Why are almost all of TCOD liberal socialist atheists? (serious thread this time)

[Valerunner]

Really, it's all because of the forums themselves.

Currently, we're in one of the relatively small yet known forums in a particular circle, in this case Pokemon. We've been around for 7 years I think, which helps with the forum's reputation as an active forum. Not to mention our dear dictator's queen's administrator's circle of connections which include Serebii.net, one of the leading non-official Pokemon news resources.

We're big enough to be noticed, but not big enough to be famous. Active enough to get discussion going, but not big enough for lightning-quick banter. Therefore, the audience seems to be those who actually want a discussion and are also just happen to be Pokemon fans. Those who just want a Pokemon forum and nothing else usually gravitate towards the bigger forums.

Hence why we attract a certain type of people.

As for the kinds of views themselves, it's all down to social desirability bias. First off, the vocal members discuss a sensitive topic. One point is shown, and unless it's a troll post or a strongly written one, it will usually incite a counterargument, then another member agreeing with the first poster. Then the discussion goes along, and those with different views from the first poster but don't feel strongly about those views simply lurk, while those who do agree post in the discussion, even if they don't feel as strong. Add in the variable that we're all rather similar, and multiply that scenario a few times, and there you have a consensus view. Not everyone will agree to the views, of course, but if we use that earlier scenario, those who agreed with the first poster who didn't feel as strongly to those views will eventually form the vocal majority.

Just a hunch, though.

 

[Superbird]

^ That actually explains a lot.

 

[Dannichu]

Because I hate everyone but sometimes I want to give them a cuddle anyway.

And I just want to cuddle everyone :D

One thing that I think's pretty interesting is how science-orientated a lot of the more politically-liberal people here are. I'm down with the "like-mindedness attracts" explanation for why we're all on the same forum, but very generally speaking, sciencey people tend to be a) less vocally political, and b) less left-leaning.

As an example, there was one person doing a science degree who attended my uni's feminist society's first meeting (out of a group of 40?), and that was opal, who doesn't even go to my uni.

No, I don't, I was just wondering what they were getting at in their post stating that conservatism is "morally and intellectually bankrupt". The reasoning behind that would be significant to this discussion, wouldn't it?

Well... capitalism is sort of morally bankrupt, though, isn't it? I mean, socialism and other left-leaning political systems aren't without their problems, but it's hard to argue that a system that lets some people have lots of very nice houses (living in Cornwall, you should be more than aware of how many people have giant second homes that they only use for two weeks in the summer) while others sleep rough on the street is morally fine and dandy?

But you're right - these things shouldn't be just assumed in a reasonable debate.

 

[tim.]

You gonna back that up with reasoning, or do you expect it to stand on its own? Because it doesn't :B

well it's just that all/the vast majority of beliefs which would typically be considered "conservative" are poorly thought out, not worth anything, and for the most part are demonstrably untrue. it'd be a lot easier if you just listed which conservative beliefs you thought actually held any intellectual or moral legitimacy.

 

[Pwnemon]

And I just want to cuddle everyone :D

One thing that I think's pretty interesting is how science-orientated a lot of the more politically-liberal people here are. I'm down with the "like-mindedness attracts" explanation for why we're all on the same forum, but very generally speaking, sciencey people tend to be a) less vocally political, and b) less left-leaning.

Huh. In my experience, most science people lean leftward. (Nuclear scientists possibly excepted :P)

Well... capitalism is sort of morally bankrupt, though, isn't it? I mean, socialism and other left-leaning political systems aren't without their problems, but it's hard to argue that a system that lets some people have lots of very nice houses (living in Cornwall, you should be more than aware of how many people have giant second homes that they only use for two weeks in the summer) while others sleep rough on the street is morally fine and dandy?

But you're right - these things shouldn't be just assumed in a reasonable debate.

But England is largely socialist, how does this prove the evils of capitalism? Furthermore, however morally bankrupt (Read: objective) capitalism is, it tends to keep nations from going bankrupt helluva lot better than socialism/communism *Coughgreececough*

 

[Tailsy]

'England' is socialist?

I thought we just elected the Conservative Party? WHOOPS, MY BAD!

 

[#1 bro]

I think it's not so much "much of tCoD is liberal socialist atheists" as much as "much of the intelligent* people on the internet are liberal socialist atheists". I think what you might see here in the forum is just a reflection of a much larger trend.

*by this I don't necessarily mean IQ intelligence, just that these quote unquote intelligent people think their internet comments through, use proper punctuation, spelling, and grammar, and are just overall capable of high-level intelligent discourse.

