EPTCertainly it doesn't always look that great when it does descend into the game of exchanging blows. I don't think the context should be ignored, though.
US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 57
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
Certainly it doesn't always look that great when it does descend into the game of exchanging blows. I don't think the context should be ignored, though. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3304 Posts
It's probably true that if you're sufficiently conciliatory in tone you can coax a decent discussion out of xDaunt. But at a certain point I don't care. If I have to whistle and coo and whisper sweet nothings in his ear just to coax his non-choleric side out long enough to find out what he actually thinks about something, well that's just not worth the time and effort, particularly when he has no intention of being anywhere near as diplomatic when he deigns to opine in the thread. It's too bad, because it can be really valuable to have Trump supporters' perspectives in the thread. I used to be able to talk to Danglars for that but at some point he decided I'm just as scummy as the rest of them, and now my discussions with him are just as fruitless. Again, I think these problems are a lot broader than just xDaunt. | ||
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Introvert
United States5029 Posts
The thread is full of people being aggressive, mocking others, or saying outrageous things. It's probably one reason the Right aligned posters post as rarely as they do; there needs to be an overriding reason to reply knowing the likely nature of the response (but I can only speak for myself). But some posters get most of the complaints, despite the fact that by volume alone the thread is tarnished more by others. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On May 15 2017 10:22 hunts wrote: Well if he was elected to destroy the government them I'm sorry but you and your great leader are fighting against the constitution and apparently everyone that's not a partisan republican. On May 15 2017 10:25 Plansix wrote: The administrative state is filled with people more skilled and intelligent that Trump's squad of losers and has-beens. On May 16 2017 04:17 Doodsmack wrote: It's not about Trump's politics, it's about his fitness. Fitness comes before any other "background argument". On May 16 2017 05:18 Doodsmack wrote: Would you trust Trump alone with your daughter? On May 16 2017 07:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: So your values "distinctly align" with killing healthcare, killing education, taking from the poor to give to the rich, and suppressing civil rights? Because in 2017, we're way passed saying something as unnuanced as "I'm a Republican because I believe in fiscal responsibility". There is sooo much more to that party, and it's killing our country. Like, excuse us Republicans, we're trying to have a society over here... On May 16 2017 08:23 hunts wrote: And how many of those reasons would you be able to think of if it was president Obama or Hillary Clinton being accused of this, and not donnie? On May 16 2017 08:35 hunts wrote: Except that it's not a strawman, we have plenty of proof in your own posts to show just how much of a hypocrite you are. And of course you do the typical xdaunt/dangles post of hand waving and dismissing arguments without having any sort of response or counter to them. But of course I can see why you wouldn't want to answer that question, and would instead rather feign superiority by hand waving. Each of these posts is fucking retarded in its own special way. The only ones that I responded to were hunts', and that's because they were direct attacks on my integrity. For the good of the thread, I ignore many, many times more shitposts than I respond to. For how long should I reasonably be expected to hold my tongue when this shit comes my way? It's been well-established that the mods aren't going to clean out the liberal shitposters. I'm fine with that. I've come to peace with that reality. Just let me do my thing. I know where the lines are. And how about this for an idea: let me open up a blog where I and others can ruthlessly post-shame some of the trash posts like the ones above and keep it out of the main thread. It will be cathartic for me and may even be the kind of "soft moderation" that the thread needs to improve overall quality. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On May 16 2017 09:59 ChristianS wrote: But at a certain point I don't care. If I have to whistle and coo and whisper sweet nothings in his ear just to coax his non-choleric side out long enough to find out what he actually thinks about something, well that's just not worth the time and effort, particularly when he has no intention of being anywhere near as diplomatic when he deigns to opine in the thread. It's too bad, because it can be really valuable to have Trump supporters' perspectives in the thread. I used to be able to talk to Danglars for that but at some point he decided I'm just as scummy as the rest of them, and now my discussions with him are just as fruitless. After twice hearing extremely unpersuasive arguments from you about timing, I figured you had nothing meatier to say. Before that, you had a valid point on budget negotiations. Previous to that, you said conservatives had "a sort of persecution complex" and said you weren't trying to score partisan points. Or see comparisons through your "sobering thought" on racial attitudes and my point on racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issue. I'm going to try to be open minded on arguments made in good faith. If you think honesty and a spirit of engagement are just whispering sweet nothings to coax a psychological response, you might not be ready for fruitful discussion with others. I speak it honestly. There's quite a clash of governance ideals and historical perspectives and political rationales happening right now. Too often, the political fault line running through arguments like ChristianS makes manifests itself in an unwillingness to understand and engage in the underlying issues. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3304 Posts
