The exodus of the blue avatars

[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.   

[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. 

[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. 

[Del Tachi]

I'll make another comment, and say that this thread certainly does demonstrate why nothing will change with regards to the current situation on this forum. Blue and red avatars have fundamentally different views of what this forum is and what it should be. It is unlikely that they will find any sort of common ground on this. Red avatars do not believe that this forum is inherently exclusive of opposing political viewpoints and believe that blue avatars are simply incapable of debating properly or defending their beliefs. Blue avatars think it is a waste of time to contribute in a space which, they feel, is hostile to them.

This sounds like a microcosm of American politics.

Democrats tell Republicans that GOP modern policies are illogical and/or immoral, and try to debate with Republicans in order to show that the GOP position doesn't hold up to logic and/or morality when scrutinized. Republicans USUALLY either refuse to debate altogether or they argue in bad faith so they can "win / stalemate" debates, even though the entire reason the Dems wanted to debate in the first place was to have a good faith discussion and show conservatives that the Dem position is more logical and/or more moral.

One MIGHT deduce from this that the Republicans don't really have superior ideas these days, otherwise they would be more willing (and maybe even eager) to debate in good faith and show the Dems why their left wing ideas make less sense than GOP ideas.

Nonsense.  Liberals and conservatives disagree on some very fundamental things.  It is not in "bad faith" to reject how your opponent frames an issue; instead, it is (when done well) the highest and most essential from of debate. 

The GOP position "doesn't hold up to logic/morality" [to you] because you've probably accepted as an a priori truth a value system that assumes secular humanism, scientism, moral relativism, etc.  Conservatives haven't.  That doesn't make either side wrong, but it doesn't suggest there are multiple perspectives on any single question.

This truth has been a casualty of social media/opinion journalism's obsession with "fact checking" everything in the Trump era.  The idea that inherently debatable (or even scientific) questions can be given a binary "true" or "false" rating feeds the divisiveness of our era. 

[Del Tachi]

I'll make another comment, and say that this thread certainly does demonstrate why nothing will change with regards to the current situation on this forum. Blue and red avatars have fundamentally different views of what this forum is and what it should be. It is unlikely that they will find any sort of common ground on this. Red avatars do not believe that this forum is inherently exclusive of opposing political viewpoints and believe that blue avatars are simply incapable of debating properly or defending their beliefs. Blue avatars think it is a waste of time to contribute in a space which, they feel, is hostile to them.

This sounds like a microcosm of American politics.

Democrats tell Republicans that GOP modern policies are illogical and/or immoral, and try to debate with Republicans in order to show that the GOP position doesn't hold up to logic and/or morality when scrutinized. Republicans USUALLY either refuse to debate altogether or they argue in bad faith so they can "win / stalemate" debates, even though the entire reason the Dems wanted to debate in the first place was to have a good faith discussion and show conservatives that the Dem position is more logical and/or more moral.

One MIGHT deduce from this that the Republicans don't really have superior ideas these days, otherwise they would be more willing (and maybe even eager) to debate in good faith and show the Dems why their left wing ideas make less sense than GOP ideas.

Nonsense.  Liberals and conservatives disagree on some very fundamental things.  It is not in "bad faith" to reject how your opponent frames an issue; instead, it is (when done well) the highest and most essential from of debate. 

The GOP position "doesn't hold up to logic/morality" [to you] because you've probably accepted as an a priori truth a value system that assumes secular humanism, scientism, moral relativism, etc.  Conservatives haven't.  That doesn't make either side wrong, but it doesn't suggest there are multiple perspectives on any single question.

This truth has been a casualty of social media/opinion journalism's obsession with "fact checking" everything in the Trump era.  The idea that inherently debatable (or even scientific) questions can be given a binary "true" or "false" rating feeds the divisiveness of our era. 

An underrated difference is "the scientific establishment can be counted on to provide our best guess about a question of fact" versus "the scientific establishment is totally dependent on grant money and will make up anything their donors want them to hear". The left almost always emphasizes the former view and the right the latter one.

I think even this is too cynical a take.  Both outlooks treat science like a monolith.  Any attempt to characterize the "scientific consensus" as one thing or another ignores that scientists spend a lot of time arguing and disagreeing about some fairly fundamental things.