The exodus of the blue avatars

[OSR stands with Israel]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

I mean there are even a good deal of dem posters who post more on discord than here . It all depends on what you want from the site . If you want to actually debate or have substantive discussions with someone than discord is clearly a better medium but this is a better medium for discussion about past elections , alternative history or just if you want to comment on the news but aren’t really interested in debating .

[T'Chenka]

Personally, I think the Republican Party has jumped the shark, abandoning the truth, abandoning democracy and shifting their focus from more important issues to owning the libs and culture wars (even over democracy). Instead of the blue avatar community here watching the party leave them and becoming green or yellow avatars, I feel like a lot of the Republicans here (and everywhere in general) have instead followed Trump down the rabbit hole. The GOP's actions and policies are no longer as defensible in rational debates, and the blue avatars are frustrated that their ability to win / stalemate arguments in good faith is disappearing.

Are you under the impression this forum encourages rational, good faith debates?

Overall, yes, it does. When right wingers want to argue in good faith, discussions happen. Usually people agree to disagree, but occasionally people re-evaluate their positions. This doesn't happen often enough, but the forum does facilitate it and welcome it.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

Maybe for LokCord v2.0, definitely not for PhilCord (whose most active members are disproportionately S-avatars) or AAD.

I will say that I dislike USGD for similar reasons that previous posters have mentioned, and I deliberately to respond to USGD posts in other threads to try and steer activity away from that cesspool. My opinion of certain D-avatars who frequently post and start threads there has gone down during the Biden administration.

Isn’t Philcord basically the atlas left of center cord

"Philcord" is very much fake and isn't real

Source: I found out the hard way

[President Johnson]

I admit not having read the entire discussion here, though indeed as the OP said, the Republican Party has totally jumped the shark. So a theory is that many right of center kind of abandoned the party... we have a few former Republicans here and more blue avatars not hot about Trump. I guess that's because Atlas users tend to be more educated. The remaining blue avatars as a whole are not representative of their party's base. Instead, they're more sane.

[T'Chenka]

If you want to actually debate or have substantive discussions with someone than discord is clearly a better medium but this is a better medium for discussion about past elections , alternative history or just if you want to comment on the news but aren’t really interested in debating .

Disagree :

Debate is better in a forum format, as your posts are way more likely to be seen by everybody and therefore people can't get away with posting nonsense without getting called out for it.

[7,052,770]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

I mean there are even a good deal of dem posters who post more on discord than here . It all depends on what you want from the site . If you want to actually debate or have substantive discussions with someone than discord is clearly a better medium but this is a better medium for discussion about past elections , alternative history or just if you want to comment on the news but aren’t really interested in debating .

Why in the world you seem to think that "there are Democrats on the lolcord too" would affect my opinion at all is beyond me,  but I'll reiterate again that it does not.

[OSR stands with Israel]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

I mean there are even a good deal of dem posters who post more on discord than here . It all depends on what you want from the site . If you want to actually debate or have substantive discussions with someone than discord is clearly a better medium but this is a better medium for discussion about past elections , alternative history or just if you want to comment on the news but aren’t really interested in debating .

Why in the world you seem to think that "there are Democrats on the lolcord too" would affect my opinion at all is beyond me,  but I'll reiterate again that it does not.

Don’t you agree the point of a debate is to try to convince others you are right

[dead0man]

Don’t you agree the point of a debate is to try to convince others you are right

in a debate, the least likely thing to happen is the person you're debating will change their position to match yours.  It's nice when it happens, but that's not the point of debate.  The main point is to get people not on either side or otherwise "meh" on the issue to come to your side.  Secondarily, at least how I use it, is to confirm if my theories on the issue are correct or not.  I want to hear the best arguments from both sides of an issue, it's the best way to know what the correct position is.  It's another reason it's nice not having a political party I have to make excuses for, or bend my ideals to match.  Imagine being a good, Christian Republican in the age of Trump.  It's got to be very frustrating when all your friends, who you thought were good Christian Republicans too, fall for such an obvious con man.  Or an anti-war Democrat at nearly any point in our history.  So frustrating.