 

[Dannichu]

Huh. In my experience, most science people lean leftward. (Nuclear scientists possibly excepted :P)

You mean, compared to all those right-wing arts and humanities students? Because nothing says 'we need more traditional values!' like studying music, hairdressing or philosophy. :p (amusing aside: I have a friend who's doing American Studies, which you'd think would be pretty conservative, but her class watched softcore pornography as part of her media module XD)

In seriousness, with some subjects, it's expected that you'll be an athiest socialist. Within sociology, you'll have a hard time if you belong to some kind of organized religion (I cannot think of a single religious sociologist, contemporary or historical, and most of sociology's founders (except Durkheim) were almost militantly anti-organized-religion), and given that sociology was more or less invented by Karl Marx, who also more or less invented communism... yeah.

But England is largely socialist, how does this prove the evils of capitalism? Furthermore, however morally bankrupt (Read: objective) capitalism is, it tends to keep nations from going bankrupt helluva lot better than socialism/communism *Coughgreececough*

As Tailsy said, lololol @ the "England is socialist" comment. The UK's more left-leaning then the US, but it's still a definitely capitalist society, with massive inequalities that are a result of that (see: all the people who are jobless here thanks to the capitalist economy crashing).

 

[Butterfree]

And I just want to cuddle everyone :D

One thing that I think's pretty interesting is how science-orientated a lot of the more politically-liberal people here are. I'm down with the "like-mindedness attracts" explanation for why we're all on the same forum, but very generally speaking, sciencey people tend to be a) less vocally political, and b) less left-leaning.

Mm, I'm not so sure about b). a) makes a lot more sense to me, since after all, I'd expect studying social subjects would be correlated with interest in politics, whereas science is more the stuff of nerds, who frequently have very little interest in political issues. A lot of typically conservative ideas - "fetuses are sacred human life from conception", "we were created by God in his image", "women were created to be subservient to man", "homosexuality is unnatural and against God", etc. - are extremely unscientific; to be passionately interested in science at the same time as you believe any of this requires some pretty epic doublethink.

Then again, I don't really personally know any conservatives and when I think "conservative" I think "nutty American fundamentalists" or occasionally "Icelandic politicians I can't stand", so I'm maybe just having a hard time wrapping my head around the existence of political conservatives who don't either believe something utterly silly or are primarily interested in politics.

Anyway, yeah, like attracts like. When conservatives come here and discover the population is about half liberal LGBT atheists, they probably generally either don't stick around or just stick to talking about Pokémon rather than participating in any political discussion.

 

[nyuu]

Huh. In my experience, most science people lean leftward. (Nuclear scientists possibly excepted :P)

I'm fine with nuclear power. It'd be neat if we'd just man up and start a huge offshore hydroelectric operation, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon.

But England is largely socialist

Nope! They, and pretty much every first-world country barring us, have a half-decent national health care system. (Ask me about why I think rationed, universally free health care is a great idea) England has health care. Both of these places are full of healthy citizens and old people, who still receive health care within reason. They also have their weird cctv fetish, I guess. I know "universal health care" and "social welfare" and "socialism" are codewords for totalitarian fascism to people in this country, (ask about how fascism is ultra-right, socialism is ultra-left, and keynsian economic thought calls for a mix of command economy and the free market!) but England's still a representative democracy, with elected representatives, an executive, and a judiciary, just like ours.

how does this prove the evils of capitalism? Furthermore, however morally bankrupt (Read: objective) capitalism is, it tends to keep nations from going bankrupt helluva lot better than socialism/communism *Coughgreececough*

Capitalism isn't evil. Ideologies aren't evil, but if ideological thought isn't working, maybe the ideology is failing to accurately describe the world we're actually in? Reagan's economic decision-making broke everything (ask me how!) and drastically raised unemployment. Economic prosperity through deregulation doesn't work, and wealth and prosperity don't "trickle down". Letting the already-rich do anything allows the upper 20% commanding 80%+ of all the wealth absorb even more of that wealth. Allowing such a huge wealth gap is economically unfeasible, even if you don't think it's morally questionable.

(Of course, command economics can suck too. Corn subsidies are stupid and need to die in a fire)

Also, we are in some shit-crazy debt at the moment. Like, seriously. If you think you've mentally grasped either how tremendous wealth disparity in this country is, or the size of our deficit, you haven't thought hard enough.

How is any ideology or economic approach objective?

