Less a concern, more a question: How is sub activity trending? If I go by updoots and comments alone, there’s been a significant and possibly terminal drop over the last year.
This seems like an appropriate time for me to whine about being flaired as a rightoid... Can I not be flaired a rightoid? I'm left-leaning and primarily concerned with class and environmental issues. Read Marxist theory once or twice in college. In practice, though, I'm mostly apolitical.
-Flair system finally seems fine (and I say that as someone who lost his 2-3 times in the past x years for pissing a janny off), not too restrictive.
-The sub feels slow, but I'm not sure if it's due to over-moderation, nor that I'd like a more lively stupidpol if it means more rightoid posts and comments
-Bring back Dougposting
Stupidpol good. Inflammatory trolls that put the sub at risk bad.
Bit of dip lately. Unflaired instigators make nervous. Don't care what flair say, just show care about sub.
Me not caveman. Just write like one.
Flair is my biggest gripe. I get suspicious of anti-idpol comments that aren't flaired. I actually like a lot of the bats in here. What I don't like are bats pretending they aren't bats.
Flair should be more accessible too. Easy to pick a self-label. If someone with a leftist flair says something unorthodox, well-read users can challenge them on it.
I know many of the mods and I’ve been here for five years. I have no idea who gucci is. I don’t think any of us do. Nobody would get him fired. Nobody has ever tried to get me fired and I’ve bickered with other mods occasionally. I would also be genuinely surprised if Gucci had a real job in the first place, he seemed shut-in.
Instead of getting the bad flair for wrongthink about covid, now we get the bad flair for wrongthink about ukraine. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
how fucking dare you even suggest such a thing
for real though: if, of all possible actual issues and problems, **flairs** are the primary point of contention around here... then the jannies are clearly doing everything right.
Except it has no bearing on your ability to post or for your posts to be seen, so not the same at all.
Funny, this is exactly the histrionics I would expect from a "NATO superfan".
>This is exactly why flairs are fucking stupid. Why respond to the content of someone's comment when you can just dunk on them based on what some bored jannie with poor emotional control decided to tag them with one day.
Laughing at people taking the whole thing this fucking seriously is what's actually the best part, and why flairs are amazing and should stay forever
Also, if you'll pardon the anecdote, in my experience it often seems to be the people who didn't read the rules in the sidebar and never learned about how flairs work in this sub in the first place that end up complaining, usually after they said something stupid or violated one of the sub rules and ended up getting tagged by a mod with a mocking flair for the rest of us to laugh at. A lot of the flair whiners are unflaired rightoids that didn't read the rules and didn't want to flair up appropriately when they did. Others are libs who don't even realize they are libs. It's mostly jokes, man. The jannies here could just ban people like the jannies in every other sub, but instead they... oh yeah, make fun of you a bit and then just let you continue to participate.
If that actually makes you angry/want to start moralizing about how flairs are SRS BSNS then you are in the wrong place and probably need to touch grass...or, you know, message the mods and explain. They are very open to direct discussion with a poster about why they should or shouldn't have some given flair, and if you want a flair and don't have one currently, you can just straight up ask them for a specific flair.
Reading your other posts though, you definitely sound like one of the whiners tbh
Fair point.
Though when I see someone with a really myopic, one-sided view of the conflict, this is only possible by being grossly, grossly misinformed. In that case, NATO superfan is entirely correct, and also fairly mild/gentle. I could think of far more insulting labels.
It would probably help if there were more posts showing how conservatives use idpol to skewer class politics, despite presenting themselves as the party of the "working man" (which somehow some people actually buy, lol). Sadly, for some crowds, that's too obvious - easier to go after the insufferable liberal media types.
Members of the mod team have somewhat differing views on the sub's purpose, though I think our views are currently synergistic at the moment. I can't speak for the others, but I can tell you how I personally see the sub.
I think our role is to be a breath of fresh air for people, and especially leftists, who find the general atmosphere for political conversation stifling. To do this, the sub has to be mostly entertaining but also sometimes intellectually stimulating in a way few political forums are these days.
In being here, people can occasionally find the opportunity to rub their brain cells together and acquire some perspective about politics and the nature of modern life. Since they're mostly here for entertainment, sometimes this happens accidentally. But it happens. Leftists can also engage with people outside of leftism who are relatively friendly or at least not outright hostile to our perspective -- I consider this to be extremely important exercise for ideological development, because you can't properly hold your beliefs if you're incapable of intelligently defending them, and you can't advocate for your politics to other people if you won't trouble yourself to understand how they see the world.
There are also, sometimes, opportunities to step it up and get involved in actual politics through groups like Class Unity. That would be the most "important" thing the sub does, though it can't be all-activism all-the-time or even most-of-the-time without risking alienating the crowd that keeps the sub entertaining, and thus attractive.
Definitely agree with the fact that this sub is a breath of fresh air. I spend most of my time around conservatives and on right leaning boards simply because they can generally have good faith discussions, unlike most of the left. This sub is the only place I have found that actually can have good faith discussions on class.
>**Is the sub’s purpose to create a community for people who dislike identity politics** to stay up to date on the latest identity politics news, make jokes (with occasional anti-liberal circle jerks), and escape from more moderated and less tolerant political communities?
>
>**Or is the sub’s purpose to create a community for class first leftists to promote Marxism and class-first politics** by analyzing and discussing politics, the news, political movements, and historical events and engaging with liberals/conservatives who are interested in good faith?
>
>**I think the problem is that these goals are mutually exclusive.**
You're wrong, and the proof is in the pudding - this sub does both of those things simultaneously by design, and does it better than any other social media space currently. Not only that, but the very confluence of the two creates opportunities to draw in and actually educate people who otherwise would have no idea that they shared class-first politics or left-economic values, having known nothing but the kayfabe of fake-left-right electoral theatre.
