Interesting. Of course, "obnoxious" and "in love with their own voice" are highly personal judgements that are pretty vulnerable to motivated reasoning. In other words: if they were making a point that you happened to agree with, perhaps you wouldn't think those things.
JubilantJaguar
joined 2 years ago
Downvoting is intolerance made cheap. It's a button to say: "You're wrong, I don't care what you have to say, LA LA LA LA SHUT UP". If you did the equivalent of downvoting in an in-person discussion, you would be an asshole.
But what really annoys me personally (someone else mentions it) is that downvoting reduces the visibility of the downvoted opinion. It's literally soft censorship.
I regularly leave discussions after receiving cheap downvotes in return for my carefully considered contribution. It's a statistical certainty that I'm not the only one.
Downvoters should consider the opportunity cost of their actions for the quality of the discussion they are taking part in.
THIS is the reason.
Downvoting is literally a form of censorship. It's the virtual equivalent of shouting someone down.
It was never popular even in France, for a simple reason: the week became 10 days but the weekly rest day was still only 1.
Of course you're entitled to your view but I consider that an egregiously cynical take, not to mention a bit convoluted and with a hint of conspiracism. The fact remains that the Republicans are offering more money to them, up front, now, so the simplest explanation is that they are motivated by higher ideals than just money.
TLDR:
The team found frequent mixing among the [Atlantic, Indian and Pacific] ocean basins, suggesting that whales do not return to the same basin every year. This points to Antarctic blue whales being one single circumpolar population in the Southern Ocean.
If we somehow let this magnificent animal go extinct, it will be the ultimate symbol of our failure as species.
Donors, who add to that lack of understanding an explicitly hostile attitude to anything left-wing if it will cost them or their clients money
If that is their only concern why are they not supporting the party that wants to tax them less?
Vocabulary is loaded. The words "rich" and "poor" conflate munificence with success or happiness. When we see an injured animal and say, "That poor creature!", we are obviously not talking about its bank account. By the same token, being short of money is a problem but it absolutely does not make you a "failure".
Same experience. And it's a shame.
And yet I've found that, occasionally, after I brace myself for the blowback, instead there comes a thoughtful reply which assumes good faith. It's those occasions which keep me coming back.
All the people here saying, "Just block them" - personally I just can't help suspecting that these are the same people who themselves are insulting and abusing others, who in turn are saying "Just block them".
The solution is not that everyone blocks everyone else. The solution is that we behave civilly and respectfully to each other.
IIRC a quarter of the Republican ad spending was on that single ad, "The Democrats are for 'they/them', Trump is for YOU". It was that effective.
I don't care much who is right morally. America's culture wars are almost an irrelevance to me as a foreigner. I care because it's skewing American elections. Trump is about to pull out of the climate accord and it will be partly because of this. That is just a crazy situation. You guys need to turn down the temperature. On the Democrat side that means less moralizing and hectoring because it is very visibly driving the other side crazy. It's not worth it.
And why is that important?