Post by goldensandslash on Nov 10, 2016 8:04:41 GMT
NOTE: THIS POST WAS WRITTEN PRIOR TO DONALD TRUMP BECOMING PRESIDENT. IT WAS ABOUT GIVING HIM A CHANCE AFTER HE GOT ELECTED, AND NOT JUST DISMISSING HIM RIGHT AWAY. HOWEVER, SINCE THEN, HE HAS PROVEN THAT HE DOES, IN FACT, HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS DOING. I DID GIVE HIM A CHANCE, HE FAILED. AS SUCH, I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE SAID IN THIS POST. THE ORIGINAL POST WILL REMAIN HERE FOR ARCHIVAL PURPOSES, IN CASE YOU NEED TO REFERENCE IT FOR WHATEVER REASON. BUT KNOW THAT MY OPINION OF PRESIDENT TRUMP, AND OF THE RIGHT-WING IN GENERAL, HAS CHANGED DRASTICALLY SINCE THIS POST WAS FIRST WRITTEN.
November 8 2016.
We look at the results and cannot believe these numbers.
The Kings beat the Maple Leafs 7-0 in tonight’s hockey game. WTF?
Okay, I’m kidding. I thought it best to open with a joke.
In truth, I’m talking about the United States presidential election. In case you’ve been living under a rock (and hey, maybe you have, who am I to judge?), here’s the TL;DR version: The American citizens elected President Donald Trump to office tonight.
Now, let me get my personal viewpoint out of the way first: I didn’t vote. (Well, to be more clear, I did vote on other things that were on the ballot, but I didn’t vote for the presidency.)
In the past year leading up to the election, I went back and forth on Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump more times than I could count. I wasn’t like most people that had already made their decisions months in advance. Because of that, I did not feel comfortable making a decision on the poll, since I would likely disagree with whatever decision that I did make at a later date.
To put it into context, if you pointed a gun to my head and FORCED me to vote for either one or the other on that election day, I probably would have voted for Trump. But now that he’s won, literally every time that I think about that fact makes me nauseous. And it’s only been a day and a half since then. (Though, to be fair, I can’t promise that my reaction would be any different had Clinton won.)
Now, let me make one thing perfectly clear: VOTING FOR TRUMP DOES NOT MAKE YOU A RACIST.
Why? Because in the grand scheme of things, elections aren’t about voting for people. They’re about voting against people. Clinton supporters were really more about opposing Trump than they were supporting Clinton. And vice versa for the Trump supporters. Even when I did support Trump, I didn’t actually like him. I just liked him better than the alternative.
There are a lot of different kinds of people who voted for Trump. And yes, people who hate minorities were definitely among them. But they weren’t the only group. They are a dangerous group, and I expect to see hate crimes rise in the United States given that they now believe that the country agrees with their viewpoints.
Now, to weed out any complaints that I get from Trump supporters, let me remind you: The liberals are FAR WORSE in this regard.
I’m a right-winger. I would have voted for Trump much sooner than I would have voted for Clinton.
Hearing this, the left-wing liberals are probably quick to call me racist and want me to never express my ideologies here again, because they aren’t welcome here.
This is the political party that claims to be about tolerance. They are so quick to dismiss the other side, despite the fact that the other side may have perfectly valid viewpoints. I myself have become terrified of WyvernIRC in the past year. I’ve stopped discussing politics on most occasions, and whenever I do have to muddle through the topic, I always have to pretend to be a left-winger or a centrist. I’ve avoided the #Wyvern room entirely because I no longer feel safe there.
You are not allowing those who disagree with you to have a voice. If that’s not bigotry, I don’t know what is.
Again, I don’t think that the right-wing is much better in this regard. Almost every xenophobic person in the country ended up voting for Trump, after all. And that’s what I really want to talk to you about:
Echo chambers.
We seem to constantly live in them. Especially on the Internet, you can create a website and place a ban on any viewpoint that disagrees with your own. When you do that, you create an echo chamber, full of people who agree with you, and then you never get the chance to question your beliefs. You might be on the wrong side, and you’ll never know until you go out and look at another group.
I’ve been a member of both liberal and conservative websites over the past year, and the most amazing thing that I’ve discovered is that each side seems to have different information. Why is that? We live in a world where you can look up any information you need with a device that you can carry around in your pocket. There shouldn’t be any misinformation.
