The exodus of the blue avatars

[Aurelius]

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.

[Aurelius]

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.

  

 

lol do you deny that conservatives are generally in echo chambers?

Yes, or at least no more than liberals are.

Conservatives also generally have a much better understanding of why liberals think the way they do than vice versa.

Your post is one of the funniest things I've read on this site.

[Aurelius]

None of the people being mentioned in this thread should be banned. If they hurt your sensitive feelings so badly just put them on ignore. I cannot stand self-victimization!

[Aurelius]

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!"

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

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.

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. 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.

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.

Nobody is obligated to post in any particular thread. This is not a collegiate debate society. I post here for three reasons: for my own amusement, to learn about history and international affairs, and to exhaust my seemingly insatiable desire to argue about politics and philosophy so that the normies in my life don't have to be at the receiving end of it. People are going to post in discussions that they find interesting or relevant. I know that Trump is corrupt, I have spent the past 7 years hearing about him nonstop on news and in conversation, none of this is new to me. I have absolutely no interest in following the latest minutiae of "FBI says flunkie did crimes with other flunkie if testimony of flunkie #3 is to be believed; here are the latest warrants and subpoenas and hearings". It does not interest me. I have better things to do with my life. So yeah I have absolutely no interest in going into a red avatar circlejerk thread full of reddit tier "Republican voters want to put a Hitler in power and kill all the gays and jews, treason insurrection yada yada yada" alternating with "wHeRe aRe tEh BlUe AvAtArS?!?!?!?!?!111oneoneone" I spend my time on what I feel like spending my time on and I am under no obligation to use this website in ways that I don't enjoy.

I also don't particularly care about how many recommendations I get! Especially when a lot of the posts with 30 or 40 recs are full of recs from the sort of mindless white noise dunce who would have never lasted two seconds on here if they had a different avatar color. You know that I spout insane hot takes on here all the damn time lol.

[Aurelius]

The partisan that would give a cogent defense of law enforcement, the Supreme Court and the free market also strongly believes transgender people are perverts and should be imprisoned, which would inevitably result in a ban here.

What? I fail to see how supporting the free market requires thinking that all trans people are perverts that deserve to be imprisoned...

I don't think he's saying one requires the other; rather, he's saying that holding all of the other beliefs he mentioned has some correlation with the one about trans people. Which is certainly true to some extent, due to simple partisan backfill of worldviews.

[Aurelius]

- I think the belief that there's been a blue avi flight is dubious in general.

^this I think is also relevant. In some ways, it feels like this forum is a bit to the right of where it was when in I first signed up, back in 2012.

I don't remember that far back, but it's also definitely a tad right of where it was in 2017-18.

(Btw, one of the first things I remember about this forum is beaver2.0's signature. Could've swore I saw it looking at presidential election polls back in 2012. But beaver2.0 didn't join until 2015. Was there a beaver1.0?)

[Aurelius]

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.

[Aurelius]

T'Chenka is one of the dumbest posters in the history of Atlas.

He's got a lot of competition. This is a forum where wbrocks and PittsburghSteel and GP270watch (and others) are active posters. For a long time I refused to put anyone on my ignore list out of Muh Principle. In the past month I abandoned that and started putting dunces on it so I don't have to lose brain cells from their posts. I'm already running out of spots.

[Aurelius]

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?

He said 2020 and 2021. There should have been absolutely no restrictions of any kind after the vaccine became available.

Lockdowns were always a horrible idea. Pre-vaccine there should have been nothing more than mask requirements during the peaks of waves. I have no problem with the March 2020 lockdowns because we had no idea what the hell was going on. But the ones continuing after that were bad and wrong, and especially the ones in winter 2020-21 (which happened in a few states including CA) were indefensible. Trump was right to go after the Dem governors of those midwestern states in May and June 2020.

[Aurelius]

Lockdowns were always a horrible idea. Pre-vaccine there should have been nothing more than mask requirements during the peaks of waves. I have no problem with the March 2020 lockdowns because we had no idea what the hell was going on. But the ones continuing after that were bad and wrong, and especially the ones in winter 2020-21 (which happened in a few states including CA) were indefensible. Trump was right to go after the Dem governors of those midwestern states in May and June 2020.

