Having read those warnings, you thoughts are clearly wrong.
Is it really about the Dope per se, or more about the general sorting and siloing of the internet in general?
I think the general trend has been for fora to develop politics and beliefs that are considered acceptable, and those that go against them get dogpiled into the dust.
Heck, I’m a pretty damn orthodox Liberal, and I get dogpiled if I try to say anything that isn’t perfectly consensus stuff. How often do you see people setting up real debates or proposing original ideas here? Not a lot, IMHO. It’s not rewarded behavior.
But again, I think that’s just been the trend online over the past 25 years, and I think game theory explains a lot of it. In the early 2000s, you had a mostly unsorted internet (i.e., more general fora and chatrooms as opposed to atomized subreddits, etc.) and a populace that didn’t (and couldn’t) know how online and social interactions with largely anonymous people would work, since no one had any experience yet. So it was a free-for-all. That had both good consequences (there were real debates here back then) and bad ones (constant bannings and blowups of all types).
Over time, people learned what techniques work, as well as what it’s like to be on the receiving end of them. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to score a cheap “win” by dogpiling and invalidating someone than by directly engaging them in debate. It also really sucks to be dogpiled. The result is self-sorting and only associating with like-minded people.
Another big factor is that people inclined to troll became very good and subtle at it over the past two decades, so that no one trusts anyone to present their actual position. For example, as has been mentioned above, we’ve all dealt with the race realists here (before they were pushed out, thankfully) who were “just asking questions.” Well, extrapolate that to every possible thing. If you have just this “one issue” with, say, trans theory or trans rights, then people will assume you are virulently anti-trans and just hiding that fact. And they will be justified in thinking that, since there are many, many people who troll or agitate in just such a manner. And they may even be paid to do so!
So why have “conservatives”* left? Because everyone on the Dope (or any other forum) gets dogpiled for espousing anything that goes against the orthodoxy of the forum and therefore leaves or shuts up about those heterodox things.
*I put “conservative” in scare quotes, since 99% of people these days who so self-label have no genuine conservative principles or philosophy.
“Conservatives” are a special case, as they tend to be driven away if they are not allowed to harass and threaten other people. They aren’t looking for a serious discussion in the first place, just to attack others.
If it does not exceed the scope of this thread, how would you define your conservative/libertarian philosophy? (I just looked up “99er” - you mean you are unemployed? How is that relevant?)
I ask not to attack or criticize, but instead, simply because I do not know what a modern day conservative thinks. Or how they believe the Republicans represent their positions.
So far in this thread folk have focussed on economic conservatism, but not so much social or international/military conservatism. Are conservative views in one of those areas - say opposing abortion or gay/trans rights - sufficient to qualify one as a conservative, even if one such person doesn’t really have any strong views on the other areas?
In practice, it seems social conservatism drives the agenda, as they only oppose programs/funding supporting social causes they dislike.
The liberal majority here often does tend to pile on to conservative posters - such as the occasional bible-truth witnesser. I mean, IMO such persons are fools. But if we as a board really wanted to cultivate their presence, we could (posters and mods) lighten the sledgehammer response they receive. Personally, I’m not interested in treating such folk with kid gloves.
I’m pretty sure it’s because they joined in 1999.
I haven’t been a member here long, but this is the reason that there aren’t too many of us left here. Comments like this. When these type of hateful comments are not actively encouraged or added to, they are simply ignored. It is very rare when anyone on here calls out this type of binary, closed-minded, hateful thinking. If you are conservative, you are not made welcome here, simple as that I think.
Well said. My view is, don’t overthink it. This board is largely comprised of fairly intelligent individuals who live in a reality-based world and discuss facts. Lunatics, psychotics, and just assholes in general feel out of place here, and good riddance.
Because it’s true. And because in the modern masks off era of conservatism fewer and fewer people are willing to pretend otherwise. People are tired of being told they have to pretend the people who want to murder them are “reasonable people who have a point”.
I’m not debating this with you. You are incapable of having an good faith conversation, really about anything if we are being honest. Your nihilistic outlook on everything is tiresome. Whether or not it’s true (hint: it’s not), that is the reception conservatives get here, and is the reason they don’t tend to hang around. Simple.