But the truth is: People are using this technology poorly. They exist only in echo chambers, so they don’t get a chance to view other people’s information. They just continue to believe that their own viewpoints are right, regardless of anything to the contrary.
I understand that most people who are reading this oppose President-Elect Trump. But ask yourself: Why would someone support him? If you can’t come up with a good answer, then you’ve been living in an echo chamber. Similarly, those who supported Trump, ask yourself why someone would support Clinton. If you can’t come up with anything, you’re in an echo chamber.
We need to learn to listen to each other, rather than just shouting at one another. Form constructive arguments, and learn from the other side’s viewpoints. From that perspective, I hope that WyvernIRC starts allowing right-wing viewpoints. If you can’t, then I will be leaving #Wyvern permanently. I will return for now, as the election is over, and so (hopefully) the political discussion is done. But when election comes around again, if things aren’t any better, and WyvernIRC remains a liberal echo chamber, I will be leaving it permanently. That is not a healthy environment for me to be in.
One thing that I’m sure you’re noticing is that I haven’t actually said WHY I would have voted for Trump instead of Clinton. To be completely honest, I’m avoiding that subject for a reason: I don’t think you’d care. After all, the liberals who are most active in #Wyvern (or at least, who were when I last joined the room) don’t really care much for the conservative viewpoint. As far as they are concerned, the conservatives are just wrong. Plain and simple. They don’t want to hear anything about why their viewpoints actually have merit.
For that reason, I’d rather avoid the subject (as this piece was more written about why echo chambers are bad, as opposed to being about why conservative views are acceptable), but since I know that I won’t be taken seriously if I don’t actually have an argument, I guess I might as well.
Note to any conservatives reading this: I am only including this to help off-set the liberal bias that WyvernIRC naturally has. If this were a conservative website, I would be writing about liberal viewpoints here. Do not interpret this as an endorsement of your views. (And if it does get interpreted as such, I reserve the right to write a similar piece attacking conservative points.) (Edit: I’m just gonna attack both sides here. It’s easier for me.)
* While the right-wing tried to ban porn from an entire state, the left-wing was busy complaining about Bayonetta’s over-sexualization. Remind me how one argument is any different than the other? (Edit: Links to references removed, as they weren't working on WyvernIRC anyways for some reason.)
* While the right-wing wants to ban all drugs (or at least control them), the left-wing wants to ban all guns (or at least control them). Remind me why there’s a difference there?
* When I said I was a right-winger, a lot of people (left-wingers and centrists alike) jumped to the conclusion that I was a backwards intolerant person. The term “right-wing” has become an insult, when it should be a neutral term. If you hate on right-wingers, then you’re being just as prejudice as you claim them to be.
* The left-wing fights for racial minorities, women, and the LGBT community. But within each of those three groups, there are a wide variety of people. Claiming that you support, say, African-Americans, means that you’re lumping all of the African-Americans into a single group and treating them as a homogeneous entity (and you could similarly apply this logic to any minority). There’s a word for that - prejudice.
* According to the right-wing, sex should be repressed. Meanwhile, according to the left-wing, you need to be able to read your partner’s mind and somehow know instantly when they want to stop. Both sides are emphasizing the worst parts of sex. And yet somehow they don’t seem to be different than another. The states of California and New York actually have laws in place that say that a woman can revoke consent at anytime without even saying anything. So, unless you’re a mind-reader, then all sex is legally considered rape in these states. This is what the left has done. Meanwhile, the right isn’t much better, as they just shame anyone who has pre-marital sex at all.
* The left-wing is close-minded to traditional viewpoints. For example, they oppose abstinence-only education. Despite the fact that abstinence is just as valid a method of birth control as pills, condoms, and so forth. The left-wing wants women to be free to choose their own professions, but if a woman wants to be a housewife, then she’s letting the patriarchy keep her down and is promoting a bad image for women. Basically: If you support the traditional method, the left will reject you.
* The right-wing is crazy enough to think that all liberals are going to hell. The left-wing is crazy enough to get offended at the fact that I used the word “crazy”.
* The left-wing ideology has given rise to organizations like Autism Speaks, for example, that claim that a minority group doesn’t have a voice, and then proceeds to deny them a voice.