 

[Butterfree]

Capitalism works, on the same principle that evolution works (it's pretty much Darwinism applied to the economy instead of the ecosystem). The problem is that pure Darwinism in any form is pretty morally abhorrent according to any system of ethics we would consider sane today.

On the opposite side, pure socialism is in theory morally idyllic, but suffers from the fact that it allows individuals to reap great personal benefit from abusing the system, which will always happen because we humans, being products of evolution ourselves, are predisposed to being a bit individualistic and greedy. That is obviously not to say we do not or should not defy this predisposition in the name of modern ethics (we definitely should and do), but there is no way we can magically prevent people from feeling, for instance, unmotivated to work hard when they will reap the same benefit either way.

Hence, some sort of middle ground is necessary in order to both function with human beings in it and be morally acceptable. Generally I think things ought to be no farther to the capitalistic side than necessary to drive society onwards.

 

[H-land]

very generally speaking, sciencey people tend to be [...] less left-leaning.

As an example, there was one person doing a science degree who attended my uni's feminist society's first meeting (out of a group of 40?), and that was opal, who doesn't even go to my uni.

Huh. In my experience, most science people lean leftward. (Nuclear scientists possibly excepted :P)

Dannichu, I think Pwnemon's actually right here. Reasoning is this:

We were taught in my US government class that the higher one's education level, the higher the chances are that someone's going to be a (social) liberal, and vote Democrat. Our teacher explained that through an education, you're taught to think more objectively, and consider that in many cases, you may be wrong, or that there may even be more than one right answer to a solution. (See links 1, 2, 3) While I only know that this is true for the United States, I think that it would stand to reason that this would stand true for populations in other countries; that is, that more educated people would vote more liberally on the social spectrum.
It's not to far of a stretch from there to suspect that most scientists would tend toward being social liberal, since most scientists need no small amount of schooling in order to learn what they need to know to do their jobs.

I will say, though, that I'm not sure that nuclear scientists are really any less liberal socially than your run-of-the-mill chemist or astrophysicist or marine biologist or what have you, though they may well be less ardent advocates of the environment.

 

[Pwnemon]

As Tailsy said, lololol @ the "England is socialist" comment. The UK's more left-leaning then the US, but it's still a definitely capitalist society, with massive inequalities that are a result of that (see: all the people who are jobless here thanks to the capitalist economy crashing).

>England is largely socialist
>No, it's only a bit more socialist than America!
>America is largely socialist

Also, didn't Harlequin say that the Conservative Party is a rough equivalent of the Democrats in America?

"women were created to be subservient to man"

What the hell? Just what. the. hell. I sure haven't ever met anyone who still believes this crap. There's an autistic redneck I know who even believes that every mexican in the US is broke and should be deported and he doesn't even believe it.

Nope! They, and pretty much every first-world country barring us, have a half-decent national health care system.

Hey, we agree! After that health care law passed ours went down the crapper.

(Ask me about why I think rationed, universally free health care is a great idea)

Wait why. Is it that it makes national debt skyrocket? Or the whole "cancer patients are screwed through the roof cause we all only get so much care" part?

England has health care. Both of these places are full of healthy citizens and old people, who still receive health care within reason. They also have their weird cctv fetish, I guess. I know "universal health care" and "social welfare" and "socialism" are codewords for totalitarian fascism to people in this country, (ask about how fascism is ultra-right, socialism is ultra-left, and keynsian economic thought calls for a mix of command economy and the free market!) but England's still a representative democracy, with elected representatives, an executive, and a judiciary, just like ours.

Um, because a system of government has SO MUCH TO DO with the type of economy. Thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot. Also, "Universal health care" and those are mostly codewords for socialism which means we will go bankrupt.

Capitalism isn't evil. Ideologies aren't evil, but if ideological thought isn't working, maybe the ideology is failing to accurately describe the world we're actually in? Reagan's economic decision-making broke everything (ask me how!) and drastically raised unemployment. Economic prosperity through deregulation doesn't work, and wealth and prosperity don't "trickle down". Letting the already-rich do anything allows the upper 20% commanding 80%+ of all the wealth absorb even more of that wealth. Allowing such a huge wealth gap is economically unfeasible, even if you don't think it's morally questionable.

Wealth doesn't trickle down? Really? I don't know about you, but I've never been hired by a poor guy. Also, the upper 20% only controls ~45% of the wealth in the US iirc.

Also, we are in some shit-crazy debt at the moment. Like, seriously. If you think you've mentally grasped either how tremendous wealth disparity in this country is, or the size of our deficit, you haven't thought hard enough.

