> what I find awesome about reddit is its ability to connect people and really have group conversations on almost anything
I see Reddit at its best in niche subreddits but it is far from a place to have conversations on almost anything. The site as a whole as well as most of the biggest subs have banned various topics or lines of discussion in a bid to align to progressive left political views.
> in a bid to align to progressive left political views
Is there really this huge conspiracy by the left, or are most just tired of hate speech from the right when they want to look at funny memes?
> it is far from a place to have conversations on almost anything
Well, except for this alt-right stuff and things that are illegal, are so much else censored? I'd wager most people could find a discussion about any of their interests.
Intentional or not, the word choices in your reply are the reason why my "office politics" alert goes off whenever I visit reddit (enough that I deleted my account):
The word "conspiracy" has become a way (mostly for the media) to assign low/outgroup status to unfavorable theories. In the unlikely case where something is later proven to be true, one can always just say, "okay, but isn't it GOOD that everyone was silently cooperating?" And when it works, it's a tool to move the Overton window by painting the others as loonies.
I mean, the idea that a company worth $6B has a political strategy is hardly outlandish. You can have five people working in an office and they'll eventually start to conspire against each other, power games are human nature.
"Hate speech" and "alt-right" are similar terms that are not clearly defined, but conveniently serve the dominant discourse.
It works as well as it did on my post, where I said nothing about "both sides". And responding to criticism by calling it "'both sides are both equally bad'-rhetoric" is definitely discussing in bad faith.
I'm not talking about "both sides", my point is about reddit's hypocrisy in allowing hate speech directed at conservatives. In an alternate reality where reddit chose to ban all hate speech, the discussion would be very different.
I would post examples, but they'd probably get me banned from HN just for quoting them. And your responses are descending into flames, so I'm just going to step away.
Half of the content on r/popular is hate speech about the right. It's among the most partisan, and from one point of view, toxic, sites on the Internet, but apparently, from another point of view, that's just "funny memes".
In contrast to the Hacker News guideline "assume good faith", the attitude on reddit is more like "assume anyone who disagrees is evil".
> Half of the content on r/popular is hate speech about the right.
[Citation needed]. You don't do your point any favors by being hyperbolic. And as always, the "both sides are both equally bad"-rhetoric is just discussing in bad faith.
I was going to say my citation is r/popular itself, but it looks like there's less of it now that the election is over. During the election it was disgusting.
The toxic content is still there though, like a LeopardsAteMyFace post crowing about the death of Ron Wright, and as if to prove my point: "This thread has been locked due to extremely toxic and rude comments." Such as the current top comment "...I'm really past playing nice with even the memory of these fucks...... Rot in hell, Ron."
The discussion was too toxic even for the LeopardsAteMyFace mods, but they didn't delete it. It's still visible, and featured on r/popular. That sub (and the other we-hate-conservatives subs) are often filled with hate speech like that, and yet, unlike r/TheDonald, they haven't been quarantined.
> The toxic content is still there though, like a LeopardsAteMyFace post crowing about the death of Ron Wright, and as if to prove my point: "This thread has been locked due to extremely toxic and rude comments." Such as the top comment "...I'm really past playing nice with even the memory of these fucks...... Rot in hell, Ron."
Comment that you decided to quote contains no conservative hating just hate towards Ron, because of his behavior and others who behave in that way. Why would you even think that that was a conservative hating comment?
> Why would you even think that that was a conservative hating comment?
The hate in that comment wasn't directed only at Ron: "people like this", "these fucks". The comment doesn't specify who "these fucks" are, but the sub generally directs hate toward conservatives, so that's a reasonable assumption.
> because of his behavior and others who behave in that way
Others who behave in what way? The post I linked contains only a tweet from him criticizing the hypocrisy of allowing big stores to remain open while closing small businesses. Is that hate-worthy?
Surely not, so I assume you're referring to something else. Please be specific.