* Both sides seem to view the other side as being worse than Hitler. The problem with this is that it means that if you are not committing genocide, then you have the moral high ground, even if your side is being reprehensible. And also: if the other side ever DOES start advocating for genocide, what would you view them as then? (That last part was just a joke.)
This is the year 2016, and it seems that people are more politically charged now than ever before. I think that a lot of that has to do with online social media. If you’re hiding behind a screen name, then you can say whatever you want with very little consequence. This draws you to the extremes. If you’re not hiding behind a screen name, such as with Facebook, then you’re using a social networking site that has algorithms to determine what to show you on your “Timeline” (or equivalent) and it will prioritize the messages that agree with you, so that you don’t get pissed off and you continue to use their website. Seeing people who agree with you will encourage you to share your opinions more comfortably, creating an echo chamber.
I genuinely feel that despite Donald Trump becoming President-Elect, I don’t think that people are going to discriminate based on race, gender, or even sexual orientation. Well, okay, the extremist right-wingers will, sure. But remember, becoming president isn’t the same as becoming a god. There are limits to what Trump can and can’t do, and so he won’t be able to do most of the things that he’s claiming that he will do.
However, that’s not to say that there is no discrimination. On the contrary, people will discriminate against other people. But not because of race or the like. People of my generation are going to face a new kind of discrimination: Discrimination against their political beliefs. Like I said earlier, the term “right-winger” has become, for all intents and purposes, a slur. People are more politically active today than ever before. For better or for worse, this is the new kind of discrimination that we face. We are so caught up in our echo chambers that we refuse to acknowledge the viewpoints of those who disagree with us. They are simply wrong, and we shouldn’t talk about them.
And I’m talking about both the left and the right in this scenario. WyvernIRC in particular is just more left-winging, so I feel that I’ll get a larger audience if I draw attention to the left.
If you feel that those who oppose your ideology are just wrong and nothing more to it than that, then you are fundamentally going against the idea of democracy. All viewpoints are supposed to be welcome, so that we can have constructive discussion, and determine the best course of action. And while WyvernIRC is a small place, I see the same thing happening in the real world on a larger scale.
People are not willing to compromise anymore. And because of that, I don’t think that our democracy can last. Because democracy is all about compromise. The only way to save our country is to be willing to leave echo chambers behind and be willing to talk to the other side again.
With the election of President Trump, especially with him losing the popular vote, I’m hoping that people will see this issue and try to address it. But even if not, can WyvernIRC at least be willing to try it?
For about a year now, I’ve been afraid to speak my right-wing mind. WyvernIRC was not a safe space for me when I abandoned my left-wing views. Can I have my safe space back now? Can we be able to talk to each other like civilized people again?
Please?
———————
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” — A quote that sums up all of my problems with left-wingers.
November 8 2016.
We look at the results and cannot believe these numbers.
The Kings beat the Maple Leafs 7-0 in tonight’s hockey game. WTF?
Okay, I’m kidding. I thought it best to open with a joke.
In truth, I’m talking about the United States presidential election. In case you’ve been living under a rock (and hey, maybe you have, who am I to judge?), here’s the TL;DR version: The American citizens elected President Donald Trump to office tonight.
Now, let me get my personal viewpoint out of the way first: I didn’t vote. (Well, to be more clear, I did vote on other things that were on the ballot, but I didn’t vote for the presidency.)
In the past year leading up to the election, I went back and forth on Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump more times than I could count. I wasn’t like most people that had already made their decisions months in advance. Because of that, I did not feel comfortable making a decision on the poll, since I would likely disagree with whatever decision that I did make at a later date.
To put it into context, if you pointed a gun to my head and FORCED me to vote for either one or the other on that election day, I probably would have voted for Trump. But now that he’s won, literally every time that I think about that fact makes me nauseous. And it’s only been a day and a half since then. (Though, to be fair, I can’t promise that my reaction would be any different had Clinton won.)
Now, let me make one thing perfectly clear: VOTING FOR TRUMP DOES NOT MAKE YOU A RACIST.
Why? Because in the grand scheme of things, elections aren’t about voting for people. They’re about voting against people. Clinton supporters were really more about opposing Trump than they were supporting Clinton. And vice versa for the Trump supporters. Even when I did support Trump, I didn’t actually like him. I just liked him better than the alternative.