How is any ideology or economic approach objective?

Hm. Well, I know that we owe >10 trillion dollars. I know that Obama quadrupled our deficit already large under Bush. I know that our economy crashed due to the pop of the housing bubble caused by the socialist institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a Democrat-controlled congress.

 

[opaltiger]

Dannichu, I think Pwnemon's actually right here.

I believe Dannichu was talking relative to other academic disciplines - because, yes, generally speaking social scientists are more left-leaning than natural scientists.

 

[ultraviolet]

Wait why. Is it that it makes national debt skyrocket? Or the whole "cancer patients are screwed through the roof cause we all only get so much care" part?

what? wouldn't cancer patients be more screwed if they couldn't receive even basic treatment for cancer because they couldn't afford it? I live in Australia; my cousin has cancer and has been receiving free treatment for the last few months. I'm not sure I really understand where you're coming from.

What the hell? Just what. the. hell. I sure haven't ever met anyone who still believes this crap.

you sure haven't met many people! I can name at least ten people who believe this and I'm not even from a particularly conservative country.

 

[Harlequin]

Also, didn't Harlequin say that the Conservative Party is a rough equivalent of the Democrats in America?

Yes, but that's exactly the point: your liberals are conservative, just not as crazily conservative as your conservatives.

So what you have is basically just "right and more-right wing" rather than "left and right wing". It's okay, though, since British politics is basically "WE'RE ALL IN THE MIDDLE WITH VERY LITTLE ACTUALLY SEPARATING US".

 

[Powerdrill]

Well... capitalism is sort of morally bankrupt, though, isn't it? I mean, socialism and other left-leaning political systems aren't without their problems, but it's hard to argue that a system that lets some people have lots of very nice houses (living in Cornwall, you should be more than aware of how many people have giant second homes that they only use for two weeks in the summer) while others sleep rough on the street is morally fine and dandy?

But you're right - these things shouldn't be just assumed in a reasonable debate.

You do have a valid point there! And yes, it's true, there is quite a wide spread between the rich and the poor here- I don't see too many people who are homeless in my area, but I can't deny they exist. In that sense yes, I agree, it is not morally acceptable.

On the other hand, I find the idea of redistributing the wealth and taxing richer people a greater percentage of their income unfair too. Sure, up the higher end of the spectrum you've got footballers, singers, and arguably bankers who do not deserve to be as rich as they are. Many people who earn more have worked their way up there, getting specific qualifications in jobs that may be considered to be boring by most- lawyers, accountants, perhaps even doctors and dentists too.

Although, admittedly, the lower-earning end is also populated with many hard workers; there are those who downright refuse to work and live off benefits. Is that fair? Is it moral that they live off somebody else's wages, whilst refusing to contribute to society by working? It's clearly a different case if they're disabled or something, but some people who do this don't have a valid reason.

well it's just that all/the vast majority of beliefs which would typically be considered "conservative" are poorly thought out, not worth anything, and for the most part are demonstrably untrue. it'd be a lot easier if you just listed which conservative beliefs you thought actually held any intellectual or moral legitimacy.

Okay, fair enough. I'm talking about a British political context here- British conservatism is rather different from American conservatism, but some of the basic principles are obviously pretty similar.

Limited government spending (and less taxation of the individual) is a good example. It's the idea of taxing individual people less, and as a result, lowering the amount of money that is spent by the government. I think this would work and would me more moral and fair if this money was cut from some, not all, of the social benefits system here. That of course means distincting between those who refuse to work or look for it, and those who have a valid reason not to- which would be a tricky business, but in the long run, I feel it would be a far more fair system, and hopefully it would drive said people, (the former), to work.

Yes, but that's exactly the point: your liberals are conservative, just not as crazily conservative as your conservatives.

So what you have is basically just "right and more-right wing" rather than "left and right wing". It's okay, though, since British politics is basically "WE'RE ALL IN THE MIDDLE WITH VERY LITTLE ACTUALLY SEPARATING US".

Haha pretty much, everybody is virtually center anyway. A lot of things that are considered liberal ideas over there are virtually non-issues over here, shown by the existence of civil partnership, the NHS, and things like that. Britain's [/Europe's ?] general political structure is far more centered because many more ideals that would be considered "liberal" to America are the norm over here.

 

[tim.]

Hey, we agree! After that health care law passed ours went down the crapper.

