My ego isn’t so huge that I think this is some sort of momentous announcement, and in the past I’ve regarded threads like this with a shrug. However, if I didn’t say something, I think one or two people around here might wonder where I went.
Positions have really hardened around here, both among the many liberals and the really few conservatives. There are very few moderates left in discussions here to check the rhetorical excesses on either side. Furthermore, for some reason the board has attracted lately some real loons, moreso than at most points in the past. These idiots, badly representing both sides, are given more attention than they deserve and poison many of the discussions lately.
I realize that some of this really isn’t anyone’s fault. What I described about the hardening of positions here is true of politics in general. And it is entirely likely that the problem with the crazies is merely that I have less patience with them.
Still, what it all boils down to is that I don’t want to participate in it anymore. I’m running out my subscription, and that’ll be it.
I hope everyone else continues to have a good time here and continues to make this one of the best managed and liveliest message boards on the Web.
I’m really debating re-upping also. After 3 years, my post count is still terribly low, and I’m almost positive that none of my input has been memorable.
Oh well. At any rate, I will still lurk, and if such a time comes where I feel impelled to come to the Dope for advice or answers, maybe then I will consider re-subscribing.
Well, I for one am sorry to hear it. This despite my fairly low opinion of most of your political posts of the recent past. Part of the hardening may be your own - often it seemed your goal to try to offer up some meager defense of a poor position rather than make a critical comment about conservatives or Republicans. Too often you opted to try some tu quoque.
It must be hard to be a die-hard conservative these days. I imagine you have to try to avoid political news if you aren’t able to think critically of the right. It’s a shame so many on the right here at the SDMB have chosen either to go to ground or to flee, but in many ways I cannot blame them.
Seconded. That was some impressive oratory footwork.
I’ll be sad to see Mr. Moto go. It’s always good to have another point of view, and generally he seems much less likely to start attacking other posters rather than their point of view, or scattering random insults into his debating. I often don’t agree with his opinions, but I respect his method of debate, and that’s something that seems sorely lacking among many posters (including me, if i’m honest).
Of course, now someone will fish out a quote of Moto chewing out another poster unwarranted to prove me wrong.
Uh, I was expressing a fairly straightforward opinion. Mr. Moto is someone I always felt like I would like, had I known him in a more complete context. I still suspect our similarities are greater than our differences. Unfortunately, we interacted primarily around matters of politics, and I expressed my opinion above in a way that only a fucking tool could regard as “passive aggressive.” I’m fairly confident, given your usage, that you don’t know what that term means.
I will miss you, Mr. Moto. You’ve become a much better debator since you came here, and by and large, I am on your side in things.
I really admired your Heroes series. I want to thank you now, for bringing them to my attention.
I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to think you’ll miss us, you’ll come back. Because you just can’t get arguments like this anywhere else. And a man is best measured by his enemies.
I don’t hate it here. I’m just wondering if my time might be better used doing something else, given my stated concerns. And while I don’t really see it happening, I’m not ruling out coming back.
How pathetic the thread is is, of course, a matter of opinion.
I still do. It’s kinda like high school. I may have some vague thought from time to time about 'whatever happened to so and so" and be vaguely interested in some update at some point ( oh wow, Moto ended up selling used cars? really?_) but in the end, there’s really not a deep level of interest. be well.
Personally, i will be unhappy to see Mr. Moto go, as i am when any long-time poster leaves.
But his stated reason for leaving implies that he considers himself one of the moderates who are having such a hard time putting up with all the “crazies” of the left and right.
It’s completely reasonable for someone to point out, as Hentor seemed to be doing, that Mr. Moto is, in fact, one of those who tend to exhibit “rhetorical excesses.” Of course, some people may disagree with this assessment, but it’s not an unreasonable one to make.
If Mr. Moto, in announcing his departure, wants to portray himself as a moderate who’s finally had enough of political extremes, he’s going to have to deal with the fact that quite a few posters on this board see him, in at least some of his threads, as one of those extremes.
Why is it that some people assume that simply announcing oneself as a moderate automatically means that others will agree with this self-perception?
As i said, i’d prefer that he stay, because even though i rarely agree with him on politics, i enjoy his presence here. But that doesn’t mean he gets a free ride on trying to pass himself off as a moderate.
Nope. I’m not a moderate. I never pretended to be one, either.
That doesn’t mean that those few moderates we had are far fewer in number now, and that that can’t be seen by people on any part of the spectrum.
Am I part of the problem? Maybe I am. I certainly feel that way when “debates” here are in reality two sides talking past each other, with neither side being convinced at any time to change their mind.
I think a large part of the problem is that there really is no true “right” or “wrong” involved in most of the discussions here. Both right and wrong are human constructs, and are thus largely subjective in nature.
Very little is ever really settled here, and after awhile it just becomes a case of whose ox is being gored. Liberals rant and rave over conservative misbehavior and largely ignore or minimize that of those on their own side; conservatives do the same only from the opposite end of the spectrum. After awhile, it just becomes noise and fury signifying nothing and accomplishing nothing – or at least very little – and to me it just isn’t worth the time and energy now that the novelty has worn off.
I used to find this place (the Pit, that is) challenging and fun and I could truly get into the conversations and debates that went on here, but now the element of predictability about the way any given thread will go (as precisely elucidated by Shodan in his thread on McKinney) has rendered most of the goings on here tiresome.
I’m going to re-up because every now and then someone posts something I feel I just have to comment on, and because I enjoy the other forums and the ability to post questions or offer answers in them, and I use the search function frequently.
So I join with the others who say they’re sorry to see you go, Mr. Moto…but I understand the sentiment.
I would suggest though that you consider how much you like to have the ability to post questions in the other forums and to use the search feature, etc., before you terminate your membership. I would imagine that there will be times when you would like to ask this or comment on that, or to look up something that you remember reading at some point in the past, and you’ll decide it isn’t worth re-upping based on those individual instances, whereas you might have felt it was money well-spent were you to consider these instances in their aggregate.
But be that as it may, should you decide to follow through and leave, I, too, will be sorry to see you go.