The vast majority of research and data indicates that if we used a time machine and did what you're proposing, a lot more people would have died or developed long-term heart or lung illnesses. When I say "a lot", I mean hundreds of thousands and possibly over a million.

What was so extremely important that made saving all of those lives "a horrible idea"? The concept of anti-collectivist libertarianism? I'm sure that would have comforted all the people who lost family members and comforted the people who died as they lay there dying.

Those who value their own security over others' liberty deserve neither. Nothing has ever stopped people from choosing to stay at home. They do not have the right to force others to do the same. Personally I would rather take the tiny risk and live a full life than cower at home afraid of other people.

The only situation in which this doesn't hold is when hospitals are completely overrun. But this was rarely a problem in the US after the first few months, especially if you use real metrics about hospital beds, not fake ones that allowed authoritarians to more easily continue their power trips.

[Aurelius]

Anyway way a post Furgeson made one time actually clearly sums up why debate is so hard now days. He outright said he finds it hard to believe someone can claim they care about the views they have unless they think people who are on the opposite side of that debate are more immoral for having those views.

That to me is 100% a wrong approach to politics

Even if you accept this, which I don't, it only even makes sense if you subscribe to a good/evil system of morality. It doesn't make sense if, like me, you mostly subscribe to a good/bad system of morality instead.

Yes, there are some things where I think certain positions are immoral, but those are relatively few and far between. Mostly I just think they are wrong, and in some cases stupid. Wrong or stupid doesn't automatically mean immoral.

[Aurelius]

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.

Or the reasons we value life to begin with. Life is valued in large part because it is good and worth living. Making life miserable merely for the sake of not letting a single person die is bizarre. I'd rather live 60 great years than 80 miserable ones.

[Aurelius]

Or the reasons we value life to begin with. Life is valued in large part because it is good and worth living. Making life miserable merely for the sake of not letting a single person die is bizarre. I'd rather live 60 great years than 80 miserable ones.

Thank god we have right wingers to make these decisions for us all!

You people were the ones forcing everyone to make a particular choice! I was advocating to let people choose their own level of risk tolerance. Under the restrictive regime, everyone is forced to value (expected mean) duration of life over quality of life. Under the permissive regime, which I have supported since pretty early on in covid, everyone gets to decide for themselves which they value more. Thank God that neurotic lefties are no longer successfully forcing everyone else to cower in fear alongside themselves in "solidarity"!

Do you even think about what you post?

[Aurelius]

Do you even think about what you post?

Lol of course I do. I'm not the one trying to make a false equivelance between ignoring experts to get people killed and mildly inconveniencing entitled hyper-anti-collectivists.

Like I have said a thousand times, if you don't want to take the *tiny* risk of being killed by covid, you have the right to stay home, mask, social distance, order grocery dropoff, etc. You do not have the right to force the rest of us to do the same. My choice to live my life without fear does not have to affect hypersensitive hypochondriacs who are still masking and distancing.

I choose to treat the risks from covid like the risks from driving, eating medium rare steak, going outside without slathering myself in sunscreen, etc. They are infinitesimal but real, and not worth making a big deal of.

And "experts" do not have the right to dictate politics any more than monarchs do (they don't). We can consider what they have to say and then choose to go a completely different direction. This is what democracy is for! I choose to completely disregard the psycho epidemiologists on twitter who are still freaking out that most people are no longer playing along with their hysteria.

[Aurelius]

And no, this isn't a dead issue. There are still tons of schools requiring masks and/or distancing, all sorts of federal requirements, and I'm already seeing some buzz in the news with flunkies attempting to prepare the public for another possible round of all-out covid tyranny this winter.

Not like I expect a Canadian - someone from the land of bootlicking loyalists - of all people to understand and value freedom!

[Aurelius]

And no, this isn't a dead issue. There are still tons of schools requiring masks and/or distancing, all sorts of federal requirements, and I'm already seeing some buzz in the news with flunkies attempting to prepare the public for another possible round of all-out covid tyranny this winter.

Not like I expect a Canadian - someone from the land of bootlicking loyalists - of all people to understand and value freedom!

Masks and Social Distancing are not taking away your freedom, its just taking away your freedom to be an ahole and spread disease. Also this isn't 1776 anymore

It's always 1776 in spirit!