As I asked above, what views on what issues make you a conservative? What current policies advanced by the R admin and majorities of both houses are consistent with your views?
IMO, just about every step taken by the current admin is worthy of hateful comment. Are your views something other than support for Trump’s policies?
These are sincere questions, asked out of a desire to understand.
Disagreeing with you isn’t not “having a good faith conversation”. In fact you are demonstrating the truth of one of my comments; conservatives tend to assume everyone who disagrees with them is a liar.
It really amuses me that in the TWENTY YEARS I’ve been here the go to problem poster for conservatives is, and only is, Der.
And it also amuses me that the only unfairly banned conservative that ever comes up as an example is Shodan.
probably outside the scope of this thread, but almost none really. I feel like a person without a political party. I consider myself a “conservative” I guess, but more so in the traditional Buckley sense I suppose. Trump, and much of the modern Republican party, disgusts me. Their rejection of rationality and science and their contempt of the rule of law are reprehensible.
Reality skews liberal. Conservatives have a greater tendency to just try to make up their own facts and this board has an appetite toward actual verifiable real facts.
Not that all of the conservative former members were necessarily the ones who were making up the facts (although some of them definitely did), and not that liberals are in any way perfect, but the post-truth nature of conservative philosophy runs all the way through, and the mission statement of this board is against it.
Umm, the Republican Party’s contempt for the Rule of Law in our lifetimes starts with Nixon and Watergate and continues through Reagan with Iran/Contra so… when did this disgust begin exactly?
I’ve never seen a more dedicated gang of trolls and racialists. Their persistence and all encompassing fixations were only matched by their self-righteousness by cloaking themselves in a false aesthetic of logic, reason, and impartiality; all the while, vigorously trying to rehash 19th century racialism as cutting edge (but forbidden) science.
Any racialist theory or wild claim could be adopted and discarded at whim, all to serve the purpose of keeping the racist claims flowing. Any and all claims. No amount of discussion reached them as everything was hand-waved away and ignored, all just to repeat the same racist claims, lies, and questions (often with provocative goads on how “close-minded and fearful” others were).
Just not a problem anymore here. And this place is WILDLY better having rid of them. Its shocking for how long they were tolerated.
I think it would be refreshing to have an authentic libertarian here; but I don’t think they exist (/Princess Bride). Yes I recall @Liberal (whose original handle was indeed Libertarian), but he has been gone from here for more than a decade now.
Earlier this year I wondered out loud why Great Debates has pretty much died (a shocking development given how the board worked when I first got here in 2006), and was told it was because all the usual topics have been done to death, and most of the sound and fury there had splintered off to the Politics subforum. Yet there certainly seems to be sufficient room for nuanced and authentically-approached topics to be raised there (plenty of which would be non-political), but the board culture simply has moved away from that, regardless of where some window somewhere has shifted, who has stayed and who has left, and what topics everyone now supposedly finds interminably boring.
And you are incapable of providing any solid examples of your vapid claims.
I’ve taken my undoubtedly naive and overdone-to-death question to P&E here.
Der_Trihs and a couple others are actively working to drive anyone with any non-progressive views away from this board so they can have an ultra-liberal sounding board. Insults that imply anyone not 100% in agreement with them is an asshole Nazi (even outside the Pit), hypocrites in the standards they use for participating in discussion on this board, making BS claims then claiming everything YOU say that contradicts them is a lie or ignoring they got caught out on their BS. And their theory is if they say something louder and more persistently that makes them right. That’s now true no matter where you are on both sides of the aisle. We can’t talk politics with family because we have a couple of MAGA-Trump fanboyz that do the exact same thing.
BUT to the point of the OP, what they do is supported, or at least condoned, by a vast majority here. And more are starting to do what they do. There are posters here that I disagreed with but were at least civil in the threads but now they are turning up the vitriol and heaven forbid you push back against them.
I concur. My conservatism is more fiscal conservatism, I am a social liberal. I believe the Constitution should run this country not the Bible and I am especially concerned that not “National Security™” justifies all violations of civil rights. So I’m not a Republican but I am certainly not a Democrat.