There are a lot of different kinds of people who voted for Trump. And yes, people who hate minorities were definitely among them. But they weren’t the only group. They are a dangerous group, and I expect to see hate crimes rise in the United States given that they now believe that the country agrees with their viewpoints.
Now, to weed out any complaints that I get from Trump supporters, let me remind you: The liberals are FAR WORSE in this regard.
I’m a right-winger. I would have voted for Trump much sooner than I would have voted for Clinton.
Hearing this, the left-wing liberals are probably quick to call me racist and want me to never express my ideologies here again, because they aren’t welcome here.
This is the political party that claims to be about tolerance. They are so quick to dismiss the other side, despite the fact that the other side may have perfectly valid viewpoints. I myself have become terrified of WyvernIRC in the past year. I’ve stopped discussing politics on most occasions, and whenever I do have to muddle through the topic, I always have to pretend to be a left-winger or a centrist. I’ve avoided the #Wyvern room entirely because I no longer feel safe there.
You are not allowing those who disagree with you to have a voice. If that’s not bigotry, I don’t know what is.
Again, I don’t think that the right-wing is much better in this regard. Almost every xenophobic person in the country ended up voting for Trump, after all. And that’s what I really want to talk to you about:
Echo chambers.
We seem to constantly live in them. Especially on the Internet, you can create a website and place a ban on any viewpoint that disagrees with your own. When you do that, you create an echo chamber, full of people who agree with you, and then you never get the chance to question your beliefs. You might be on the wrong side, and you’ll never know until you go out and look at another group.
I’ve been a member of both liberal and conservative websites over the past year, and the most amazing thing that I’ve discovered is that each side seems to have different information. Why is that? We live in a world where you can look up any information you need with a device that you can carry around in your pocket. There shouldn’t be any misinformation.
But the truth is: People are using this technology poorly. They exist only in echo chambers, so they don’t get a chance to view other people’s information. They just continue to believe that their own viewpoints are right, regardless of anything to the contrary.
I understand that most people who are reading this oppose President-Elect Trump. But ask yourself: Why would someone support him? If you can’t come up with a good answer, then you’ve been living in an echo chamber. Similarly, those who supported Trump, ask yourself why someone would support Clinton. If you can’t come up with anything, you’re in an echo chamber.
We need to learn to listen to each other, rather than just shouting at one another. Form constructive arguments, and learn from the other side’s viewpoints. From that perspective, I hope that WyvernIRC starts allowing right-wing viewpoints. If you can’t, then I will be leaving #Wyvern permanently. I will return for now, as the election is over, and so (hopefully) the political discussion is done. But when election comes around again, if things aren’t any better, and WyvernIRC remains a liberal echo chamber, I will be leaving it permanently. That is not a healthy environment for me to be in.
One thing that I’m sure you’re noticing is that I haven’t actually said WHY I would have voted for Trump instead of Clinton. To be completely honest, I’m avoiding that subject for a reason: I don’t think you’d care. After all, the liberals who are most active in #Wyvern (or at least, who were when I last joined the room) don’t really care much for the conservative viewpoint. As far as they are concerned, the conservatives are just wrong. Plain and simple. They don’t want to hear anything about why their viewpoints actually have merit.
For that reason, I’d rather avoid the subject (as this piece was more written about why echo chambers are bad, as opposed to being about why conservative views are acceptable), but since I know that I won’t be taken seriously if I don’t actually have an argument, I guess I might as well.
Note to any conservatives reading this: I am only including this to help off-set the liberal bias that WyvernIRC naturally has. If this were a conservative website, I would be writing about liberal viewpoints here. Do not interpret this as an endorsement of your views. (And if it does get interpreted as such, I reserve the right to write a similar piece attacking conservative points.) (Edit: I’m just gonna attack both sides here. It’s easier for me.)
* While the right-wing tried to ban porn from an entire state, the left-wing was busy complaining about Bayonetta’s over-sexualization. Remind me how one argument is any different than the other? (Edit: Links to references removed, as they weren't working on WyvernIRC anyways for some reason.)
* While the right-wing wants to ban all drugs (or at least control them), the left-wing wants to ban all guns (or at least control them). Remind me why there’s a difference there?
* When I said I was a right-winger, a lot of people (left-wingers and centrists alike) jumped to the conclusion that I was a backwards intolerant person. The term “right-wing” has become an insult, when it should be a neutral term. If you hate on right-wingers, then you’re being just as prejudice as you claim them to be.