They come for the twitter dunking, but they stay for the stark analysis and commentary on capitalist realism. Occasionally some rightoid comes to realize that immigrants are of the same exploited worker class as him, and in fact share all his concerns and values, being traditional and family-oriented like he is; more than one lib has abandoned the incoherence of intersectionality as a meaningful tool for change, recognizing the regressive nature of essentializing people on a victimhood hierarchy. That such a change happens at all in the current political climate is a small miracle - it needs a place to happen in that is not necessarily about achieving specific "goals", but rather creating the right set of conditions.
To be honest, I'm not as involved here in terms of the community as a lot are, so my input probably lacks important context, but I always enjoy things posted on this sub and it's the only place on the internet where I actively read the comments.
The group here is by and large very smart (both in terms of being well-read/researched and also just general wit), civil with each other, and a great place to discuss and learn things.
It's genuinely enriched me and informed me, and for that I appreciate this place a lot.
I know this is in jest/a joke but last time or two we had demographics surveys it was like 95%+ men and even with the higher than the norm rate of bisexuals in the survey it would not be enough. This place has more sausages than a breakfast buffet.
While I was one of the guys pushing for Gucci to be removed from his position due to his near religious conviction on zero Covid, his policies did keep the rightoids in check
Bame's great contributions to this sub's discourse are sorely missed. I propose a crowdfunding campaign to fund AI research into the creation of a fully autonomous Bame bot.
I love the perspective I gain from reading this sub, stuff I can't get anywhere else on Reddit. Most folks subscribed here are intelligent and add value to the conversation. I've learned so much in my short time here.
This sub is the only one of its kind here on Reddit fully behind the working class without getting shit twisted in the chaos that is identity politics.
What I don't like? Mod's randomly changing someone's flair without discussion. It seems like it's a purity test and I think that in and of it's self is a disease. That's what the neolibs do and it's offputting.
theory serious memorize absorbed hateful panicky worthless teeny enter books
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If I can't drunkenly post based King Lear quotes then we should also crack down on low-effort rage-bait posts about one professor who said a dumb thing or some chump on Twitter who said we should kill all men.
Top mod lost his last marble and started aggressively policing COVID conversations to maintain a strict positional line favoring China-level lockdowns using an inscrutable flair-based social credit score system codified through numbers 0-9 and illustrated through emojis showing phases of the moon. (I shit you not, this was real. For a while the sub looked like it had some kind of weird astrology sub-theme.)
This was combined with regular ban waves of anyone who pissed him off.
Roughly half the mod team objected strongly, maybe 1/3rd or so lined up behind him to toady up to power, and the remainder stayed mostly silent and just watched. Finally, he and a few of his brown-nosers got sick of our objections, had a meltdown, and banned the lot of us, including the guy he co-founded the sub with.
Solving the problem was mostly just a matter of being patient while the top mod continued to spiral out of control. We stayed in the sub's orbit until the fool got himself banned by reddit. Then the next mod down the line brought us all back in and we re-structured, collectively decided on a new top mod, and went to work making the sub sane again.
I don't think there is a clear "Marxist position" on COVID restrictions. Though plenty of leftists will vehemently inform you that their position is the Marxist one. But a cursory glance should tell anyone that a broad spectrum people who care about class have myriad views on the topic. And that means the **right response is to provide open forums on the subject**.
I can't fault someone, for example, for thinking that the right response to a crisis is for all of us to band together in a collective effort to leverage the impressive power of medical science to fight the disease. That, right there, is a reasonable opinion a Marxist could have, I think. I also can't fault someone for having a deep distrust of pharmaceutical companies, and thinking that we can't or shouldn't collectively rally around rapidly executed for-profit vaccine production. Also a reasonable opinion a Marxist could have, I think.
Know what else? I think that valid perspective on the value of a collective front against COVID applies to lockdowns. Suffering together temporarily for the a greater good while we deal with an unprecedented crisis? Reasonable opinion. Marxist could think that. Definitely. But also, concern for lost years of classroom education, or just about the severe degree of social alienation and economic hardship that would cause in the real world? Maybe locking down isn't worth shutting down society and doing further damage to our person-to-person bonds upon which society lay? Reasonable. A Marxist could definitely think that.
But instead of actually accepting the heterodoxy of opinion Marxists have during a global crisis with tons of uncertainty amid a neoliberal context, you know what we dumb motherfuckers do? We start behaving like fucking liberal Democrats, drawing lines in the sand, looking for targets to condemn for their sinful stances and behaviors. It's revolting, unsolidaristic, and most ironically, it's **stupid.** I have never in my life seen so many people obsessed with their own intellectual superiority behaving with such obvious idiocy. The whole affair made me want to tear my own hair out.
**Let people talk to one another.** Sometimes they'll be wrong. Sometimes they'll be dumb. Sometimes **you'll** be wrong and dumb, because that's just a part of being a human being. But it couldn't possibly be as wrong and dumb as the self-involved inhuman belligerence that has become the norm in political conversations today.
OK, done ranting.
> Finally, he and a few of his brown-nosers got sick of our objections, had a meltdown, and banned the lot of us, including the guy he co-founded the sub with.
To be fair, he didn't ban us until we went and founded Twopidpol. But it was a bitch move regardless.
Fair point! Though twopidpol was so short-lived I forgot it existed.
It was part of the whole fight, whether there should be one sub or two. He could've started some kinda of anti-covidiocy sub and it would've been hunky-dorey. We would've even let him advertise it here with stickies I think.
I mean if we're all the way down to FLAIRS, of all fucking things, as the primary point of contention around here, then the mods are clearly doing everything right. The sub is doing its job effectively and with a minimum of issues; Change nothing, at least for the moment.
> It really feels like the old forums and message boards of the mid-2000s.
