The board is boring now

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superrific said:
This doesn't explain the dramatic decrease in the civic comprehension of Americans in the last fifteen years. There was a time, I think, that Trump's lying would have been disqualifying (along with many other issues with his conduct). There was a time when Americans could keep two thoughts in their head at once. Heck, people do that in non-political settings all the time, and then act like fucking morons when it comes time to ponder the future of the country.

So what changed? Why does the electorate suck so much more now? I think it points to the centrality of the conspiratorial element -- which you expressly point to, and I would argue that it should be even more centered in our public discourse. The wide availability and general acceptance of a conspiratorial mindset is both such an important part of what ails us, and what connects our experience to the rest of the world, where right-wingers are on the rise. And that's because social media puts out an infinite quantity of that bullshit.

I don't know if it's "secret knowledge" or just permission to let loose the old prejudices that had in the past been squashed by at least something of a commitment to truth and reality, post-Watergate especially. It's probably both, in varying degrees for different people. But it's really significant.
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Algorithmic engagement. Facebook started it in 2011. If you want to know why people lost their goddamn minds in the last 15 years, that's it.
 
StrangePackage said:
Algorithmic engagement. Facebook started it in 2011. If you want to know why people lost their goddamn minds in the last 15 years, that's it.
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I mean, that's part of it. But the best algorithmic engagement is pure self-selection. Fox News has been brainwashing a lot longer than algorithmic engagement has been around. Newsmax has been causing people to lose their minds for two decades.

I often blame "social media" for things, but what I specifically mean is our world, which has largely been re-shaped by social media. I'm not sure social media specifically is to blame -- not in a direct 1:1 sense. Sometimes it is. But often it's the overall devaluation of truth that has accompanied social media, rather than the specific tools themselves.

Eh, I just read my last paragraph. Pretty confusing and unclear. I should do better, but I'm not finding the right words at the moment. Maybe I will clarify another time or maybe it doesn't matter.
 
HeelingAg said:
PSA: Self scouting is a tremendous skill to work on everyday of your life. It will not only improve your relationships, it’ll improve your reading comprehension and ability to find yourself in, or not in, someone else’s commentary.
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What do you mean by self scouting?
 
UNCatTech said:
What do you mean by self scouting?
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A sports ball way of saying self reflection. We got some con posters that think they’re “reasonable conservatives”, and as result believe the hostile reaction to their bullshit is reflective of “eCHo chAMbEr!!!!!!”. They ain’t self scouting, bc they ain’t reasonable, ie driven by preponderances of data and consistency.
 
superrific said:
This doesn't explain the dramatic decrease in the civic comprehension of Americans in the last fifteen years. There was a time, I think, that Trump's lying would have been disqualifying (along with many other issues with his conduct). There was a time when Americans could keep two thoughts in their head at once. Heck, people do that in non-political settings all the time, and then act like fucking morons when it comes time to ponder the future of the country.

So what changed? Why does the electorate suck so much more now? I think it points to the centrality of the conspiratorial element -- which you expressly point to, and I would argue that it should be even more centered in our public discourse. The wide availability and general acceptance of a conspiratorial mindset is both such an important part of what ails us, and what connects our experience to the rest of the world, where right-wingers are on the rise. And that's because social media puts out an infinite quantity of that bullshit.

I don't know if it's "secret knowledge" or just permission to let loose the old prejudices that had in the past been squashed by at least something of a commitment to truth and reality, post-Watergate especially. It's probably both, in varying degrees for different people. But it's really significant.
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I think it is most closely linked to the re-alignment of non-college voters to the GOP. They are the most persuadable by lies and when you add them to those motivated by hate, those who crave fascism (likely a circle in the venn diagram with the hate motivated), the robber baron influence, and then subtract out the apathetic and left wing purity testers you get the 2024 election results.
 