On May 16 2017 11:53 Danglars wrote: After twice hearing extremely unpersuasive arguments from you about timing, I figured you had nothing meatier to say. Before that, you had a valid point on budget negotiations. Previous to that, you said conservatives had "a sort of persecution complex" and said you weren't trying to score partisan points. Or see comparisons through your "sobering thought" on racial attitudes and my point on racializing every issue to the detriment of true debate on the issue. I'm going to try to be open minded on arguments made in good faith. If you think honesty and a spirit of engagement are just whispering sweet nothings to coax a psychological response, you might not be ready for fruitful discussion with others. I speak it honestly. There's quite a clash of governance ideals and historical perspectives and political rationales happening right now. Too often, the political fault line running through arguments like ChristianS makes manifests itself in an unwillingness to understand and engage in the underlying issues. I'm not sure how much of these things you were wanting a response to. Since you bring it up, I tried to clarify what I meant by the "persecution complex" line once, and thought about trying again in PM but decided to drop it. Let's try again here: I think it is well agreed upon that conservatives (yourself included, if I'm not mistaken) believe that there is something of a bias against them in a wide range of contexts – in the media, in the courts, in higher education... the list goes on. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm fairly certain I've heard you argue exactly this in a lot of contexts. And as I tried to indicate when this subject came up, I don't even necessarily disagree. We might disagree about how strong that bias is in various contexts, and we might disagree about the causes, but I'd certainly grant that journalism, law, and education are very liberal fields, and that is certainly reflected in the end product. I realize (as I did not fully when I wrote it) that the phrase "persecution complex" strongly implies that this belief is mostly or entirely delusional, but that implication was not my intent. I believe you followed up by saying I was accusing you of bias when I cited this "complex;" but I wouldn't have characterized it as bias. I'd consider it closer to the idea of a "prior," in a sort of Bayesian sense; your belief that bias against conservatives is common in a lot of fields would lead you to consider the possibility of slights to conservative politicians being a result of this bias, and figure those possibilities more strongly. That's not irrational; in fact, it's Bayesian, which is a lot more rational than people virtually ever are. I then tried (unsuccessfully, it appears) to narrow my disagreement solely to the topic of intent being meaningful in legal matters including constitutional ones, but by that point it seemed that the possibility of a fruitful discussion had been lost, and iirc, I had to go back to work and couldn't really keep discussing anyway. I'm revisiting this in detail only because I think it's fairly typical of such problems in the thread. For instance, a while back you seemed to want to respect me until I gave you reason not to, which I appreciated and tried to give you the benefit of the doubt as well. It's very easy in these discussions to carelessly drop in an inflammatory phrasing like "persecution complex" that sets off everyone's temper; I remember you used the phrase "racial realism" which seemed most naturally to me to refer to essentialism or some equally racist idea; but I decided to operate on the assumption that you must have meant something different with that. I think that kind of benefit of the doubt could go a long way in the thread. | ||
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RuiBarbO
United States1340 Posts
Then again, if the above exchange between ChristianS and Danglars is any indication, maybe that's how it goes. No one wants to feel like they're laying out these cogent, well-thought-out points and then just getting buried in one-liners from the opposition. But honestly, I do not trust the person who makes that initial point to be an adequate judge of how good the responses are. I'm not trying to defend posts that don't say anything substantive, but I do think there's something really poisonous about someone answering a critic by just saying, "You've clearly got nothing to say, I'm done listening to you (forever)." The conversation is stifled unless the critics go out of their way to produce a post that they think will meet the original point maker's criteria. And that seems problematic because a) why would they want to do that and b) you can't expect the point maker to steer clear of confirmation bias when making those judgments. Sometimes, people probably think their responses, while short, do actually make a point worth responding to. Or they use language that seems fine to them, but that raises an alarm for someone else. Sure, I guess you can punish them for being so attached to brevity, or for being hard to distinguish (for the OP) from a troll, but... what does that really achieve? Self-satisfaction? What would you lose by just responding candidly to the point made, however meager it is? I think that's kind of what ChristianS is suggesting here. But I just wanted to share my thoughts on what he said. | ||
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brian
United States9643 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22584 Posts
On May 17 2017 09:59 xDaunt wrote: Why is Kwark still a mod? He's a fucking embarrassment to TL whenever he posts in the politics thread and a monument to TL's hypocrisy (don't ask me to go into this). He's made like six actionable posts in the past hour alone. This isn't a new problem. He should either stay out of the politics thread or be stripped of mod powers so that he can be reported like the rest of us. Are you trying to imply that exposing the utter hypocrisy in your posts should be actionable? | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On May 17 2017 10:04 Gorsameth wrote: Are you trying to imply that exposing the utter hypocrisy in your posts should be actionable? For starters, there is no hypocrisy. But more to the point, even if you believe that there is some, it's the manner in which he is doing it which is the problem. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22584 Posts
On May 17 2017 10:10 xDaunt wrote: For starters, there is no hypocrisy. But more to the point, even if you believe that there is some, it's the manner in which he is doing it which is the problem. By presenting you with evidence of your own posts in which you contradict yourself as your argument gets pushed into a corner? | ||
