approach to solving crime. It is well-known that if you want to reduce crime you invest into education, employment, neighborhoods, reducing inequality etc. This isn't considered, because that would require helping black people. What is considered is to criminalize the black community and control them by thugs masquerading as benign police force. A comparison I heard is to think of black people as a colonized people. When Indians start to rebel in one of the provinces of the British Empire, the solution is not to increase their civil liberties, invest into their villages, give them more democratic control over their own lives and commit to a peaceful solution and mutual disarmament. Instead it is framed as a security issue and the military is called in. You see this also in the discussion of gun control by some elements of the Democratic party. Disarming the police is never considered, only disarming the population. The role of the police as the protectors of property and a tool to control the poor is never reconsidered. It's just pointless. Does nothing but start a reply based on an accusation with zero proof of anything. Are you saying that you think there are no posts made by right-wing posters with (loosely) the same characteristics?
I'm saying it's no where near as frequent that a post as garbage as that on the right isn't at the very least warned.
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On April 16 2018 16:01 bo1b wrote:Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 12:58 Aquanim wrote:On April 16 2018 09:21 bo1b wrote:A reason I think of the thread as a left leaning, occasional echo chamber (though not always), are posts like these, yet again from Grumbles: On April 16 2018 02:26 Grumbels wrote:On April 16 2018 00:08 Excludos wrote:On April 15 2018 23:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think arts degrees are just as valuable as stem degrees. Probably not for a developing country, but in Norway? Absolutely. Oh, I didn't mean to scoff art degrees. I think they're useful too, absolutely. They provide value of their own, which is unfortunately hard to quantify. But it doesn't provide the same type of value as, say, a medical degree. An arts degree is almost universally going to be bad if you only look at the economical aspect, while a medical degree is practically required for a society not to destroy itself. Another way to look at what college provides: In most of Europe, police academy is a college degree. And in most of Europe, police works as they should. In the US it is not, and there is pretty much a universal agreement that the police in the US is not working like it should be doing. You can of course argue that there are other aspects making it difficult too (Like way too many guns floating around, making cops paranoid), but the lack of proper training/education is in my mind doubtless a large reason for it. But if you only look at it from a pure economical aspect, then having cops finish a college degree is obviously not going to be worth it. Hell, how do you even look at just the pure economics of it? How can you tell if a cop possibly not shooting 10 children is an economical benefit or not? How can you possibly calculate how much worth an arts student brings to society in money alone? I honestly think this whole conversation is a bit stupid, and smells a bit of willfully ignoring nuance and actual depth. The second you look beneath the surface it falls apart. In the USA, the role of the police is to oppress the poor and black people in particular. The lack of education for police officers might be a cause of their unartful approach, but it is also a symptom of their role. e.g. the war on drugs, which was literally invented to punish hippies and poor communities as a backlash against the civil rights movements, and which had nothing much to do with a rational approach to solving crime. It is well-known that if you want to reduce crime you invest into education, employment, neighborhoods, reducing inequality etc. This isn't considered, because that would require helping black people. What is considered is to criminalize the black community and control them by thugs masquerading as benign police force. A comparison I heard is to think of black people as a colonized people. When Indians start to rebel in one of the provinces of the British Empire, the solution is not to increase their civil liberties, invest into their villages, give them more democratic control over their own lives and commit to a peaceful solution and mutual disarmament. Instead it is framed as a security issue and the military is called in. You see this also in the discussion of gun control by some elements of the Democratic party. Disarming the police is never considered, only disarming the population. The role of the police as the protectors of property and a tool to control the poor is never reconsidered. It's just pointless. Does nothing but start a reply based on an accusation with zero proof of anything. Are you saying that you think there are no posts made by right-wing posters with (loosely) the same characteristics? I'm saying it's no where near as frequent that a post as garbage as that on the right isn't at the very least warned.
Can you explain to me further what is actually "garbage" to you about that post?
I dislike that it tries to portray a not particularly widespread opinion as definite truth.
However it doesn't contain any personal attacks, and it's not a mindless shitpost or twitter/newsfeed regurgitation. Most posts I've seen actioned (from a right-wing poster or otherwise) fall into one of those categories.
EDIT: Does anybody have an example of a right-wing poster's post with similar characteristics that was actioned? It's difficult to proceed while speaking in generalities.
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I’ve seen some real garbage posts from right leaning posters. My favorite was when one poster complained that the left always makes immigration about race, while also posting a right leaning article that stating the reason to limit immigration was the changing racial make up of the US. I always felt it should have been warned for trying to pick a fight and losing the fight in the same post.
But straight up, we had a conservative poster drop the 14 words, white nationalist motto in the thread. Not a lot happened with that. So I’m not really buying the argument that conservatives are auctioned more than left leaning posters.
Edit: also stuff like this
Is some hot garbage, but people just roll with it.
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On April 16 2018 09:21 bo1b wrote:A reason I think of the thread as a left leaning, occasional echo chamber (though not always), are posts like these, yet again from Grumbles: Show nested quote +On April 16 2018 02:26 Grumbels wrote:On April 16 2018 00:08 Excludos wrote:On April 15 2018 23:28 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I think arts degrees are just as valuable as stem degrees. Probably not for a developing country, but in Norway? Absolutely. Oh, I didn't mean to scoff art degrees. I think they're useful too, absolutely. They provide value of their own, which is unfortunately hard to quantify. But it doesn't provide the same type of value as, say, a medical degree. An arts degree is almost universally going to be bad if you only look at the economical aspect, while a medical degree is practically required for a society not to destroy itself. Another way to look at what college provides: In most of Europe, police academy is a college degree. And in most of Europe, police works as they should. In the US it is not, and there is pretty much a universal agreement that the police in the US is not working like it should be doing. You can of course argue that there are other aspects making it difficult too (Like way too many guns floating around, making cops paranoid), but the lack of proper training/education is in my mind doubtless a large reason for it. But if you only look at it from a pure economical aspect, then having cops finish a college degree is obviously not going to be worth it. Hell, how do you even look at just the pure economics of it? How can you tell if a cop possibly not shooting 10 children is an economical benefit or not? How can you possibly calculate how much worth an arts student brings to society in money alone? I honestly think this whole conversation is a bit stupid, and smells a bit of willfully ignoring nuance and actual depth. The second you look beneath the surface it falls apart. In the USA, the role of the police is to oppress the poor and black people in particular. The lack of education for police officers might be a cause of their unartful approach, but it is also a symptom of their role. e.g. the war on drugs, which was literally invented to punish hippies and poor communities as a backlash against the civil rights movements, and which had nothing much to do with a rational approach to solving crime. It is well-known that if you want to reduce crime you invest into education, employment, neighborhoods, reducing inequality etc. This isn't considered, because that would require helping black people. What is considered is to criminalize the black community and control them by thugs masquerading as benign police force. A comparison I heard is to think of black people as a colonized people. When Indians start to rebel in one of the provinces of the British Empire, the solution is not to increase their civil liberties, invest into their villages, give them more democratic control over their own lives and commit to a peaceful solution and mutual disarmament. Instead it is framed as a security issue and the military is called in. You see this also in the discussion of gun control by some elements of the Democratic party. Disarming the police is never considered, only disarming the population. The role of the police as the protectors of property and a tool to control the poor is never reconsidered. It's just pointless. Does nothing but start a reply based on an accusation with zero proof of anything.
Nevermind that you cannot identify what is so disagreeable with the post, what exactly do you find left wing about this? Or even echo chamber? It's not as if the thread rose up and agreed with Grumbels.
Or does "echo chamber" and "left wing" is simply meant as arguments to which you disagree with?
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EPT
