The exodus of the blue avatars

[dead0man]

We've always been short on blue avs.  It may be worse now, but not dramatically worse.  We've always been (mostly) an echo chamber.  Are there worse echo chambers out there?  Of course, but there being worse doesn't make us any less of one.

[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.

[dead0man]

Something that I think is missed in this discussion. Low-quality white noise blue avs get bullied off the forum pretty quickly, and rightfully so. Low quality white noise red avs don't, unfortunately, and they stick around.

this might be the single biggest reason there are so few blue avs.  The sh**tty ones can't hack it or freak out and get banned.  sh**tty red avs can and do stick around for years.  Some of them are Atlas "institutions".

[dead0man]

this might be the single biggest reason there are so few blue avs.  The sh**tty ones can't hack it or freak out and get banned.  sh**tty red avs can and do stick around for years.  Some of them are Atlas "institutions".

And the low quality of the median red avatar contributes greatly to creating the climate I spoke of where the forum simply isn't worth making serious contributions to anymore. Sometimes I see a thread I want to post in, but scrolling through and seeing a wall of Reddit-tier takes from Democrats disabuses me of any interest in participating.

"We are more than happy to participate, but you're all too stupid that it's not even worth it!"

nobody but you have said "all"

Wow, great argument there. It sounds like you're very secure in your belief system.

if that was true, why wouldn't we find our own echo chamber like most red avs here?  And that's not to say people do it consciously, it's just something that happens to a certain type of person.  It can happen to people of any political stripe, it just happens to be red avs here.

I am in the minority on a number of issues on Atlas (particularly trans rights), but I always defend my beliefs no matter how many people disagree with me.

k

Look, Atlas is unlike most social media giants in that there's no algorithm stacking the deck against you. We're a relatively small community, we're completely anonymous, and moderation here is generally lax enough that you don't have to worry about getting your posts removed unless you engage in a personal attack.

maybe, and red avs have to worry about it even less.

There's nothing holding you back from defending your beliefs and engaging with red avatars, unless you're afraid that they're going to get more recommends than you.

that's some weird projection you've got going on there

If blue avatars/conservatives aren't able to defend their arguments on Atlas of all places, then that's not on red avatars. That's on blue avatars.

agreed, which is what we've been saying this entire time and you just spent several paragraphs saying wasn't true.  That's weird bro.

[dead0man]

We've even had a small handful of posters in 2020 and 2021 advocating for absolutely zero COVID restrictions, NOT on the basis of "they don't work", but on the basis of "they might actually work, but individual freedom is more important". That is the morally wrong position and it isn't justifiable.

Ding dong your opinion is wrong. You have the right to stay in your house forever if you are afraid of getting the cold. You do not have the right to force me to live according to your irrational fear.

Do you genuinely believe that there should never have been any covid restrictions at all, even in March-April 2020? Post-vaccine, I agree there shouldn't be restrictions, but T'Chenka is specifically referring to a point before we had the vaccine, and fear of covid was not irrational then.

In hindsight the best strategy would have been to allow covid to spread and have as many people infected as possible and create a strong initial immunity giving variants less opportunity to develop.

This is deranged.

maybe, but nowhere near as deranged as "locking down" 87% of society for two weeks to "stop the spread".


And if the first thought that went through your head was "well yeah, it should have been 100%" then you don't understand society or the corners of it that keep humans alive on a daily basis.