Being new here I am not sure how trolling is defined per the ZZLP. I need some man or woman splainning. It was stated by ZZLPHEELS that 90% on here have the same political mindset and if this is true is it possible that perceived trolling by the 10% could simply be a counterpoint? Fox has a show, The Five, the 4 conserves gang up on and shut down the 1 lib at the table. Could that be the case here in reverse?
 
tar pal said:
Being new here I am not sure how trolling is defined per the ZZLP. I need some man or woman splainning. It was stated by ZZLPHEELS that 90% on here have the same political mindset and if this is true is it possible that perceived trolling by the 10% could simply be a counterpoint? Fox has a show, The Five, the 4 conserves gang up on and shut down the 1 lib at the table. Could that be the case here in reverse?
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If you stick around, you'll notice that it's the unsupported claims, outright lies (They're eating the pets) and misrepresentations that get shot down.

I'm only one person but, as others have said, I have absolutely no problem with a principled argument.
 
tar pal said:
Being new here I am not sure how trolling is defined per the ZZLP. I need some man or woman splainning. It was stated by ZZLPHEELS that 90% on here have the same political mindset and if this is true is it possible that perceived trolling by the 10% could simply be a counterpoint? Fox has a show, The Five, the 4 conserves gang up on and shut down the 1 lib at the table. Could that be the case here in reverse?
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My argument is that is exactly what happened frequently on the old ZZLP. I have not seen that happen on this board. On the old board if you had an opinion that went against the grain you could find yourself relentlessly harassed and targeted. To be fair, if someone was an ass to me I had no qualms with being an even bigger asshole back to them, which led to a poor board environment for everyone else caught in the crossfire.

This board is nothing like that, thank goodness. It seems as if the hotheads didn't make the trip over here. There are a couple of conservative posters who verge on being trolls, but no one really takes their bait.
 
tar pal said:
Being new here I am not sure how trolling is defined per the ZZLP. I need some man or woman splainning. It was stated by ZZLPHEELS that 90% on here have the same political mindset and if this is true is it possible that perceived trolling by the 10% could simply be a counterpoint? Fox has a show, The Five, the 4 conserves gang up on and shut down the 1 lib at the table. Could that be the case here
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This is a good analogy, even though I don’t watch fox and have never seen your show: The 5

But ZZLPHEELS defends this board for not being quite that way.
He admits he got booted from the previous board and claims that he was ganged up on just as you describe in The 5. And apparently that hasn’t happened to him on this site. Not yet at least.

But just like on the old IC basketball board, sometimes we like having a house dookie around… one who stirs the pot with talk about how “both sides lie”.

But I doubt many on here will tolerate too much Maga B.S. before somebody like Manhattanheel starts the beat down and the jackals swarm.
 
Centerpiece said:
This is a good analogy, even though I don’t watch fox and have never seen your show: The 5

But ZZLPHEELS defends this board for not being quite that way.
He admits he got booted from the previous board and claims that he was ganged up on just as you describe in The 5. And apparently that hasn’t happened to him on this site. Not yet at least.

But just like on the old IC basketball board, sometimes we like having a house dookie around… one who stirs the pot with talk about how “both sides lie”.

But I doubt many on here will tolerate too much Maga B.S. before somebody like Manhattanheel starts the beat down and the jackals swarm.
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I know you meant nycfan, but the reference to Manhattanheel made me smile.
 
hedge said:
What is HT?
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HeelTalk. It spun off when ZZL first split. It's mostly been a decent place to go but literally everyone is a couple of decades younger than me. I still drop by but it has gotten pretty slow and pretty predictable.
 
finesse said:
Or as Plato has Socrates saying,


"The unexamined life is not worth living"
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This is right there with being a father and husband in my very short list of thing I believe i did a decent job with.
 
tar pal said:
Being new here I am not sure how trolling is defined per the ZZLP. I need some man or woman splainning. It was stated by ZZLPHEELS that 90% on here have the same political mindset and if this is true is it possible that perceived trolling by the 10% could simply be a counterpoint? Fox has a show, The Five, the 4 conserves gang up on and shut down the 1 lib at the table. Could that be the case here in reverse?
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No.
 
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