> The fact that people like this die due to covid and that you have people who "don't care until affects them" is a sad condition in this country and I'm really past playing nice with even the memory of these fucks......
That is the whole sentence of which you quoted a part earlier. That sentence clearly specifies who "these fucks" are.
> The post I linked contains only a tweet from him criticizing the hypocrisy of allowing big stores to remain open while closing small businesses. Is that hate-worthy?
Is that hate-worthy? I don't think that pointing out hypocrisy is hate-worthy but I see no criticism of hypocrisy in that tweet. There is no hypocrisy, by default, in closing some businesses and not others.
I just noticed something. Ron did the same thing you did. You left out a part of the sentence that clearly show who "these fucks" are. Ron left out what these other small business are. He included restaurants but I don't see how anybody could claim that in this situation there is hypocrisy in closing restaurants and not closing general stores.
Was that on purpose on both your accounts I don't know but lying can be hate-worthy.
I guess your interpretation is that "these fucks" refers to "people who 'don't care until affects them'"? I didn't read it that way, perhaps because I haven't seen any evidence Ron personally didn't care, and I don't think conservatives in general don't care. I believe they just also care about the business owners going bankrupt, and have more doubts about the effectiveness of lockdowns. (Justified IMO, as the worst death rates to date are in New York and New Jersey, states with Democrat governors and harsh lockdowns, but that's another discussion.)
If that's the correct interpretation, we've found the underlying conservative hate you asked about: the belief that conservatives are evil and don't care about people dying.
And suggesting I'm lying because we have different interpretations is not discussing in good faith.
As to your second point, I'm sure he left out the list because it's far too long to include in a tweet, and getting into all the specifics is too long a discussion for HN comments.
Instead I'll close by asking this: how are gun stores (ordered to close in the lockdown by Governor Newsom) more likely to spread covid than other stores that remain open?
> I guess your interpretation is that "these fucks" refers to "people who 'don't care until affects them'"? I didn't read it that way, perhaps because I haven't seen any evidence Ron personally didn't care, and I don't think conservatives in general don't care.
"These fucks", according to reddit poster, are people like Ron that call something out as safe and die from it and people that don't care about something until it affects them. The sentence clearly makes the distinction between two groups of people, those like Ron and then the other group. While Ron might have been in both groups the poster makes no attempt to affiliate Ron with the other group.
> I believe they just also care about the business owners going bankrupt, and have more doubts about the effectiveness of lockdowns. (Justified IMO, as the worst death rates to date are in New York and New Jersey, states with Democrat governors and harsh lockdowns, but that's another discussion.)
There are other ways to care about business not going bankrupt besides ignoring the pandemic. As far as your opinion goes on the effectiveness of lockdowns it is totally unjustified. Yes, New York and New Jersey have some of the worst death rates but lockdowns are not used to lower death rates of already infected but to lower the rate of infection which seems to be working since both NY and NJ are far from top on that account.
> If that's the correct interpretation, we've found the underlying conservative hate you asked about: the belief that conservatives are evil and don't care about people dying.
Even if your interpenetration was correct there still isn't any conservative hate there.
The reddit poster isn't hating on Ron because he believes that conservatives are evil, he is hating on him because of his actions. He isn't hating on people that don't care about something until it affects them because he believes conservative are evil but because those people don't care about something until it affects them.
I mean, the only reason why we are even having this disscusion is because the image contains a tweet from a republican representative. If that same tweet was made by a democrat representative, posted to leopardsatemyface and the same reddit commentator posted the same comment, word for word (lets say that the democrat is also called Ron), would you still say that that comment was hating on conservatives? Why or why not?
> And suggesting I'm lying because we have different interpretations is not discussing in good faith.
I wasn't suggesting that you are lying because we have different interpretations. At this point I really think that you are not lying but that your reading comprehension skills are lacking.
> As to your second point, I'm sure he left out the list because it's far too long to include in a tweet, and getting into all the specifics is too long a discussion for HN comments.
