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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Filtering, mostly. The Lower Forums are a static subset of a larger but less anchored community focused on the long-term development of a complex alcohol and geology simulation game, itself appealing only to gamers, and on the internet. All of those select for a demographic that is more left than the average, either directly through being something that doesn't have any appeal to cultural traditionalists or indirectly through selecting heavily for young people.

There are of course other factors - the rules instituted in the dawn of the post-VN era cut down on developing a general morass of the internet population, and while I don't have the data I suspect they have some sort of effect.

Even so, I don't think this forum is particularly more left-leaning than, say Spacebattles or /r/Futurology. It's like asking why college philosophy departments are often leftist, the environment attracts those people.

It's also GD that's the only noticeably left-leaning part. The Upper Forum and to a lesser extent Other Games are more averaged out, it's just that they don't discuss politics there. I recall back when Toady added the [ORIENTATION] tag system to DF there was a swath of drama that you'd never hear of down here.

[Neonivek]

Does help that the group that tends to be harder on videogames in general is the Right.

[Rusty Shackleford]

DF is a complex, highly uninutive and ugly game but with immense potential to be sure but I never made the connection that it would be appealing to a particular political demographic.

Obviously in Dwarf Mode things are utopia communism, but activites done in adventure mode are objectively less idealist.

[Neonivek]

In fact videogames are SO maligned on the right... I could probably invent some sort of imaginary problem that videogames cause and get results..

How about... videogames cause Autism
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2013/04/22/autism-video-game/17766/

Ok... lets go crazy... Videogames cause cancer
-YEP! Unfortunately this gets me A LOT more articles on people referring to this...

not that I can't find left articles. There was one about how Grand Theft Auto hates the left.

[EnigmaticHat]

I thought we always had terms for different groups, subgroups, and factions within the two party system.

Like the Tea Party.

Except the tea party is a relatively well identified group founded around a specific goal of economic conservatism, often specifically about balancing the national budget. Granted, that has kind of been blurred a bit since it became a boon for politicians to claim to be tea party affiliated in elections while sometimes not particularly following any such goals while in office.

Casting such a wide net with the "alt right" label is just as bad as casting a wide net with the "progressive" label. You can pick and choose examples of extremism from both sides and when you start doing that it becomes as logically ridiculous as "You know who else drank water and breathed oxygen? Hitler."

I literally refer to myself as a progressive, so that argument rings kinda hollow to me.

I don't "pick and choose examples of extremism" from the alt right.  That's like saying that you could "pick and choose examples of extremism" from religious fundamentalists when it comes to their views on abortion or LGBT rights.  The alt right *is* a far right movement.  Examples of centrist alt right viewpoints would be picking and choosing.  Examples of extremist alt right viewpoints are accurate representations of the movement as a whole.  That's what being far right means.  Like were literally *any* of the groups that I cited even slightly moderate?  Have you ever heard of any centrist groups widely mislabeled as alt right?

[misko27]

But sluissa, how would you refer to people, then? The Bannon-wing is a real thing, but beyond neologisms like "Bannon-wing" (which obviously applies primarily to the White House) or perhaps the "Breitbart sphere" (which is media-specific), we do need a word for these people and ideas without having to redescribe them every time. There are groups here, and groups need names, and not every group gets to name itself. You can argue all day about whether one name is negative or what, but the fact is you don't seem very much to be a fan of any labels whatsoever. Can you think of labels you don't have objections to? Trumpist, maybe? National Populist? These all have their own connotations, and I don't think I agree with your insinuation that the only good labels are the ones that organizations give themselves.

Words have connotations, that's just a fact we have to live with. There is no perfectly neutral language we can use here. I'm all for not tarring moderates as nazis, but just because people fling the word "nazi" around doesn't mean there aren't actual people who could be accurately described as neo-nazis. You can argue for a more neutral term if you want,  and more power to you! Good luck I say! But, well, do you have one in mind?

Obviously in Dwarf Mode things are utopia communism,

I don't think so. I remember reading an actual marxist analysis of DF once up in general DF discussion (tis a strange place). Their interpretation of the world of the fortress was early feudalism, pre-guild. I don't remember if that was before or after the economy was disabled, but I believe after.

[sluissa]

My argument isn't against labels in general. It's allowing those labels to spread and encompass too largely to people that have little or nothing in common. In the political sphere it allows you to label a group, and then ignore individuals or sub-groups as just being part of this monolithic bloc and thus all share the exact same opinions.

Call nazis nazis. Call KKK KKK. Call moderates moderates. Call libertarians libertarians. Call disgruntled conservative youth disgruntled conservative youth.

My problem is that with the alt right label, as with many other labels employed by all sides, you oversimplify people into overly large and diverse groups, basically taking away their ability to have an individual opinion.

You come up with a label for a person, and automatically assume you know what all of their positions will be and how you feel about them and whether they're worth listening to. And that's natural on a smaller scale. You assume that someone who identifies as a conservative is going to be against abortion, for example. But that's not always true. But that's something that's relatively easy to talk about compared to labeling someone alt right and then assuming they're a neo-nazi racist violently fighting for the purity of the white race when in fact they just happen to like frog memes and anime and hang out in places online where those can be found and don't really have strong political opinions. God forbid they enjoy drinking milk.

[Sheb]

Except EH did a very nice job of delineating a group that is very much real (the internet based far-right trollosphere). It's not just putting everyone he doesn't like in a label. (He never claimed all the disgruntled Sanderite were alt-right for example). It's a name for a relatively well-defined current.  EH's defintion is based on havng regressive political positions, so just liking pepe the frog won't make you part of it.

[Max™]

I remember when affixing "prog" or "alt" to something was only used in arguments involving the classification of bands, of course those were before the Troubles With the Trees which escalated into Dubya-Dubya-Zed...

Seems like they did a good job keeping it out of the history books, though they never found a good way to explain the massive drop in Canadian population after the Bears were Unleashed, other than to act as though it was always like this.

[smjjames]

DF is a complex, highly uninutive and ugly game but with immense potential to be sure but I never made the connection that it would be appealing to a particular political demographic.

Obviously in Dwarf Mode things are utopia communism, but activites done in adventure mode are objectively less idealist.

Ever tried it with a tileset?

Also, Toady One HAS tried to establish a fortress economy (you know, the capitalist type), but doing an economic simulation along with everything else isn't easy.

Anyhow, not everybody is going to like Roguelike type games.

[Sheb]

There is an interesting polygamy trial coming up Canuckland, testing the limits of what religious freedom allow.

[Antioch]

There is an interesting polygamy trial coming up Canuckland, testing the limits of what religious freedom allow.

Damn, the guy has 145 kids. That is some serious fitness there.

[Reelya]

It's actually a messy issue. If he just had kids with that many women without any ceremonies, then he'd be legally in the clear. And since the ceremonies they did have aren't actually legally recognized anyway, it's sort of questionable whether he's actually married to them, or just has a lot of girlfriends. If you have a pretend wedding are you really married?

[scriver]

I hope the fucker pays child support.

[Antioch]

Behold the future of human evolution.