I am no fan of the politics thread and it has had the effect of making me much more negative about America. Some of the opinions expressed in it sadden me deeply.
How easily some have been manipulated and how unwilling they are to look for alternative sources and viewpoints astounds me.
Some of the people in that thread have, I believe, deliberately and consistently misinterpreted the words of others (including mine on a couple of occasions) to move the conversation even further towards their extremist view of the world.
However:
In the main it is a single thread. With only a few unfortunate exceptions people have kept their opinions in that thread.
I occasionally look at it to see just how far down the rabbit hole it has gone, but when I do so I understand the nightmare world I am about to enter and if I wish to avoid it it is easy. I see people poking the dragon in there for fun occasionally and the response can sometimes be pretty funny.
The rest of the paddock does not seem to me to be unduly affected by it except when one of them canÂ’t contain themselves and they have to make a noise outside the walls of the politics thread asylum - I would like to see that stop.
I don’t really understand why people are so angry about that thread. IMO the forum went through a time when it was much worse - it seemed for a while that Fox ‘News’ had taken over the entire forum, certainly the paddock, now for the most part you can avoid it pretty easily.
In fact I wish the anti-science thread could be moved into it as well.
Tim.