[7,052,770]

The fact that few Republicans don't want to participate in a forum about election results and maps when so many believe that elections now are rigged and illegitimate is hardly surprising.

Another issue is that Atlas posters have always been significantly more educated than the general population, either graduated or in college, so Trump scaring off so many educated voters from the GOP definitely had an impact on our membership.

Not really and btw if you include atlas discord then the blue to red avatar discrepancy is no where near as large as it is on here

I get there is a generational gap here and maybe as a millennial I just don't and can't  "understand," but anyone who posts on "Atlas discord" but is afraid to post here is a total pussy and should be laughed at.

I mean there are even a good deal of dem posters who post more on discord than here . It all depends on what you want from the site . If you want to actually debate or have substantive discussions with someone than discord is clearly a better medium but this is a better medium for discussion about past elections , alternative history or just if you want to comment on the news but aren’t really interested in debating .

Why in the world you seem to think that "there are Democrats on the lolcord too" would affect my opinion at all is beyond me,  but I'll reiterate again that it does not.

Don’t you agree the point of a debate is to try to convince others you are right

No. I have no delusions that I'll change anyone's mind about anything, and I don't try.

[Del Tachi]

PiT's post really gets to the heart of the matter.  Atlas is less hospitable than ever before to serious or contemplative discussion. 

There's no point engaging when the red avatar mafia is increasingly only capable of bad faith.  Anything that doesn't fit their script they simply ignore.   

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Personally, I think the Republican Party has jumped the shark, abandoning the truth, abandoning democracy and shifting their focus from more important issues to owning the libs and culture wars (even over democracy). Instead of the blue avatar community here watching the party leave them and becoming green or yellow avatars, I feel like a lot of the Republicans here (and everywhere in general) have instead followed Trump down the rabbit hole. The GOP's actions and policies are no longer as defensible in rational debates, and the blue avatars are frustrated that their ability to win / stalemate arguments in good faith is disappearing.

Are you under the impression this forum encourages rational, good faith debates?

Overall, yes, it does. When right wingers want to argue in good faith, discussions happen. Usually people agree to disagree, but occasionally people re-evaluate their positions. This doesn't happen often enough, but the forum does facilitate it and welcome it.

Mostly arguments from the right aren't considered to be in good faith unless posters on the left agree with them, and even then sometimes not.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I'm under no illusions that this is a forum for debate and haven't been for many many years. But I definitely came here to read posts that could conceivably contain substance, even as I probably have sub-50 percent agreement with any of them. Now those are few and far between in non-international discussions relative to even 4 years ago.

Losing conservatives and left wing skeptics of the administration only has a compounding effect on more people wanting to leave. I'm not interested in reading 90 percent of the remaining conservatives using severely flawed logic painfully filled with holes just asking people to rip it apart more. The Reckoning and Sir Woodbury not being banned has been atrocious and many, many others are becoming more like them.

But the painful logic is not limited to this group even if they are the most prolific. It's just that no one wants to publicly embarrass their ideological compatriots that would be similarly easy to dunk on. Landslide Lyndon is gone, only to replaced by about a dozen clones who thrive on Twitter bot/reply guy-tier discourse.

Plus, what interesting domestic subjects are there to post on? Lefties hold out hope of prosecuting their main opponents, which interests no one but them. Threads about inflation and the stock market are all performative spinning the latest news like a press secretary for the respective parties, even if they are the key place I would like to contribute. Even the immigration news has become too stupid.

The gender ideology threads are among the most interesting things going on (barely) for people of all stripes but the 'conservative' position has effectively been banned. Oh well! Not like that's where all the substance was recently - maybe a year ago but no longer.

[Schiff for Senate]

My authority to speak on the subject is limited, but I have noticed a decrease in traditional conservative blue or tan avatars during my time here.  

I think that Atlas can be a "left-wing echo chamber" at times, as overused a phrase it may be.