* The left-wing fights for racial minorities, women, and the LGBT community. But within each of those three groups, there are a wide variety of people. Claiming that you support, say, African-Americans, means that you’re lumping all of the African-Americans into a single group and treating them as a homogeneous entity (and you could similarly apply this logic to any minority). There’s a word for that - prejudice.
* According to the right-wing, sex should be repressed. Meanwhile, according to the left-wing, you need to be able to read your partner’s mind and somehow know instantly when they want to stop. Both sides are emphasizing the worst parts of sex. And yet somehow they don’t seem to be different than another. The states of California and New York actually have laws in place that say that a woman can revoke consent at anytime without even saying anything. So, unless you’re a mind-reader, then all sex is legally considered rape in these states. This is what the left has done. Meanwhile, the right isn’t much better, as they just shame anyone who has pre-marital sex at all.
* The left-wing is close-minded to traditional viewpoints. For example, they oppose abstinence-only education. Despite the fact that abstinence is just as valid a method of birth control as pills, condoms, and so forth. The left-wing wants women to be free to choose their own professions, but if a woman wants to be a housewife, then she’s letting the patriarchy keep her down and is promoting a bad image for women. Basically: If you support the traditional method, the left will reject you.
* The right-wing is crazy enough to think that all liberals are going to hell. The left-wing is crazy enough to get offended at the fact that I used the word “crazy”.
* The left-wing ideology has given rise to organizations like Autism Speaks, for example, that claim that a minority group doesn’t have a voice, and then proceeds to deny them a voice.
* Both sides seem to view the other side as being worse than Hitler. The problem with this is that it means that if you are not committing genocide, then you have the moral high ground, even if your side is being reprehensible. And also: if the other side ever DOES start advocating for genocide, what would you view them as then? (That last part was just a joke.)
This is the year 2016, and it seems that people are more politically charged now than ever before. I think that a lot of that has to do with online social media. If you’re hiding behind a screen name, then you can say whatever you want with very little consequence. This draws you to the extremes. If you’re not hiding behind a screen name, such as with Facebook, then you’re using a social networking site that has algorithms to determine what to show you on your “Timeline” (or equivalent) and it will prioritize the messages that agree with you, so that you don’t get pissed off and you continue to use their website. Seeing people who agree with you will encourage you to share your opinions more comfortably, creating an echo chamber.
I genuinely feel that despite Donald Trump becoming President-Elect, I don’t think that people are going to discriminate based on race, gender, or even sexual orientation. Well, okay, the extremist right-wingers will, sure. But remember, becoming president isn’t the same as becoming a god. There are limits to what Trump can and can’t do, and so he won’t be able to do most of the things that he’s claiming that he will do.
However, that’s not to say that there is no discrimination. On the contrary, people will discriminate against other people. But not because of race or the like. People of my generation are going to face a new kind of discrimination: Discrimination against their political beliefs. Like I said earlier, the term “right-winger” has become, for all intents and purposes, a slur. People are more politically active today than ever before. For better or for worse, this is the new kind of discrimination that we face. We are so caught up in our echo chambers that we refuse to acknowledge the viewpoints of those who disagree with us. They are simply wrong, and we shouldn’t talk about them.
And I’m talking about both the left and the right in this scenario. WyvernIRC in particular is just more left-winging, so I feel that I’ll get a larger audience if I draw attention to the left.
If you feel that those who oppose your ideology are just wrong and nothing more to it than that, then you are fundamentally going against the idea of democracy. All viewpoints are supposed to be welcome, so that we can have constructive discussion, and determine the best course of action. And while WyvernIRC is a small place, I see the same thing happening in the real world on a larger scale.
People are not willing to compromise anymore. And because of that, I don’t think that our democracy can last. Because democracy is all about compromise. The only way to save our country is to be willing to leave echo chambers behind and be willing to talk to the other side again.
With the election of President Trump, especially with him losing the popular vote, I’m hoping that people will see this issue and try to address it. But even if not, can WyvernIRC at least be willing to try it?
For about a year now, I’ve been afraid to speak my right-wing mind. WyvernIRC was not a safe space for me when I abandoned my left-wing views. Can I have my safe space back now? Can we be able to talk to each other like civilized people again?
Please?
———————
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” — A quote that sums up all of my problems with left-wingers.