I doubt it. There isn't a need to list business in the first place and if one is to list business there isn't a reason to list all of them. He could have simply listed like for like business that differ in size. He couldn't do that so he simply said "small business and restaurants" so that we draw our own conclusions. My opinions is that either he is being deceptive or is incapable of logic.
> Instead I'll close by asking this: how are gun stores (ordered to close in the lockdown by Governor Newsom) more likely to spread covid than other stores that remain open?
Is this a serious question or a gotcha question? No, gun stores are no more likely to spread covid than other types of stores.
Why do I think this is a gotcha question? Because, AFAIK, nobody claimed that gun store are more likely to spread covid nor are gun stores closed because somebody thinks that they are. You are constructing a strawman here.
> "These fucks", according to reddit poster, are people like Ron that call something out as safe and die from it ...
Another interpretation. Clearly, the sentence is open to interpretation. My interpretation remains that in the second of two independent clauses it's quite possible for the phrase "these fucks" not to refer to the first at all.
> nor are gun stores closed because somebody thinks that they are [more likely to spread covid]
Then why are they closed? Political opportunism?
Using the excuse of a lockdown to advance unrelated political agendas is far worse than criticizing said lockdown.
> Yes, New York and New Jersey have some of the worst death rates
Yes, yes they do. And they've had lockdowns since the beginning of the epidemic, starting in NY just three days after the first in the nation and in NJ one day later.
And integrating over all that time under lockdown, they have the worst per capita death count.
And that is the most reliable statistic because it averages out most of the noise and short term trends in the daily rates, and avoids the differences in testing rate between states.
> Another interpretation. Clearly, the sentence is open to interpretation. My interpretation remains that in the second of two independent clauses it's quite possible for the phrase "these fucks" not to refer to the first at all.
While there is some room for interpretation there is no way to interpret it as conservative hating. I'm guessing that by ignoring half of my post you've come to agree.
> Then why are they closed? Political opportunism?
I cant believe that you are being serious here. No really, I can't believe it. In case that you are being serious, they are closed to reduce the attack surface of the virus.
> Yes, yes they do. And they've had lockdowns since the beginning of the epidemic, starting in NY just three days after the first in the nation and in NJ one day later.
> And integrating over all that time under lockdown, they have the worst per capita death count.
> And that is the most reliable statistic because it averages out most of the noise and short term trends in the daily rates, and avoids the differences in testing rate between states.
I already explained why this is wrong. Again, instead of quoting and addressing the whole part you quote the smallest bit and then go on your rant ignoring everything else. Judging by these few posts that you've written here I'm guessing that you are either a troll or an idiot and I have no desire to waste my time on either.
If a subreddit forbids discussion of a topic, you probably wouldn't have been able to have a good conversation about it anyway. Don't go to the biggest subs! Avoid the places that have been taken over by the most aggressive enforcers of mass culture! Reddit's great redeeming virtue is that it's big enough for groups with more liberal discussion norms to flourish, if you can find them.
Yes but downvotes are annoying and the sub threads aren’t a good place for real discussions imo. I’d take an old fashion forum any day. It’s a shame that outside of history and science fiction there aren’t too many large forums anymore as Reddit has basically replaced them all. Reddit has a serious meme problem (even on subs where they’re banned) and repetitive jokes often times derailing conversations as funny one liners get upvoted to the top (then replied to with funny one liners) as longer form posts get moved to the bottom.
European here. You must be a right-wing American because I find the site fairly right wing, myself.
I was actually shocked how long they allowed the constant threats of violence and racist abuse to percolate on the_donald, and which still exists on r/conservative.
It might be that you believe that threats of violence are protected speech, however, being a US conservative. Let me assure you that they are not, not even in the US.
I see Reddit at its best in niche subreddits but it is far from a place to have conversations on almost anything. The site as a whole as well as most of the biggest subs have banned various topics or lines of discussion in a bid to align to progressive left political views.