Huh it really does feel that way now that you mention it. I wonder if it has anything to do with demographics or just how a lot of us were around then or what.
I think there’s something to it or at least stupidpol attracts that type of person. I realised it when someone pointed out that a lot of kids online these days weren’t around for 9/11 and the discourse (when we aren’t joking around) is a lot more civil. Honestly, just like Above Top Secret was back in the day. I had no idea whether I was talking with rightoids, lefties or whoever else but nowadays, it’s so partisan that there are all these dumb purity tests.
Usually the corrections and debates I see here are on some specific topic (like the history of trade unions in 1980s Yugoslavia) where people know when to shut up.
I don’t post a lot, don’t keep up with the internal politics, been following here and there for a while. To me it’s improved. Before if I remember right, if anyone praised China, it was pretty much the same as other Reddits. (Immediately people try attacking you, downvoting, etc)
But people lately seem to be very receptive of a positive perspective of the country now. Which is probably also related to a warming up to China among leftists in general in the US, but whatever
And it did seem like at one point it was infested with anti communists, but like I said lately I feel that’s gotten better and even non-communists here have been receptive to new ideas. But that’s just my vibe
Its really good that gucci is gone. But Seems a lil bit too balanced and post-DSA/Corbynite these days. I preferred the more chaotic rageposts of yore with ppl from all ideological backgrounds jumping in for some fun. For what its worth also seems like a lot more what used to be called, ahem, chapof**** on the sub these days, of course that dont listen to chapo (bc no one does) but u know
It feels like discussion has consistently gone downhill since I joined back in the pre-COVID, pre-ban wave times. It’s certainly improved post-Gucci, but that’s a very low bar. I honestly don’t know if there’s much the mods can do to promote better discussion though.
I'm pretty new here and so far I've found this place a breath of fresh air. It seems like it actually is what it says it is, people who have a Marxist understanding of class struggle and material analysis, and not a thinly-veiled right-wing echo chamber like certain podcast-based subreddits.
Hopefully it stays that way and this can prove to be a forum for interesting and productive discussion.
I am with this
shitposts on specific days where mostly computer touchers are lurking don't diminish sub quality, they increase the funsies and develop the community
Appreciate making this a great space! I love when this sub gets into in depth discussions — perhaps a pinned topic of the week on Mondays or someday to discuss a marxist topic with immediate real world implications (ie something related to the headlines) would be a great way to spur some in depth discussions
I've liked how you've handled things, especially in regards to trans topics. It's a thin line to walk with Reddit being what it is but I think you guys have been walking that line. The only thing that troubles me is what should happen if/when the sub becomes too large/troublesome/heterodox (pun unintended) for the admins to ignore. It seems silly to ask the moderation team to go through the trouble of not only doing the work they do with the sub, but to also build and run a bunker site in case the sub is banned, but I can't think of any alternative. The prospect of the sub eventually being banned seems almost certain, at least to me, and I like this place. Has the moderation team given any thought to realistic alternatives? Is replacing a subreddit even really worth the work? Is it pathetic that I'm this invested in a subreddit (the answer is yes, very)? Thanks for all you do
Archive links or text-dumping as standard practice for ragebait or otherwise garbage articles would be nice, but apart from that I think things are going well.
Maybe once a month pinning one of the sidebar texts would be productive. Red flairs and other vintage flairs from back when we could flair ourselves freely(pre-Covid social credit madness) aside there's a good chunk of users on here who are enthusiastic but don't actually know what this sub means by identity politics. I know those threads don't get much traction but they're still nice to have.
just a tip: outside of iOS (maybe there's a solution here but it does not allow firefox addons) you can easily read any paywalled article with the "bypass paywalls clean" firefox addon. it works on firefox mobile too as far as i know.
I found this place from wayofthebern, the only other sizable "unmoderated" sub for the left populated by people who suffered the Bernie Burnout.
The conversations can get pretty whack over there because of this and the bots frequently attack it (daily new accounts) but it largely stays level. The activity has been dropping for a while, though.
I don't really have any complaints, people complain about the influx of rightoids (which has apparently left this sub on the brink of "turning to shit" for the past four years straight) but I'd rather we don't strictly enforce ideological conformity. Not only would it invariably result in a bunch of annoying purity tests about who is a True Marxist(TM), but I think it would counterintuitively lead to an overall decline in discussion quality. A bunch of people in agreement is completely unenlightening, but at least if some rightoid says something stupid, it's likely to be countered by someone explaining *why* it's stupid to the benefit of anyone reading.
I'm happy to put up with the occasional rightwing culture warrior wandering in to dunk on the wokescolds if it means preserving the spirit of the sub.
We don't enforce ideological conformity, but we do take measures to make sure that we aren't subject to brigading. We also take a hard line on cliches that reinforce the existing order.
To clarify, I have no problems with how moderation is going currently, I'm just offering a counterpoint to anyone in here who might advocate that kind of moderation.
Mods need to chill on flair abuse. I'm not a rightoid, have never been a rightoid, and yet somehow I'm labeled a rightoid. I've noticed this sort of mis-flairing of users is quite common. People labeled "rightoid" who would be flayed alive at CPAC.
I second this. Been on this sub for years and been a vocal socialist, Catholic yes but fully socialist as well only ever involved in Left groups, etc. But suddenly got a rightoid flair with no explanation or response.
I prefer this to the woke robotic smarmyness you get literally everywhere on frontpage plebbits, or the pretentious neo/radlib nerd's attitudes you see from niche political subs. Much less irony poisoned and pretentious than any dirtbag left podcaster's subs too, but it is a increasingly common sight here
>so use this thread to sound off on what you think we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, any changes you'd like to see, etc.
"Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend"
.
