ElephantBanjoGnome wrote:
Cavey wrote:
For someone like me, who would become the biggest Communist on the forum within a millisecond, if I actually thought that would work and there was decent empirical evidence to suggest this - it's all just so weird and perplexing. How very odd, a bit like football supporters I suppose.
I think the problem is in the belief that you can, if not win them over, at least talk to a person about the objective aspects of your opinion and have them give some kind of partial, qualified agreement.
You think you're being perfectly reasonable but come up against immovable brick walls that insist you're wrong wrong wrong. You've offered discussion and possible compromise to people who have rigid opinions that logic won't alter. It's easier to call you a far right Tory because that puts you in a handy straw-man box so that their brain doesn't have to stretch against the possibility that it's not quite so simple.
If the GamerGate thread is anything to go by, this forum is filled with such people.
I think you've gone a little mad today (in the nicest possible way).
In the GG thread, pretty much everyone acknowledges and agrees that not everyone in the GG 'movement' is a horrible misogynist person, and says there are people in there who do care about gaming ethics, but have attached themselves to something inherently misogynistic by mistake. That's all that people are saying; that the overall movement is an inherently misogynistic one, not that every single person is misogynistic. Several people have repeatedly said this to you, so I'm not sure why there's even a discussion.
Which brings us to this thread, and politics and the economy.
Quote:
It's easier to call you a far right Tory because that puts you in a handy straw-man box so that their brain doesn't have to stretch against the possibility that it's not quite so simple.
I agree it's not so simple; Cavey didn't even vote Tory last time round, FFS. But equally the economy is not so simple that one single statistic means that everything is awesome. An economy has hundreds of indicators, many of which differ in importance to different people. Arguing that because growth or GDP is up that means the Tories have done a bang up job is not an empirical fact; it's an opinion based on a statistic. Saying that unemployment has been improved is another opinion, because the overall headline stat is very, very misleading.
In this thread I am saying, and several others are saying, that you cannot take a simplistic look at things like the economy and take a single stat or two and declare everything fantastic. The world is more nuanced than that. And yet people get shouted down in exasperation for it.That, to me, is perplexing. It's like curing a patient of cancer and heralding it a success, even though they've just lost two legs to gangrene and are midway through their third heart attack.
We are potentially in a recovery. In several key macro-economic indicators we're doing well. But this is far from being everything the country needs right now, which is sometimes conceded, but which means that there really shouldn't be much triumphalism around. If GDP goes up but it all falls into the hands of a sole individual, that's not good. Somewhere along the line of one person to all the people there has to be an area that is of more benefit to the country. Now, we can argue literally forever about where to draw that line, but I think the left wing reaction on the forum occurred and occurs because of the way the more right wing arguments are presented, like some kind of fait accompli.
Speaking as someone to the left of Cavey/EBG but to the right of markg, I like hearing from all of you, and would happily buy any/all of you a drink. In short, I'd like both sides to continue to post opinions, as they make me examine my own, and whether or not I've said so at the time, I have taken on board stuff from all of you.
And I bloody well forgot to go to that EU lecture at lunch. FFS!