There are instances where threads vehemently attacking the GOP for things are roundly applauded while threads pointing out Democrats' failures are quickly met with "why is this an issue?" or "not a problem. Next!".  And I'm not even talking about threads that are transparently meant to inflame rather than attempting to start a meaningful discussion (e.g. GOP state senator's husband's cousin's dog steals Indian family's newspaper! Explain that one, Trumpsters!" Or "Local cake shop insists cakes are gendered! Explain that one, libs!").  

For as much as I think he needs to sometimes step away from Atlas and not take an online forum so seriously, Fuzzy (sorry to name you, dear) *does* sometimes bring up legitimate complaints regarding double standards in red vs. blue moderation -- though I also understand that our mods are human and can't possibly be everywhere, all day everyday.  And they seem to do a good job of addressing many instances where our left-of-center posters cross the line.  

I also think there's an over-eagerness to immediately accuse any new poster expressing conservative views of being a sock, potentially discouraging the birth of new blue contributors.  This of course does not include new accounts that are obviously just trying to stir up trouble.    

Again, I'm not an authority here considering I'm not an uber right-wing conservative and my time here has been short.  But I think these things may lend a bit of insight into what I perceive to be a decline in blue avvies.  

This much I can certainly affirm to be true. It's a practice I've engaged in myself - whenever there's a populist right-wing/far-right new poster, the automatic assumption from myself and others is that they're a sock. It's worth noting that a majority of the time, they are in fact proven to be socks, but it's not as if I've sometimes wrongly accused new far-right/populist/MAGA posters of being socks by virtue of their political views (a very recent example: the Libertarian poster Artist, to whom I suppose I owe an apology if mods have conducted an IP check and it's confirmed he's not a sock).

[OSR stands with Israel]

PiT's post really gets to the heart of the matter.  Atlas is less hospitable than ever before to serious or contemplative discussion. 

There's no point engaging when the red avatar mafia is increasingly only capable of bad faith.  Anything that doesn't fit their script they simply ignore.   

There are many examples I can give really of this . There are many threads where red avatar hacks like Badger bring me up even if I haven’t posted on them and then go on to personally attack me or strawman me . If I respond in a snarky way , other red  avatars instead of criticizing Badger think that I am the one who has become the jerk there so at this point I stopped really caring what many of them think .

In fact if I get criticism from these types of posters , then I know I am likely correct at this point .

[The Dowager Mod]

"a very recent example: the Libertarian poster Artist, to whom I suppose I owe an apology if mods have conducted an IP check and it's confirmed he's not a sock."
As a matter of fact that one was a sock.

[Ferguson97]

I think much of this has less to do with the culture of Atlas and more to do with the nature of conservatism itself. At best, conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo, so they haven't really though about how they might defend their beliefs. They've never had to. They're not advocating for any kind of change, so they don't have any institutions or leaders to challenge. Conservatives generally hail from echo chambers and have rarely, if ever, had their belief system challenged. They haven't been exposed to liberal/progressive line of thought. If they have, it's been a strawman or extremist outlier manufactured by Fox News or some other conservative outlet. So when they finally do encounter a left-leaning person who competently defends their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack. It's the same reason why many conservatives feel that their opinions are not welcome in a university setting. It's the first time where someone has actually made them defend why they believe what they believe. And since they've rarely critically thought about this, they become defensive. They view counterarguments as a personal attack. "I'm being attacked for my ideas." Now, there are many conservatives who DO know how to defend their beliefs and can competently engage in an exchange of ideas. The problem is that because the Republican Party has become the party of anti-intellectualism, the conservatives who do know how to debate don't really identify as Republicans and don't don the blue avatar.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I think much of this has less to do with the culture of Atlas and more to do with the nature of conservatism itself. At best, conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo, so they haven't really though about how they might defend their beliefs. They've never had to. They're not advocating for any kind of change, so they don't have any institutions or leaders to challenge. Conservatives generally hail from echo chambers and have rarely, if ever, had their belief system challenged. They haven't been exposed to liberal/progressive line of thought. If they have, it's been a strawman or extremist outlier manufactured by Fox News or some other conservative outlet. So when they finally do encounter a left-leaning person who competently defends their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack. It's the same reason why many conservatives feel that their opinions are not welcome in a university setting. It's the first time where someone has actually made them defend why they believe what they believe.