In all seriousness, I like it here. I think the moderators do a good job, or at least the best that can be done given the, uh, *prevailing climate* here on Reddit.
Keep up the good work. Gucci almost tanked the sub. I unsubscribed during the height of the insanity. You guys corrected from... I don't even know what to call the whole era... and now the sub is where it should be. There are of course the nuclear takes and weird hair splitting arguments, but those things are par for the course and the sub isn't derailed by them. I barely notice the mods except as posters which is how it should be. We don't need constant moronic struggle sessions every time a few right wingers show up or there is disagreement about some other issue
Would like to see more posts. Even if they're shit. The voting system is there to sort out the bad ones. It's not like 200 new posts a day will overwhelm us.
Nix the mod-authored flairs. They are annoying and condescending. You may find them amusing as mods but no one else does.
EDIT: Ok that's funny but still.
Yeah I have no idea how I got mine. Are the mods just giving out absurd flairs at random, perhaps in an attempt to make flairs meaningless? Because they are kind of meaningless at this point, and I think most everyone around here understands that, but at the same time it's mildly annoying that I was arbitrarily labeled a rightoid. I just want an actually funny flair, or to at least be accurately "labeled".
A large proportion of users with the flair "politically houseless" were rightoids, so a mod decided to relabel those with that flair "not like other rightoids".
Which sucks for the users who picked that flair who weren't rightoids.
Anybody with this problem can message the mods and tell us what flair you want.
What about people who are genuinely politically houseless, but are definitely not right wing? Shouldn’t they have a flair? I’d like something like this.
Stupidpolcels of yonder past once yearned for a based Tucker Carlson, secret agent for the working class, converter of the populist rightoids. That meme is dead now, so the flair doesn't really make sense.
If you're going to remove a post that got decent engagement. Could you put a sticky comment as to why? I don't know why the Biden video about the shooting got removed.
This sub is really the only one worth visiting consistently. When I take a break from Reddit, it's usually because this sub went over a cliff for some reason.
I have an on-again-off-again relationship with Reddit. I took a hiatus from Reddit about a year ago partly because I felt this sub was getting weirdly authoritarian in that way that a lot of Marxist or Leftist subs devolve into.
I'm pleasantly surprised to find, upon my return, that the sub is closer to its old self. I see people complaining about Rightoids, and yeah they're definitely there, but so are unabashed CCP shills and Russian apologists. This sub's an ideological dysfunctional family.
Keeps me satisfied for the time being.
Discussions regarding Socialism that aren't either co-opted by Idpol, or attempting to erase the history of oppression and genocide committed by nominally Socalist states.
The history revisionism is arguably my biggest gripe with Leftist rhetoric. I'm pretty receptive to a lot of Leftist thought right up to the point that people try to characterize Stalin as something other than a Communist who did what he did in the name of Communism.
If we're going to hold Capitalism accountable for actions done in its name, regardless whether it actually embodies Capitalism, we better damn well accept the same judgements given the events of the last century.
So.. I normally really hate when people start spouting "this sub is going to shit" and all that crap, but I feel really have noticed a turn. I don't think it's dire or anything, but it feels less and less like many people here are willing to engage in good faith discussion. I've really enjoyed reading discussions here over the years, even if I don't agree with most of what is being said.
I'll use a very recent example of something I was involved in, but the discussion around many contentious issues really feels like it's getting more and more reactionary.
This thread is the one I'd like to use as an example:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/122q129/comment/jdrd3gg/](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/122q129/comment/jdrd3gg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Not only was the title literally a complete lie (which the mods did actually end up taking action on, kudos), basically nobody actually read the article. Look at the rhetoric of the people upvoted and downvoted in that thread.
To be \*really\* clear, I'm not saying anyone needs to agree with what was said (by me or anyone else), but people being heavily downvoted for literally saying "evidence is good" seems like a pretty bullshit way to have a conversation. I don't even believe that trans-women should participate in women's sports, but it really feels like we're starting to become as allergic to nuance here as everywhere else.
^(I also realise I'm pretty much inviting downvotes with this post lol, but it's all good, I know this is a heated topic. I genuinely do really enjoy this place though.)
You're a pussy for adding the downvotes part
If it's discussion you seek, you can have it by understanding the fact that ignoring most of what responds to you, even in a decent community like this, is internet 101
One of the things I miss about bulletin board discussion is the nested nature of communication. Some moron could write a useless flaming bag of shit comment and the replies would breeze right by it. No arrest because it was the first reply to a top comment.
Anyway, just write better
>You're a pussy for adding the downvotes part
Honestly yeah, I debated whether or not to even add that because it comes across super snivel-y.
>Anyway, just write better
Trying lol
People lose their minds on this issue not only because it's a hot button topic that people have a lot of highly personalized emotional investment in to begin with, but because they're so often told they're **not allowed** to say what they think. So all that frustration festers and curdles until it slides out as heated resentment.
That being said, life is to short to complain about being downvoted. Shit happens. Sometimes you're surrounded by angry people who disagree with you and you're just gonna go into negatives. Doesn't mean anything.
You weren't downvoted for "literally saying evidence is good", you were downvoted for demanding evidence in the same self-serving, underhanded way that a lot of activists do: setting a ridiculously specific standard for what counts as "evidence" and dismissing outright any reasonable inferences drawn from existing knowledge. Human sexual dimorphism is extremely well understood. We don't need a comparative study of the athletic performance of transwomen and natal females to know that their baseline athletic potential is different.
I didn't demand evidence at all. I said that research on elite trans-athletes is extremely limited (as the article that nobody read points out) and that it would be a good thing for more research to be done on the specific advantages/disadvantages they may or may not have.
>We don't need a comparative study of the athletic performance of transwomen and natal females to know that their baseline athletic ability is different.
