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[Digital Hellhound]

I would definitely say the politics threads have gotten a lot more conservative - not, I think, usually because of people's opinions changing, but because the people are actually different. The most active posters are entirely different people than a few years ago.

It seems to be the nature of politics threads to be dominated by a handful of loud and passionate posters, so I dunno if it ever reflects general demographics in any way.

I don't know about maturing. This is a different place than it was in 2015, and that was different from 2012, and that was different from when I joined in, god, 2009. The demographics have changed, I'm sure, but they've gone through a lot of changes in that time - if the forum has matured, I'm sure there have been periods where it's 'immatured' as well.

[Frumple]

I'unno, it doesn't really seem like the overall demographics have changed much. There were old folks floating around years back and whatnot, and there's plenty of youngins floating around now. If there's a difference so far as political lean goes, it's probably just because there's a few conservative leaning folks that finally managed to figure out how to keep from getting banned, whereas most of the time I've been loitering around, that lot had a fair bit of trouble managing that. Maybe the energy level in general has dropped, too. Several of the folks that were more into things, at least here in GD, have cut back on posting or stopped outright for one reason or another.

... which, so far as the political and cultural stuff goes, I can kinda' understand (even beyond poster specific particulars). Last handful of years have been fucking exhausting.

[smjjames]

While Bay12ers seem to tend more liberal, it's more likely there's a roughly even mix.

It did swing heavily liberal (in the AmeriPol threads at least) during the 2016 campaign, but it's moved back towards center some once the election was over and things calmed down some.

[TempAcc]

Apart from the ocasional personal attack, but those come from the same sources as before, and don't have much to do with either general political leaning of the forumites.

[Lord Shonus]

The echo chamber that used to be here has absolutely broken apart a great deal. I think a large part of that is due to a few of the more obnoxious left-leaning posters - some of which treated any disapproval of their particular preferred political personality or stance as a vicious slander against them and lashed out accordingly - being removed from the situation (and the forum). It is now possible to make a right-leaning statement without getting savagely attacked, which wasn't always the case here.

[TempAcc]

Ye, we did have uh, some rather zoological left leaning posters. Me thinks they either calmed their butts down after a part of them got the toadhammer during the elections. We also did have some rather crazy right wing posters, but those have been banned for a long time now, and were far few in number in comparison to the left wing echo chamber we used to have.

If anyone wants a sample of what we used to have, just pop into the bay12IRC during a political discussion and watch until someone threatens another with violence :U (a very rare event, but the chat mods aren't there all the time, so things can get out of control once in a while, depending on who's online)

Anyway, this reminds me that LoudWhispers has disappeared.

Cri evertim.

[Lord Shonus]

On an unrelated subject, I found myself using the phrase "limited universal suffrage" today, in an attempt to explain the difference between the Starship Troopers book and movie.

[TheBiggerFish]

"limited universal suffrage"
Wot?

[TempAcc]

YOU'RE NO CITIZEN IF YOU AREN'T SMASHING BUGS.
JOIN THE MILITARY TODAY, OR DIE A NON CITIZEN TOMORROW.

[Lord Shonus]

"limited universal suffrage"
Wot?

In the Starship Troopers book, the vote was open to anyone regardless of sex, color, or other discriminatory factor- but you had to earn it by serving in some way. The way shown in the book was military service, but it was flatly stated that there were many other ways to attain the vote, and they actively tried to discourage people from taking the military route. Thus sufferage was both universal (because anybody could get it) and limited (because it wasn't automatically given just for reaching a certain age).

In the movie, this was greatly simplified into what TempAcc described, the government was a military dictatorship rather than any form of democracy (Citizens simply had more privileges), and the military was the only way to get Citizenship.

[AzyWng]

Anyway, this reminds me that LoudWhispers has disappeared.

Cri evertim.

What happened to that guy, anyway?

[smjjames]

Anyway, this reminds me that LoudWhispers has disappeared.

Cri evertim.

What happened to that guy, anyway?

He just sort of dropped off the radar, so to speak, for a few weeks now. No explaination given as to why he suddenly went inactive.

[TempAcc]

This reminds me how oddly interesting the starship troopers movie was.
The whole movie was played like a propaganda thing, they took the JOINING THE MILITARY AND TAKING PART IN THE INCREDIBLE GRINDER THAT IS THIS WAR IN WHICH TENS OF THOUSANDS DIE IN EVERY DAY IS THE BEST THING EVER and ran with it, completely straight. In no part of the movie do we get hints of real attempts at social critique or getting some moral point across, its just alien murder + college student friends movie. In the end, the characters become military officer badasses and its all shown as the best thing ever.

All those people that died? Nobody cares, aliens are dead.
Children holding guns in military ads? Nobody cares, aliens are dead.
Main character became exactly what his jingoistic sargeant was? Nobody cares, aliens are dead.

Its the kind of movie that you can watch again as an adult and apreciate how nutty it all is.

Anyway, this reminds me that LoudWhispers has disappeared.

Cri evertim.

What happened to that guy, anyway?

[Arx]

People do it a lot. Might be stuff happening in his ordinary life, might be that he's tired of the same bants all the time in the politics threads.

Off the top of my head, Bauglir's been MIA for months now and bdthemag vanished suddenly a couple years back. Posters come and go, but [insert x never changes].

[scriver]

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