I was actually thinking of my brother who died recently. He was retired out early for health reasons, and spent the last couple of years of his life on dialysis and pretty much immobile. His online friendships and whatever community he was part of were pretty much all he had.
My point is simply that you don’t know what motivates people, how much value they put into things, etc. But if someone has been here for 24 years and posted 35,000 posts, a good starting guess is that they put some fair amount of value in being here.
As for me, tye only time I thought of quitting the Straight Dope was because it was eating up too much time from other projects pr activities.
Do you think that “merely being a conservative voice, for the sake of being a conservative voice and nothing else” is how diversity works?
Conservatives are far from being a minority or under represented group.
I would point out that a wrong perspective can be helpful if it’s wrong for the right reasons. For example, it’s based on a piece of misinformation that you weren’t aware was in circulation, or centers a detail you thought was secondary, or contains an obvious error of logic. So even when information isn’t entirely factual, it tells you some useful things about the other side’s information sphere.
Like take for example David Dorn. He was a black police officer killed in one of the George Floyd riots. By conservative lights, it’s an instant argument-winning example that proves that the rioters had no principles other than rioting or looting, just sort of a magic bullet that defeats all other lines of reasoning.
Of course that doesn’t actually prove what they think it proves. But I find it valuable to know that this delusion has great currency on the right, and that when I hear “what about David Dorn” then we are at the lowest level of discourse and things are unikely to improve.
So that’s one way conservatives can be helpful. Occasionally they bring a real fact that’s useful, but more often it’s just to illuminate the contours of their thought landscape so you can understand why things are being said, and whether/how to engage with them.
Why of course you were. That’s why you mentioned that “some of us may not have much else than the SDMB” in the sentence after the horrors of ‘lightly’ kicking someone out of a community they’ve been in for 24 years. Because your brother was a member of the SDMB for 24 years, who didn’t have much else in his life other than this specific message board. And was recently banned.
I mean, that’s at least as believable as your interpretation of anything you cite.
When I heard Sam had socked, I thought, what the fuck, that makes no sense.
It would be as if tomorrow you woke up to a newspaper article that Donald Trump was in jail (not just charged, but in jail) after confessing to running a massive dog-fighting ring.
It’s someone you’ve seen over the years doing bad things, with few negative consequences, and then all of a sudden they go down all at once for something that is unrelated to any of the other stuff they’d done, and seems totally out of character.
I’d be much more inclined to believe it was a mistake than to believe that they’d actually done it just because I think they are capable of anything bad.
It made no sense to me that Sam would have a sock out of nowhere, and the given explanation makes much more sense to me.
Here’s a different way to make a clean start:
“Hey, y’all. You know what? I could be better about my cites. I know a bunch of y’all have been dicks about it, but just because you’ve been dicks doesn’t mean I should ignore the point about cites. So that’s something I’m gonna really work on. My only request is to cut me a little grace, and recognize that this is something I’m trying to do, and you think I’m still getting it wrong, tell me how you think I’m getting it wrong with a bit of respect. In exchange I promise not to get defensive, and to consider carefully what you’re saying–and to get better about using cites carefully and accurately.”
If that ever happens @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness, please PM me. Because I’d un-ignore them and give them a chance under those circumstances. The first part of dealing with a problem is acknowledging you have a problem, something that hasn’t been forthcoming from S_S so far.
I think I’d like Sam if he wouldn’t double and triple down on his own stupidity so often. He just can’t admit when he’s been hoodwinked by right-wing grifters, whether it’s Trump himself throwing shit around that Sam takes seriously, or whether it’s the lies and deceptions about Biden that right-wing grifters in Congress spread, or much more. It’s really an excellent demonstration of the mindset of many Trump supporters – many undoubtedly dislike Trump personally, but have become convinced by the lies of those grifters that the Democrats (and Biden in particular) are worse.
That’s my thoughts too. No way any of my younger family members would show up and make an account out of the blue on this “old-timey” medium. And on the day they make an account, actually post a reply to a thread. This son is in his 20s and knows how boards like this works? Fuggetaboutit!
Maybe I should create a Tik-Tok account and engage in meaningful dialog on day one there?
I don’t care about the son story. In general it’s not especially interesting to me to question someone’s family stories; the risk of saying something shitty to them isn’t worth it. If he’ll just be more careful with his cites, then I’m fine with his son; and if he’s not, his son’s not the issue.
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