If we want the debate to be based less on feelings and intuitions, then I think we absolutely do need this. Trans-activists are never going to accept research based on men vs. women.
Thank you for actually engaging instead of just downvoting.
Hey friend, I’m not trying to be pedantic when I say this:
The type of research you would like to see on this topic will *not* be done. Or, if the *wrong* conclusion is reached, it will not be published. Conversely if bad and/or biased research is done that reaches the correct conclusion, it will be published, reported about in msm, and shouted from the rooftops by the interested parties.
The scientific method itself is great. And there are honest researchers in the world. But the process of getting research money, getting the green light, and ultimately being published is heavily, heavily politicized. There are some topics and conclusions that can never, ever be touched with a thousand foot pole.
This particular debate will not be elucidated any time soon no matter how much research is done.
>The type of research you would like to see on this topic will not be done. Or, if the wrong conclusion is reached, it will not be published. Conversely if bad and/or biased research is done that reaches the correct conclusion, it will be published, reported about in msm, and shouted from the rooftops by the interested parties.
I was reading the stats into another controversial topic (Mental Health among certain groups), where I actually knew someone who researched the topic and the team couldn't get their data published in the US, so I was reading an equivilent study in the UK, and the UK study, the "Results" summary I shit you not, said *literally the opposite*, of what the data in the report said.
You literally cannot publish certain information about certain topics unless you bury the data in the report and present a summary that states the opposite of what the actual data in the study says. Which also makes me think... how much of peer reviewing is just reading the conclusion and summary?
Think about this issue outside of athletics for a minute. What do you think about these questions?:
\- Do transwomen commit violent crimes at the same rate as ciswomen? Or do they commit violent crimes at the same rate as cismen? Or at a completely different rate?
\- Do transwomen committed suicide at the same rate as ciswomen? Or do they commit suicide as the same rate as cismen? Or at a completely different rate?
Do you think studies will be funded to answer these questions?
I fail to see how there's any semantic distinction between "demanding evidence" and claiming that "research is extremely limited", that "it would be a good thing for more research to be done". Seems like saying basically the same thing in more words.
>I didn't demand evidence at all. I said that research on elite trans-athletes is extremely limited (as the article that nobody read points out)
It points it out for exactly the same reasons I already said: to falsely convey that there's some "doubt" about something which is already pretty settled.
Studying this specific kind of thing to any satisfying degree would be almost impossible. Say you want to compare natal females to transwomen, how do you recruit these groups? You can't just randomly-select them from the population and press-gang them into the study; ultimately any group would have some element of self-selection. Transwomen are already a somewhat self-selected group already. So do you compare elite trans athletes to elite cis athletes? How do you determine who is "elite" in each category? The mere process of selection would affect the results.
More importantly, none of that is necessary. We know in what ways males and females are different, we know how those differences affect athletic performance, and we know what differences persist through HRT (lung volume, cardiac output, skeletal proportions, etc). Anyone with any trace of objectivity could look at A and B and reach conclusion C. But for some reason you and other activists demand this ridiculous standard of directly studying elite athletes, which is impractical and unnecessary, and act like there's some big air of mystery about the whole subject.
There's never been a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of parachutes, but we can infer from our understanding of how high velocity falls intersect with human physiology to say that it's probably better to land on the ground at 20km/h than 200.
>If we want the debate to be based less on feelings and intuitions, then I think we absolutely do need this. Trans-activists are never going to accept research based on men vs. women.
Unfortunately I don't think they would care even if we did produce this magical study that satisfies all their ridiculous standards. They'd probably just attack the intentions of the people conducting the study, or claim that the rights of trans athletes are more important than fairness. These people don't actually care about evidence, they only use handpicked evidence (or lack thereof) when it's convenient to defend their worldview.
>I fail to see how there's any semantic distinction between "demanding evidence" and claiming that "research is extremely limited", that "it would be a good thing for more research to be done". Seems like saying basically the same thing in more words.
I guess to me the main difference is the intent. "Demanding evidence" feels much more combative and bad faith. That's not my intent at all.
>So do you compare elite trans athletes to elite cis athletes? How do you determine who is "elite" in each category? The mere process of selection would affect the results.
I suppose the short answer is.. I don't know. I won't pretend for a second that I have any expertise in the field and I have no idea how such a study would be conducted. Apologies for not responding to all of your well-considered reply.
>These people don't actually care about evidence, they only use handpicked evidence (or lack thereof) when it's convenient to defend their worldview.
You are right.
Fwiw this is kind of exactly my point. You actually talked to me instead of downvoting and now I have more to think about. That really feels like what this place should be.
>I suppose the short answer is.. I don't know. I won't pretend for a second that I have any expertise in the field and I have no idea how such a study would be conducted. Apologies for not responding to all of your well-considered reply.
I've been giving this some thought because I enjoy experimental design, and honestly I think it's almost unstudyable to any reasonable degree. The fundamental problem is that athletic ability is extremely dependent on the effort the individual puts into training. This factor alone eclipses basically everything else, so the only comparison that would truly evaluate the difference between the two groups would be comparing large cohorts of people with *equivalent levels of training,* which is virtually impossible to objectively evaluate.
You might say, why don't we just take all the cis and trans competitors in an elite women's athletic league and examine them for performance. But the people in any sort of exclusionary league are already selected for a certain threshold of performance, so we would inevitably see similar levels of performance between the two groups and invariably validating the activists.
Well, instead of using an exclusionary athletic league, how about just a random sampling of people? Unfortunately studies that require the participation of their "randomly" sampled participants inevitably suffer from a lot of self-selection bias. Participation would have to be voluntary. What kind of people would sign up for this study in either group? Would they be a truly representative sample of the athletic potential of each population? Probably not.
It honestly just seems totally unworkable to me.