  

 

[GregTheGreat657]

For me, the reason I've been posting here has been that my life outside of Atlas has gotten a lot more busy

[OSR stands with Israel]

I think much of this has less to do with the culture of Atlas and more to do with the nature of conservatism itself. At best, conservatism seeks to preserve the status quo, so they haven't really though about how they might defend their beliefs. They've never had to. They're not advocating for any kind of change, so they don't have any institutions or leaders to challenge. Conservatives generally hail from echo chambers and have rarely, if ever, had their belief system challenged. They haven't been exposed to liberal/progressive line of thought. If they have, it's been a strawman or extremist outlier manufactured by Fox News or some other conservative outlet. So when they finally do encounter a left-leaning person who competently defends their beliefs, it feels like a personal attack. It's the same reason why many conservatives feel that their opinions are not welcome in a university setting. It's the first time where someone has actually made them defend why they believe what they believe. And since they've rarely critically thought about this, they become defensive. They view counterarguments as a personal attack. "I'm being attacked for my ideas." Now, there are many conservatives who DO know how to defend their beliefs and can competently engage in an exchange of ideas. The problem is that because the Republican Party has become the party of anti-intellectualism, the conservatives who do know how to debate don't really identify as Republicans and don't don the blue avatar.

You know one of the blue avatars who posted on this thread has a degree in Physics and another conservative who left has a literal PHD.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Btw i responded to a post once by ghost of ruin where he called for the department of Justice to prosecute republicans as terrorists by calling him a fascist and it was my post that was deleted . This deletion proves moderation bias.

[Del Tachi]

For me, the reason I've been posting here has been that my life outside of Atlas has gotten a lot more busy

And this is something else that distinguishes blue avatars from red ones.  We're real people with real jobs, families and other commitments competing for our time while red avatars have always skewed younger/more engaged. 

[Devout Centrist]

And this is something else that distinguishes blue avatars from red ones.  We're real people with real jobs, families and other commitments competing for our time while red avatars have always skewed younger/more engaged. 

sir, have you been posting tonight?

[Del Tachi]

And this is something else that distinguishes blue avatars from red ones.  We're real people with real jobs, families and other commitments competing for our time while red avatars have always skewed younger/more engaged. 

sir, have you been posting tonight?

As a young, childless, urban gay man I am the exception to this rule (and I am predictably one of the most active blue avatars as a result.) 

But folks like PiT, RI, Fuzzy, RINO Tom, DC al Fine, Averroes, etc. all skew more professional/older than the median poster.  They have other stuff going on. 

[Kamala's side hoe]

You know one of the blue avatars who posted on this thread has a degree in Physics and another conservative who left has a literal PHD.

Brilliance in one field doesn’t mean someone is also a genius in other fields. Academic credentials are not necessarily a good indicator of wisdom, common sense, or ethics.

[D hack mode]If we want to focus on healthcare professionals in federal politics, look at cardiologist Mehmet Öz’s dubious weight loss prescriptions, neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s sagacious wisdom on housing policy, or veterinarian Kurt Schrader’s concern for treatment accessibility for human patients (or lack thereof). [/D hack mode]

For a less politically charged example, there’s physicist and one-time Electrical Engineering professor at Stanford Dr. William Shockley (PhD), who is best known for helping commercialize the modern transistor, and his controversial views on eugenics (even by the standards of his time).

And this is something else that distinguishes blue avatars from red ones.  We're real people with real jobs, families and other commitments competing for our time while red avatars have always skewed younger/more engaged. 

My go-to examples for this would’ve been Xing, Beet, ottermax, sev, and Virginia- all of whom are D-avatars or are widely known as such.

[Ferguson97]

For me, the reason I've been posting here has been that my life outside of Atlas has gotten a lot more busy

And this is something else that distinguishes blue avatars from red ones.  We're real people with real jobs, families and other commitments competing for our time while red avatars have always skewed younger/more engaged. 

Lol red avatars aren’t real people?