You think his conclusion would change? To what something like a belief that cloistering and echo chamber bubbles are better?

I think much of todays issues are that people seek 'safe space' echo box chambers and only venture out to engage in flame wars that are not intended ever to resolve and differences.

I think the way this forum schismed (center left here, and right/far right in BFI thread) is the perfect example of that. Both sides looking to 'cancel' or rid there forums of those that largely do not share their views.

This forum never schismed in that manner.

Do you remember Fly and Dvault?

Both left leaning posters, they are the type of regular high volume poster that left after Mason tried to make this forum more aligned with his personal politics.

I think this has to regarded as near gaslighting at this point.

If you look at the BFI covid thread versus the Politics Covid thread, the schism is undeniable. Trump near perfect, Obama to blame over there is core underlying theme that gets near zero push back by the masses and those who dared push back, faced loud calls for mods to step in and ban them from the thread. There was the quiet acquiescence to that narrative, even if not all fully agreed with its extreme nature. An 'eh, it is mostly on our side, so who cares' type attitude.

The covid thread on this side would not tolerate any of that type of extreme rightist view and while no one pushed it hard it hard here we see the same type of 'call out to the mods to purge' people who people in this forum feel are do not fit.

Can we please cancel this endless discussion about the BFI? If people are still super interested in talking about BFI they could do that in the BFI.

A schism implies that a group that was once unified under one umbrella split into two or more groups. The current politics forum and BFI are not the product of a such a split. BFI draws more finance types. Those people are less likely to favor Democratic, and especially progressive, policies. Politics forums, on the other hand, are more likely to attract Democrats. And to a degree, groupthink is a feature of any forum, no matter the politics of the forum. That's all you are observing. There are many regulars in the politics forum who have little or no history of posting in BFI (and vice versa).

4-5 years ago, the politics forum was much more progressive than it is now, which directly contradicts your argument. 10-12 years ago, it skewed significantly in the direction of libertarianism and AC-ism.

To a degree, there was a schism between the current Politics forum, and Unstuck. But that was less of a partisan division and more of a division around how the forum should be moderated.

Do you mean this specific forum or the forum as a whole?

Because politics forum never had a schism where high volume right wing posters upsticks and went to BFI.

That just never happened.

The opinions expressed in that one thread in BFI would have been toilet in any forum which is evinced by the OOT thread, which is fiercely unpolitical but immediately kicked anyone arguing ala BFI straight out of the thread.

So really you need to look at 3 threads on one subject, which puts the whole binary of politics/bfi completely in the bin.

The most high profile high volume posters to leave and make a point of leaving have all been left wing, at least in the last 5 years.

I think he would recognise it's not such a big problem anymore. Not a good thing at all but not a big deal

I'm just saying it doesn't stop those who are interested from understanding the arguments and issues from all sides as it's so much easier to find this stuff out than it was in his day. It's a bit pathetic and annoying but politically the problem is the polarizing one.

As i said before you have the history a bit wrong but there was a lot of deliberately 'running people off'. P was a very odd place dominated by a surreal fringe but the political discussion was actually very good.

While i might agree with a preponderance argument I do not believe either finance nor Politics are so overwhelming left or right that you do not get a good mix of people from all political sides in discussions.

The BFI guys regularly referred to the entirety of the Politics forum with great disdain and suggestion of it being some crazy out of touch leftist bastion. It was clear they had no desire to post here feeling they would get no objective treatment.

Similarly there is a pretty near complete avoidance of the BFi, and in particular Tooths catch all thread, the covid thread, by most who post here. Hard to say all the topics there just don't appeal to anyone here over it being they don't want to engage or associate with most over there.

So while I thought I was told there was some great fight and agreement that certain people would stay out of this forum and threads and vice versa, it may well just be self isolations following very partisan lines.

But I think the divide and lack of engagement is deliberate and a thing. Why it exists (bans or voluntary) is less important.

Shhh, stop gaslighting.

Jesus Christ no one cares about what’s going on in BFI.

Ok. Good to know.

The 'how' is not really my point. It is where we are today in each that is the point and you have clarified what I am saying in my point is accurate. Thx.

This!!!!

I find it both weird and amusing that you think I do not know that Trolly.

Key to my thesis since inception is that you guys want no exposure to anything outside your bubble. Confirmation bias, demands that.

The last thing you would want to know, is that you would be attacked and accused of the exact same things in the BFI, that you attack people here with and for. Because you would see them as abhorrent and wrong which then, if you have any self reflection would force you to recognize same, in this forum.

Except in this case, people from BOTH ends of the spectrum are "piling on". Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but I ain't no lefty.

Probably not a lot of things that Trolly and I both agree on that will turn out to be untrue.

Yes laggy, 'both sides' are trying to create and maintain their bubbles... piling on.

That is the point made by me and in the article.

Glad you agree with me.

Thus...

Nope. Nobody cares about BFI because we actually don't care, not some secret rorschach blob psychoanalysis. But guess what, keyword search shows we are only at 96 mentions of BFI in this thread, I'm sure you can get it to triple digits next post!

QP, if I go over to BFI and constantly complain about the politics forum, do you think that will be well received?

Actually, it probably would be well-received if you were ranting about how the Politics Forum is completely dominated by a Leftist Mob that was banning conservatives....in a dedicated thread on that subject.

Difference is, Cuepee will talk about BFI in multiple threads here.

that was part of QP's point wasn't it?

There was one specific thread on BFI that attracted a fringe group of very right wing extremist posters who tended towards conspiracy theory.

The main reason they congregated ITT was because it was basically unmoderated. The same posters could not post there perspectives in the OOT thread for example.

However some of the conspiritard posters were formally high volume posters in this thread, one of which was Shuffle.

Shuffle is left leaning, economically speaking very left leaning. He was not attacked though because he was also conspiracy leaning.

Shuffle does not post anywhere on this site now.

The moderators of BFI itself shut the thread eventually because it was a cess pit of nonsense.

So the main driver of the "non echo" posters in BFI was light moderation, when the moderators finally got round to looking at the thread they were hell nope.

Its worth mentioning the fringe posters who cant really express themselves anywhere without pile on attacked the mods viscously, basically because they knew moderation meant cancellation.

So really the cancelling of the views of the posters in that one BFI thread came from any kind of reasonable moderation.

Its worth pointing out that Toothsayer is hated by a large part of BFI.

Using that thread to try and paint some kind of specific dichotomy or specific oppositional relation between BFI and this Politics is basically uniformed and shallow, because that thread was oppositional to basically every sub forum.

In before gaslighting.

Has tooth ever actually made a real, verifiable trade yet?

The covid BFI thread was, by far the busiest thread in that forum in terms of volume of posts and posters.

It is easy to cite from the earliest beginnings of that thread that dominant extreme right derp narrative and to see it tolerance from start to end.

It is also easy to see how anyone who questioned that narrative was attacked by an awakened mob of prior non commenting posters who suddenly saw 'offense' but only in the person countering the narrative and not the one pushing the narrative.

It is a similar reply to what we get here when it is said 'one could simply not reply to the troll or bad faith poster' instead of saying to the bad faith poster, 'you could just not post that'.

Nothing indicates the leanings and sympathy of the forums attendants more.

Time and again posters there would say a version of 'we don't necessarily even agree with everything said in that thread ...but ...', as a defense against being associated with some of the more extremes and crazy stuff, but what they could not see was that then begged the question 'why do you not call out the crazy on that side and only get riled up enough to call out people countering the crazy'??

This post would be the appropriate post to kick off this splinter thread as it touches on the dynamic at play pretty directly and how it is often denied.