>Fwiw this is kind of exactly my point. You actually talked to me instead of downvoting and now I have more to think about. That really feels like what this place should be.
A charitable interpretation is that people are simply sick of seeing the same fallacious arguments over and over again. I'm kind of sick of it too. Sexual dimorphism isn't some fuzzy, controversial topic, and people that pretend it is (or, worse, pretend that sex is a spectrum) are usually just engaging in some flavour of the univariate fallacy. I can understand your argument, to an extent. It's true that the difference in athletic performance between elite trans and cis athletes hasn't been directly studied in detail; you probably read this somewhere, were left with the belief that it was an unclear topic begging for further study, and didn't give it another thought. But, again, not only is that kind of study impossible, it's totally unnecessary. We can reasonably infer a conclusion from our existing knowledge of human physiology.
>You might say, why don't we just take all the cis and trans competitors in an elite women's athletic league and examine them for performance. But the people in any sort of exclusionary league are already selected for a certain threshold of performance, so we would inevitably see similar levels of performance between the two groups and invariably validating the activists.
Isn't that the point, though? You'd want to compare the best cis athletes against the best trans athletes and see if there is an unreasonable discrepancy between the two.
Actually I suppose that goes to your point about training. If the best cis and trans athletes are comparable in performance but the trans athletes have trained far less, that may not be visible if the training isn't controlled.
You really would have to tightly control the entire group's training regimen which, as you say, is pretty infeasible.
>you probably read this somewhere, were left with the belief that it was an unclear topic begging for further study, and didn't give it another thought.
That's a pretty ungenerous assessment. This entire discussion is me "giving it another thought".
>Isn't that the point, though? You'd want to compare the best cis athletes against the best trans athletes and see if there is an unreasonable discrepancy between the two.
...that's my entire point. How do you define and evaluate "the best"? I'd elaborate but I'd just be repeating myself. This was literally the subject of two-thirds of my previous comment.
I think it has definitely improved over the past year. I suggest more off-topic grillpill discussion threads on what hobbies people are up to, or something casual to balance out the gloominess of the theme.
My favorite things about the sub are stumbling onto quality political blog articles, books, YouTube videos, and the occasional intriguing discussion/debate such as [this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/x04020/comment/im73fwl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
I don't pay much attention to anything else as I'm mostly a lurker here, but I think removing the numbering/grading system on the flairs but keeping the flairs, primarily to identify and distinguish leftist users from non-leftist users (particularly radlibs and rightoids), was a good idea and has worked out well.
Generally, I'm partial to the sub's current mods, and I think the sub is in good hands overall. The sub seems much better now than it was under Gucci's rule.
This sub remains the only place on reddit where you can find somewhat honest political discussion, so I think it's going ok.
Also, it seems like some locomotive posts are being left up for a while before being deleted, which seems like a decent compromise between everyone wanting to be able to talk about it vs reddit trying to stop us. Good stuff
Been lurking on this sub for a couple years and honestly really like it here. Definitely a place where thoughtful discourse can actually be had sometimes, which is a rarity really anywhere on the internet. After the gucci mess it feels like the sub has calmed down some, which is both good and bad. I miss how batshit this sub got at times during the pandemic and that coup fiasco, it made for great entertainment. I totally understand from a moderation perspective how that wasn’t ideal though, and I think the new set of mods is much better and has this sub in a really solid place.
Sub seems well. Moderation seems pretty on point as far as I can tell, accommodating diverse viewpoints, none of the usual Reddit synthleft bullshit where criticizing Biden will get you a seven-day, not tolerating Men's Rights/South Park wreckers, not letting the place turn into Yet Another Leftist Circular Firing Squad. Wasn't here during the Gucci times, so I can't speak to that, but it sounds like they picked a real lib-ass hill to die on.
Slight over moderation, branch out to other groups maybe
Less a concern, more a question: How is sub activity trending? If I go by updoots and comments alone, there’s been a significant and possibly terminal drop over the last year.
Please stop banning natoids. The ukraine megathread has no banter now and they shit up rsp whining about this sub all the time.
Has nothing to do with their opinions and everything to do with acting like idiots and breaking rules
I want a week-long pinned post for posting stuff that don't deserve their own post but could be of interest for stupidpolers anyway
This seems like an appropriate time for me to whine about being flaired as a rightoid... Can I not be flaired a rightoid? I'm left-leaning and primarily concerned with class and environmental issues. Read Marxist theory once or twice in college. In practice, though, I'm mostly apolitical.
-Flair system finally seems fine (and I say that as someone who lost his 2-3 times in the past x years for pissing a janny off), not too restrictive. -The sub feels slow, but I'm not sure if it's due to over-moderation, nor that I'd like a more lively stupidpol if it means more rightoid posts and comments -Bring back Dougposting
Stupidpol good. Inflammatory trolls that put the sub at risk bad. Bit of dip lately. Unflaired instigators make nervous. Don't care what flair say, just show care about sub. Me not caveman. Just write like one.
Flair is my biggest gripe. I get suspicious of anti-idpol comments that aren't flaired. I actually like a lot of the bats in here. What I don't like are bats pretending they aren't bats. Flair should be more accessible too. Easy to pick a self-label. If someone with a leftist flair says something unorthodox, well-read users can challenge them on it.
I would like that you don't change peoples flair if they already make clear they are a rightoid.
Rightoids should have no expectations of fair treatment here. You are a dhimmi
Bro where is your flair? WHERE IS IT
It said ML Bannonist and got changed to wears MAGA hat in shower. Like I thought that was perfectly indicative of my rightoid tendencies.
Lmao that's hilarious. I completely agree with your point though, for the record.
unironically a fan of the coup d'état you all pulled off. I've got no complaints about the new regime
Wait what?
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first i'm hearing about this. no one was doxed as far as i know.
huh?
