A recent thread asked why lurkers no longer post (and it was in itself a good example of why) and its been something I’ve been thinking about. Personally for myself a large extent of the reason why I no longer post much is that starting and participating in threads is no longer fun and interesting because too many people seem to approach it with a poor attitude, not to exchange ideas and challenge opinions but seemingly to ‘win’ the thread or drag it off onto another subject they would prefer to talk about, usually something that’s already been rehashed a thousand times before elsewhere.
I’m currently reading ‘On the Beach’ by Nevil Shute, a depiction of how an Australian community deals with an end of the world scenario. I thought it might be interesting to see how people on the SD would approach a similar situation but reconsidered because I’m no longer interested in writing a multi-page treatise to cover every single loophole, anticipating diverting responses and trying to prevent people derailing the thread or sending it off on a tangent to talk about their own personal favourite subject.
You can already tell how a thread is going to go, for example the subject may be "Leaving technical and scientific inaccuracies aside how would you deal with a slowly encroaching inevitable end of the world scenario like that in ‘On the Beach’?
Somebody will come in with a needlessly hostile and aggressive attitude, “The ‘end of the world’ is a stupid concept and you’re an idiot for starting this thread”
One or multiple misanthropes, “Good. I hate people, the world is better of without them and my only regret is this scenario isn’t slow, painful and horrific enough”
Another, “We need to define exactly what is meant by ‘end of the world’, the world will be just fine as its humans and other animals that will die, therefore this entire thread is so broad as to be meaningless and discussion is pointless”
Of course someone else will attempt to define exactly what is meant by, ‘world’, ‘end’, ‘slowly’, ‘the’ etc
And classic hypothetical fighting, “Nothing is ‘inevitable’, some way will be found to stop it or some people will survive, therefore this thread is pointless”
Someone will of course attempt to derail it by blaming the end of the world on Donald Trump so its turned into yet another politics thread, or someone will get upset because the book the scenario is from is set in the 1950’s, that there was race and gender discrimination in that period and force it onto yet another discussion about those issues. Bonus points for them if they get the OP to apologise for their insensitivity (assuming their gender and race of course)
People will look for minor issues with the OP and focus on them while ignoring the obvious spirit of what was intended and attempt to win the thread by doing so. Basically killing the discussion by approaching it like a lawyer cross-examining a witness.
Others will take it as an opportunity to show off how smart they think they are, usually with the phraseology, "How exactly do you think ‘x’ happens?’
And absolutely guaranteed someone will post a reply before they’ve read the entire scenario of the OP or failed to comprehend it, in the above an argument would almost certainly start about how radiation doesn’t spread as depicted in the novel despite specifically being asked to leave such issues aside.
There are so many other things that basically always happen in a thread on the SD these days and I for one find it tiresome and pointless to go over the same things again and again because you haven’t written an absolutely watertight scenario and people would rather beat their own personal pet interests to death rather than participate in the subject of a thread as intended.
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