Is The Forum Getting More Antagonistic?

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To be fair I think it's really easy to look at the growing antagonism across the internet over the past decade or so as a tragic and unnecessary escalation; at least, it's easy to think that when "People like you shouldn't exist" isn't seen as a valid and reasonable personal and/or political stance.

My theory is that these are the growing pains that come with social progress; when specific bigotries are no longer unspoken and assumed they must become debated in the public space, which I think a lot of people directly impacted by said bigotries are going to have some understandable acrimony about.

The goalposts and battlefields will continue to shift, and every social niche will their own battlefields to occupy. The thing is, when the niche gets really specific, the battlefields of choice tend to appear completely unrelated to any broader social movement, but I've found in many cases that the lines in the sand and the folx in the trenches become remarkably similar.

tl;dr Damage on a miss is a proxy war originating from the broader culture wars flaring up over the relatively swift (by historical standards) social progress happening in many liberal democracies.


Thanks for attending my TED Talk
 

To be fair I think it's really easy to look at the growing antagonism across the internet over the past decade or so as a tragic and unnecessary escalation; at least, it's easy to think that when "People like you shouldn't exist" isn't seen as a valid and reasonable personal and/or political stance.

My theory is that these are the growing pains that come with social progress; when specific bigotries are no longer unspoken and assumed they must become debated in the public space, which I think a lot of people directly impacted by said bigotries are going to have some understandable acrimony about.

The goalposts and battlefields will continue to shift, and every social niche will their own battlefields to occupy. The thing is, when the niche gets really specific, the battlefields of choice tend to appear completely unrelated to any broader social movement, but I've found in many cases that the lines in the sand and the folx in the trenches become remarkably similar.

tl;dr Damage on a miss is a proxy war originating from the broader culture wars flaring up over the relatively swift (by historical standards) social progress happening in many liberal democracies.


Thanks for attending my TED Talk

Forum rules being what they are, it's hard to really get into this, but I have seen connections between people who post certain stances on game topics and opinions on various other, non-game things like shows in ways that have made me go "huh, is this related?" But the human brain is also really good at finding connections where there are none, so it's entirely possible it's my monkey brain doing me a confusion.
 

Forum rules being what they are, it's hard to really get into this, but I have seen connections between people who post certain stances on game topics and opinions on various other, non-game things like shows in ways that have made me go "huh, is this related?" But the human brain is also really good at finding connections where there are none, so it's entirely possible it's my monkey brain doing me a confusion.
Tribalism is never a coincidence.
 

My theory is that these are the growing pains that come with social progress; when specific bigotries are no longer unspoken and assumed they must become debated in the public space, which I think a lot of people directly impacted by said bigotries are going to have some understandable acrimony about.
Hmmm. This is the first optimistic take I've ever seen on polarization. It's a thought-provoking idea, if nothing else.
 



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