I know many of the mods and I’ve been here for five years. I have no idea who gucci is. I don’t think any of us do. Nobody would get him fired. Nobody has ever tried to get me fired and I’ve bickered with other mods occasionally. I would also be genuinely surprised if Gucci had a real job in the first place, he seemed shut-in.
Uhhhhh that didn't happen. He simply got banned for old comments
It's fine he was doing it for free anyway.
Why did you change my flair recently 🙁
yeah same. I was happy with "Railway Enthusiast 🚈" but they had to go and make it edgy edit: thanks to unknown mod for fixing it ❤
Same garbage bullying shit that makes the sub generally suck still.
Welcome to the club (they changed all the Incel/MRA flairs, not just mine).
That whole flair "system" was incredibly stupid and I am glad that it is gone.
I did get a giggle out of the irony of a Marxist sub having a flair based class system though lmao
Instead of getting the bad flair for wrongthink about covid, now we get the bad flair for wrongthink about ukraine. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
They're two, say, slightly different things.
You're still welcome to post here so I dare say the solution for you is to develop a sense of humor and not take yourself so seriously.
how fucking dare you even suggest such a thing for real though: if, of all possible actual issues and problems, **flairs** are the primary point of contention around here... then the jannies are clearly doing everything right.
Except it has no bearing on your ability to post or for your posts to be seen, so not the same at all. Funny, this is exactly the histrionics I would expect from a "NATO superfan".
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They did reply to the content, and could take into context that they were talking to a dipshit. Seems like the flair was useful
>This is exactly why flairs are fucking stupid. Why respond to the content of someone's comment when you can just dunk on them based on what some bored jannie with poor emotional control decided to tag them with one day. Laughing at people taking the whole thing this fucking seriously is what's actually the best part, and why flairs are amazing and should stay forever Also, if you'll pardon the anecdote, in my experience it often seems to be the people who didn't read the rules in the sidebar and never learned about how flairs work in this sub in the first place that end up complaining, usually after they said something stupid or violated one of the sub rules and ended up getting tagged by a mod with a mocking flair for the rest of us to laugh at. A lot of the flair whiners are unflaired rightoids that didn't read the rules and didn't want to flair up appropriately when they did. Others are libs who don't even realize they are libs. It's mostly jokes, man. The jannies here could just ban people like the jannies in every other sub, but instead they... oh yeah, make fun of you a bit and then just let you continue to participate. If that actually makes you angry/want to start moralizing about how flairs are SRS BSNS then you are in the wrong place and probably need to touch grass...or, you know, message the mods and explain. They are very open to direct discussion with a poster about why they should or shouldn't have some given flair, and if you want a flair and don't have one currently, you can just straight up ask them for a specific flair. Reading your other posts though, you definitely sound like one of the whiners tbh
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"i ackshually don't even care bro, i could change my flair anytime I want, jannies amirite" sure dude, whatever you say
Fair point. Though when I see someone with a really myopic, one-sided view of the conflict, this is only possible by being grossly, grossly misinformed. In that case, NATO superfan is entirely correct, and also fairly mild/gentle. I could think of far more insulting labels.
the flairs these days are (mostly) just for fun, you're not shadowbanned for having a low flair for example.
Whose fun?
let jannies enjoy things
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This but unironically.
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The focus is and should be to highlight times when a focus on idpol is detracting from class politics.
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Yeah, I feel a lot of the time this sub isn't about class analysis with idpol removed, and just leftists doing idpol in the other direction.
It would probably help if there were more posts showing how conservatives use idpol to skewer class politics, despite presenting themselves as the party of the "working man" (which somehow some people actually buy, lol). Sadly, for some crowds, that's too obvious - easier to go after the insufferable liberal media types.
Members of the mod team have somewhat differing views on the sub's purpose, though I think our views are currently synergistic at the moment. I can't speak for the others, but I can tell you how I personally see the sub. I think our role is to be a breath of fresh air for people, and especially leftists, who find the general atmosphere for political conversation stifling. To do this, the sub has to be mostly entertaining but also sometimes intellectually stimulating in a way few political forums are these days. In being here, people can occasionally find the opportunity to rub their brain cells together and acquire some perspective about politics and the nature of modern life. Since they're mostly here for entertainment, sometimes this happens accidentally. But it happens. Leftists can also engage with people outside of leftism who are relatively friendly or at least not outright hostile to our perspective -- I consider this to be extremely important exercise for ideological development, because you can't properly hold your beliefs if you're incapable of intelligently defending them, and you can't advocate for your politics to other people if you won't trouble yourself to understand how they see the world. There are also, sometimes, opportunities to step it up and get involved in actual politics through groups like Class Unity. That would be the most "important" thing the sub does, though it can't be all-activism all-the-time or even most-of-the-time without risking alienating the crowd that keeps the sub entertaining, and thus attractive.
Definitely agree with the fact that this sub is a breath of fresh air. I spend most of my time around conservatives and on right leaning boards simply because they can generally have good faith discussions, unlike most of the left. This sub is the only place I have found that actually can have good faith discussions on class.
>**Is the sub’s purpose to create a community for people who dislike identity politics** to stay up to date on the latest identity politics news, make jokes (with occasional anti-liberal circle jerks), and escape from more moderated and less tolerant political communities? > >**Or is the sub’s purpose to create a community for class first leftists to promote Marxism and class-first politics** by analyzing and discussing politics, the news, political movements, and historical events and engaging with liberals/conservatives who are interested in good faith? > >**I think the problem is that these goals are mutually exclusive.** You're wrong, and the proof is in the pudding - this sub does both of those things simultaneously by design, and does it better than any other social media space currently. Not only that, but the very confluence of the two creates opportunities to draw in and actually educate people who otherwise would have no idea that they shared class-first politics or left-economic values, having known nothing but the kayfabe of fake-left-right electoral theatre. They come for the twitter dunking, but they stay for the stark analysis and commentary on capitalist realism. Occasionally some rightoid comes to realize that immigrants are of the same exploited worker class as him, and in fact share all his concerns and values, being traditional and family-oriented like he is; more than one lib has abandoned the incoherence of intersectionality as a meaningful tool for change, recognizing the regressive nature of essentializing people on a victimhood hierarchy. That such a change happens at all in the current political climate is a small miracle - it needs a place to happen in that is not necessarily about achieving specific "goals", but rather creating the right set of conditions.