You are implying that the US healthcare system was anything but insane in the first place. The US has the most absolutely nonsensical healthcare system that an intelligent species could possibly devise. Tying health care to employer-sponored insurance and having all healthcare payments based on that "insurance." It does about a million things wrong including: freezing up the labor market (this should be a concern for any conservative who believes in a 'free market' for allocating labor), outrageous costs because of the detachment from paying for it, enormous additional costs for employers on top of wages which drive down wages for newer employees and threaten the long-term stability of corporations, a serious lack of availability for millions, all exacerabted by the fact that America is stupid and has the most unhealthy culture of all first world countries(a designation I'm hesitant to even give to the US).

The healthcare law is a peice of garbage because it compromised with the right too much. Actually that's why America is such a mess in general - it spends the most on stuff and gets the worst of it. Why? Compromise with the right wing/conservatives. It is OBVIOUS that socialism(hereafter when i say socialism i'll just be referring to the european social democrat platform) works, but the right wing is exceptionally strong in America, so the socialist policies have to conform to a level of conservative appeal which ruins everything.

Wait why. Is it that it makes national debt skyrocket? Or the whole "cancer patients are screwed through the roof cause we all only get so much care" part?

lol i shouldnt even have to say this: the us spends more on healthcare than any other nation. the debt is skyrocketing because capitalist healthcare doesn't work.

Wealth doesn't trickle down? Really? I don't know about you, but I've never been hired by a poor guy. Also, the upper 20% only controls ~45% of the wealth in the US iirc.

the idea of 'trickle down' is if the wealthy get MORE, they will hire MORE and stimulate the economy MORE. not if the wealthy have ANYTHING they will do SOMETHING. the idea is if they have MORE they will do MORE. this is demostrably untrue as average wages have not kept pace with the skyrocketing compensation of the top few percentiles. the average worker did MUCH better relatively when the marginal tax rate was 90%.

Hm. Well, I know that we owe >10 trillion dollars. I know that Obama quadrupled our deficit already large under Bush. I know that our economy crashed due to the pop of the housing bubble caused by the socialist institutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under a Democrat-controlled congress.

the economy collapsed because of the friedmanite wholesale deregulation of the 80s and 90s. the housing bubble played a relatively small role when compared to the fact that financial markets were flooded with TENS of TRILLIONS of dollars of useless instruments which completely froze credit when they went bad because the banks were allowed to overleverage to ridiculous amounts thanks to conservative-championed deregulation. since the boom of the 90s was largely sustained by demand which can be attributed to extremely loose credit policies and unheard of personal and corporate overleveraging of finances, obviously the near disappearance of credit was going to ruin the entire economy.

 

[Aobaru]

Capitalism works, on the same principle that evolution works (it's pretty much Darwinism applied to the economy instead of the ecosystem). [...]

On the opposite side, pure socialism is in theory morally idyllic, but suffers from the fact that it allows individuals to reap great personal benefit from abusing the system, which will always happen because we humans, being products of evolution ourselves, are predisposed to being a bit individualistic and greedy. That is obviously not to say we do not or should not defy this predisposition in the name of modern ethics (we definitely should and do), but there is no way we can magically prevent people from feeling, for instance, unmotivated to work hard when they will reap the same benefit either way.

Hence, some sort of middle ground is necessary in order to both function with human beings in it and be morally acceptable. Generally I think things ought to be no farther to the capitalistic side than necessary to drive society onwards.

I agree with Butterfree, here, though I stand more on the capitalist side of the spectrum. I know firsthand that people can abuse the system. Speaking of fairness, is it fair that someone should have to work 5-6 days a week to earn the same amount monthly that the government would pay their neighbor in welfare? This doesn't promote economic growth; it promotes people sitting on their asses, collecting government money.

Although both capitalism and socialism in their most extreme forms are not ideal, I believe, overall, that capitalism works better.

The problem is that pure Darwinism in any form is pretty morally abhorrent according to any system of ethics we would consider sane today.

This may be true in theory, but when you think about it practically, it's the government's job to be objective, isn't it?

 

[Adriane]

Speaking of fairness, is it fair that someone should have to work 5-6 days a week to earn the same amount that the government would pay their neighbor monthly in welfare? This doesn't promote economic growth; it promotes people sitting on their asses, collecting government money.

This is the same piss-poor argument every capitalist loves to abuse. That is not a problem with socialism, it's a problem on the local level. A system is only as efficient as the gears turning it. I could just as easily say capitalism sucks because my tax dollars are funding Sanford's personal flings and airfare.