KwarK
United States44289 Posts
On May 17 2017 09:59 xDaunt wrote: Why is Kwark still a mod? He's a fucking embarrassment to TL whenever he posts in the politics thread and a monument to TL's hypocrisy (don't ask me to go into this). He's made like six actionable posts in the past hour alone. This isn't a new problem. He should either stay out of the politics thread or be stripped of mod powers so that he can be reported like the rest of us. You're an embarrassment to humanity as a whole. You're not even trying to conform to your own insane narrative anymore, just jumping from one /r/the_donald talking point to the next. "Nobody leaked anything actually important" "Flynn wasn't fired because of the leaks" "Okay so Flynn was fired after the leaks but maybe he would have been fired anyway who can say" "Okay so Trump had to fire Flynn because of the leaks but he wouldn't have fired him otherwise" "BUT MAYBE HE DIDN'T!" Don't go crying to website feedback just because your position is both morally and intellectually bankrupt. There is an entire subreddit devoted to fawning over your bullshit. Go there. | ||
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Nevuk
United States16280 Posts
On May 17 2017 10:13 KwarK wrote: You're an embarrassment to humanity as a whole. You're not even trying to conform to your own insane narrative anymore, just jumping from one /r/the_donald talking point to the next. "Nobody leaked anything actually important" "Flynn wasn't fired because of the leaks" "Okay so Flynn was fired after the leaks but maybe he would have been fired anyway who can say" "Okay so Trump had to fire Flynn because of the leaks but he wouldn't have fired him otherwise" "BUT MAYBE HE DIDN'T!" Don't go crying to website feedback just because your position is both morally and intellectually bankrupt. There is an entire subreddit devoted to fawning over your bullshit. Go there. I feel like this is going a bit too far | ||
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KwarK
United States44289 Posts
This is website feedback, we can express ourselves more openly here. Also read his posts in the topic. He's making a colossal ass of himself and then crying about it. At one point he legitimately attempted the argument "of course Trump didn't fire him because of the leaks, Trump would surely have known it would leak, therefore if Trump would fire someone because it would look badly when it leaked then surely he would fire him before the leak actually happened to avoid looking bad but as Trump fired him after the leak then that proves that Trump could not have been worried about the leak because only someone who didn't care about looking bad would wait until they actually looked bad to do it" He then followed that with "well obviously Trump had to fire him once it leaked" The guy isn't even trying anymore. As I said in the topic, he's gone full Spicey. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Edit: Jesus, how long have you people been doing this? Its like a politics thread 0.5. | ||
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Sermokala
United States14208 Posts
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
I don't think that there should be some sort of "give up staff to be able to post freely" rule but damn, the thread took a nosedive the moment Kwark (among others) made their return. | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19257 Posts
We are keeping an eye on things. | ||
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KwarK
United States44289 Posts
On May 17 2017 11:04 LegalLord wrote: Kwark more than most others uses his mod powers as a blank check to be a dick to others. Regardless of what you think about his commentary wrt to xDaunt here it's not hard to see that there is widespread disapproval with Kwark among many regulars. That has a notable cascading effect that shows other people that if staff can be unaccountable pricks then why not everyone else? I don't think that there should be some sort of "give up staff to be able to post freely" rule but damn, the thread took a nosedive the moment Kwark (among others) made their return. xDaunt was claiming things that were factually untrue such as that no leak has been justified. I pointed out that the Flynn leak directly led to the firing of Flynn which was clearly justified (lied about being a foreign agent, was vulnerable to blackmail). xDaunt claimed that I was making shit up and then dug his own grave of contradictions and insanity as he tried to argue that Trump was always going to fire Flynn, then that Trump didn't fire Flynn because he knew there was nothing to the story, then that Trump investigated it and independently decided to fire Flynn, then that Trump was forced to fire Flynn, then all of the above but with an added twist of 7D Yahtzee! where Trump's endorsement of Flynn can be read as an indication that Trump in no way endorsed Flynn and definitely planned to fire him. Also your attempt to present yourself as a moderate voice of consensus disapproval is bullshit LegalLord. You're no more impartial on this one than xDaunt. I didn't call xDaunt any names beyond saying that he's gone full Spicey. And he has. I was also very much not alone in calling xDaunt out on his bullshit. xDaunt likes to complain about me specifically because it feeds his internal narrative that the liberals with their control of everything are oppressing him. When a handful of people are all calling out his insane narrative that's not as fun, he'd much rather ignore those and focus on me as a symbol of institutional oppression with my unfair quoting of the things he literally said and my fact checking. When a right wing Trump fan starts spouting insane nonsense and you call them out you're always going to hear cries of oppression. That's just how their minds work. They're perpetually oppressed by facts. This no different than Trump's tweets about the failing New York Times and dishonest CNN. The reality is that xDaunt would rather complain about the inability to report me using the report button (a benefit he himself took advantage of for years) than throw a PM to tofucake or one of the other mods to report me manually. There is nothing preventing him from reporting me by PM, it's not about reporting, it's about his own victim narrative. | ||
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