And of course mandatory masking and (especially) mandatory social distancing are restrictions on freedom. I don't get why people who want to restrict freedom in some aspect pretend that doing so doesn't restrict freedom. That's facile sophistry that doesn't convince anyone. We can all see right through it. Much better to be honest and say that it's worth restricting whatever sort of freedom you are seeking to restrict. I am very up front about this when I talk about things like hard drugs.

[Aurelius]

And no, this isn't a dead issue. There are still tons of schools requiring masks and/or distancing, all sorts of federal requirements, and I'm already seeing some buzz in the news with flunkies attempting to prepare the public for another possible round of all-out covid tyranny this winter.

Not like I expect a Canadian - someone from the land of bootlicking loyalists - of all people to understand and value freedom!

Masks and Social Distancing are not taking away your freedom, its just taking away your freedom to be an ahole and spread disease. Also this isn't 1776 anymore

Of course they take away freedom, and it's always 1776 in spirit.

I don't get why people who want to restrict freedom in some aspect pretend that doing so doesn't restrict freedom. That's facile sophistry that doesn't convince anyone. We can all see right through it. Much better to be honest and say that it's worth restricting whatever sort of freedom you are seeking to restrict. I am very up front about this when I talk about things like hard drugs.

You do realize I'm an Anarchist right?

1. This is a non sequitur.
2. Left-wing "anarchism" is a contradiction in terms.
3. All anarchism eventually leads to either mob rule or rule by warlords. Not a great system!
4. I used to be an anarchist too. So did lots of people I went to college with. People rarely stay anarchists for more than a few years though.

Mandating masks and social distancing reduces freedom. They take away the freedom to not wear a mask, the freedom to not social distance, the freedom to engage in normal social interaction and patterns of life. To pretend otherwise is sophistry.

And if you're still saying that not masking and not distancing makes you an asshole in September 2022, that says more about you than it does about me.

[Aurelius]

And no, this isn't a dead issue. There are still tons of schools requiring masks and/or distancing, all sorts of federal requirements, and I'm already seeing some buzz in the news with flunkies attempting to prepare the public for another possible round of all-out covid tyranny this winter.

Not like I expect a Canadian - someone from the land of bootlicking loyalists - of all people to understand and value freedom!

Masks and Social Distancing are not taking away your freedom, its just taking away your freedom to be an ahole and spread disease. Also this isn't 1776 anymore

Of course they take away freedom, and it's always 1776 in spirit.

I don't get why people who want to restrict freedom in some aspect pretend that doing so doesn't restrict freedom. That's facile sophistry that doesn't convince anyone. We can all see right through it. Much better to be honest and say that it's worth restricting whatever sort of freedom you are seeking to restrict. I am very up front about this when I talk about things like hard drugs.

You do realize I'm an Anarchist right?

Left-wing "anarchism" is a contradiction in terms. All anarchism eventually devolves to rule by warlords.

I used to be an anarchist too. It rarely lasts long! I doubt you'll still be one in a few years.

Name one example within the last century of an anarchist society falling into warlordism. Then we can talk. The point I was making is that simple measures to not be an ahole do not involve taking away your freedom. But MURICA FCK YEAH, right?

Somalia. That took me about two seconds.

As I said already in my previous post:

Mandating masks and social distancing reduces freedom. They take away the freedom to not wear a mask, the freedom to not social distance, the freedom to engage in normal social interaction and patterns of life. To pretend otherwise is sophistry.

And if you're still saying that not masking and not distancing makes you an asshole in September 2022, that says more about you than it does about me.

You have to make the case that making normal social behavior impossible is worth the costs. Yes, of course it is a reduction of freedom.

[Aurelius]

Name me a single example of a successful anarchist polity and we'll talk.

The Free Territory falls just outside the century mark, but that didn't end so well, did it?

Also Somalia is a failed state, Genius

Thanks for conceding my point.

[Aurelius]

Name me a single example of a successful anarchist polity and we'll talk.

The Free Territory falls just outside the century mark, but that didn't end so well, did it?

Also Somalia is a failed state, Genius

Thanks for conceding my point.

There are none because they all got invaded by their much stronger neighbors. And the Somalia part wasn't even conceding a point it was telling you that you were wrong.

And that should tell you something about the viability of anarchism, shouldn't it? We don't live in Rousseau's magical dreamworld where you take the chains off people and they all live together in harmony singing kumbaya. We live in reality where humans act in predictable ways that are easily discerned by studying history.

[Aurelius]

And even if you put your anarchist society on some island in a vacuum where other states can't invade it. How do you stop some internal warlord from rising up and taking over. Quasi-anarchist societies inevitably progress to warlordism if not toppled by a stronger outside force.

[Aurelius]

Name me a single example of a successful anarchist polity and we'll talk.

The Free Territory falls just outside the century mark, but that didn't end so well, did it?

Also Somalia is a failed state, Genius

Thanks for conceding my point.

There are none because they all got invaded by their much stronger neighbors. And the Somalia part wasn't even conceding a point it was telling you that you were wrong.

And that should tell you something about the viability of anarchism, shouldn't it? We don't live in Rousseau's magical dreamworld where you take the chains off people and they all live together in harmony singing kumbaya. We live in reality where humans act in predictable ways that are easily discerned by studying history.

I'm done at this point, your Gish Galloping is too great for me to handle and you've proven yourself to be utterly ignorant of world affairs. I wish I could say this has been an enjoyable time but it hasn't. Everyone here is now dumber for having read what you wrote and Good Riddance Aurelius.

lmao

I haven't been gish galloping at all. I've only mentioned a few things in each post. I've been very consistent: anarchism is not a viable system of social organization, because anarchist societies either get conquered by a stronger neighbor or get enveloped in the fights of warlords who rise up from within. Have a nice day.

[Aurelius]

Name me a single example of a successful anarchist polity and we'll talk.

The Free Territory falls just outside the century mark, but that didn't end so well, did it?

Also Somalia is a failed state, Genius

Thanks for conceding my point.

There are none because they all got invaded by their much stronger neighbors. And the Somalia part wasn't even conceding a point it was telling you that you were wrong.

And that should tell you something about the viability of anarchism, shouldn't it? We don't live in Rousseau's magical dreamworld where you take the chains off people and they all live together in harmony singing kumbaya. We live in reality where humans act in predictable ways that are easily discerned by studying history.

I'm done at this point, your Gish Galloping is too great for me to handle and you've proven yourself to be utterly ignorant of world affairs. I wish I could say this has been an enjoyable time but it hasn't. Everyone here is now dumber for having read what you wrote and Good Riddance Aurelius.

Dude, you are literally claiming to be an anarchist. I dont think you get to call anyone else ignorant of world affairs. Unironic support for anarchy is hilariously dumb.

This is why minarchy is a thing. I don't agree with it, but at least it can hypothetically sustain itself against threats both from outside and from within.

Left-wing anarchists like to claim that their system doesn't require a state because people will just magically become enlightened and sing kumbaya, and/or that yes there will be coercive action involved but akchyually it doesn't count as a state because those are bad people so it doesn't matter what we do to them. Right-wing anarchists will come up with these insanely complicated arbitration systems that resemble HOAs with their own massive private armies, but somehow there's no state involved because you get to pick your HOA overlord under some circumstances.

One of the nicest things about this forum is that, unlike many online political forums, it's not full of all that sort of crap.

[Aurelius]

Do you even think about what you post?

Lol of course I do. I'm not the one trying to make a false equivelance between ignoring experts to get people killed and mildly inconveniencing entitled hyper-anti-collectivists.

Like I have said a thousand times, if you don't want to take the *tiny* risk of being killed by covid, you have the right to stay home, mask, social distance, order grocery dropoff, etc. You do not have the right to force the rest of us to do the same. My choice to live my life without fear does not have to affect hypersensitive hypochondriacs who are still masking and distancing.

I choose to treat the risks from covid like the risks from driving, eating medium rare steak, going outside without slathering myself in sunscreen, etc. They are infinitesimal but real, and not worth making a big deal of.

And "experts" do not have the right to dictate politics any more than monarchs do (they don't). We can consider what they have to say and then choose to go a completely different direction. This is what democracy is for! I choose to completely disregard the psycho epidemiologists on twitter who are still freaking out that most people are no longer playing along with their hysteria.

With the exception of driving all the other things you list as risks (ignoring how offensively ridiculous it is to compare not following Covid protocols vs wearing sunscreen/eating junk food) only hurt yourself. The absolute refusal for people like you to account for the impact you could of had on others around you by getting Covid gets to the heart of this heated divide

And if those people stay home they run no risk of catching covid from me, do they?