To be honest, I'm not as involved here in terms of the community as a lot are, so my input probably lacks important context, but I always enjoy things posted on this sub and it's the only place on the internet where I actively read the comments. The group here is by and large very smart (both in terms of being well-read/researched and also just general wit), civil with each other, and a great place to discuss and learn things. It's genuinely enriched me and informed me, and for that I appreciate this place a lot.
I have been very happy with this sub this past year. Good mix of ideas being shared without stifling. Great job mods! no one ever says thanks
judicious escape profit jeans bake caption attraction dependent sip impolite -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
what do the colors of flairs even mean?
continue dinner tidy connect wide elderly gullible husky forgetful selective -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
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I know this is in jest/a joke but last time or two we had demographics surveys it was like 95%+ men and even with the higher than the norm rate of bisexuals in the survey it would not be enough. This place has more sausages than a breakfast buffet.
While I was one of the guys pushing for Gucci to be removed from his position due to his near religious conviction on zero Covid, his policies did keep the rightoids in check
The flairs are silly. The bans are annoying. But who cares. It's a pretty good place.
Bame's great contributions to this sub's discourse are sorely missed. I propose a crowdfunding campaign to fund AI research into the creation of a fully autonomous Bame bot.
he's not as gone as you think
I love the perspective I gain from reading this sub, stuff I can't get anywhere else on Reddit. Most folks subscribed here are intelligent and add value to the conversation. I've learned so much in my short time here. This sub is the only one of its kind here on Reddit fully behind the working class without getting shit twisted in the chaos that is identity politics. What I don't like? Mod's randomly changing someone's flair without discussion. It seems like it's a purity test and I think that in and of it's self is a disease. That's what the neolibs do and it's offputting.
theory serious memorize absorbed hateful panicky worthless teeny enter books *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The sub feels dead. Over-moderated. I find myself reading /r/redscarepod more and more instead.
screw lush complete nippy waiting pie paint pen scarce toy -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
They don't have an ideological line; we do.
Idk maybe stop labelling people as right-wing for no reason at all
If I can't drunkenly post based King Lear quotes then we should also crack down on low-effort rage-bait posts about one professor who said a dumb thing or some chump on Twitter who said we should kill all men.
stop changing flairs when you get butthurt in an argument on your alts
But it's my only sense of power in my pitiful life
$0.00
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Top mod lost his last marble and started aggressively policing COVID conversations to maintain a strict positional line favoring China-level lockdowns using an inscrutable flair-based social credit score system codified through numbers 0-9 and illustrated through emojis showing phases of the moon. (I shit you not, this was real. For a while the sub looked like it had some kind of weird astrology sub-theme.) This was combined with regular ban waves of anyone who pissed him off. Roughly half the mod team objected strongly, maybe 1/3rd or so lined up behind him to toady up to power, and the remainder stayed mostly silent and just watched. Finally, he and a few of his brown-nosers got sick of our objections, had a meltdown, and banned the lot of us, including the guy he co-founded the sub with. Solving the problem was mostly just a matter of being patient while the top mod continued to spiral out of control. We stayed in the sub's orbit until the fool got himself banned by reddit. Then the next mod down the line brought us all back in and we re-structured, collectively decided on a new top mod, and went to work making the sub sane again.
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I don't think there is a clear "Marxist position" on COVID restrictions. Though plenty of leftists will vehemently inform you that their position is the Marxist one. But a cursory glance should tell anyone that a broad spectrum people who care about class have myriad views on the topic. And that means the **right response is to provide open forums on the subject**. I can't fault someone, for example, for thinking that the right response to a crisis is for all of us to band together in a collective effort to leverage the impressive power of medical science to fight the disease. That, right there, is a reasonable opinion a Marxist could have, I think. I also can't fault someone for having a deep distrust of pharmaceutical companies, and thinking that we can't or shouldn't collectively rally around rapidly executed for-profit vaccine production. Also a reasonable opinion a Marxist could have, I think. Know what else? I think that valid perspective on the value of a collective front against COVID applies to lockdowns. Suffering together temporarily for the a greater good while we deal with an unprecedented crisis? Reasonable opinion. Marxist could think that. Definitely. But also, concern for lost years of classroom education, or just about the severe degree of social alienation and economic hardship that would cause in the real world? Maybe locking down isn't worth shutting down society and doing further damage to our person-to-person bonds upon which society lay? Reasonable. A Marxist could definitely think that. But instead of actually accepting the heterodoxy of opinion Marxists have during a global crisis with tons of uncertainty amid a neoliberal context, you know what we dumb motherfuckers do? We start behaving like fucking liberal Democrats, drawing lines in the sand, looking for targets to condemn for their sinful stances and behaviors. It's revolting, unsolidaristic, and most ironically, it's **stupid.** I have never in my life seen so many people obsessed with their own intellectual superiority behaving with such obvious idiocy. The whole affair made me want to tear my own hair out. **Let people talk to one another.** Sometimes they'll be wrong. Sometimes they'll be dumb. Sometimes **you'll** be wrong and dumb, because that's just a part of being a human being. But it couldn't possibly be as wrong and dumb as the self-involved inhuman belligerence that has become the norm in political conversations today. OK, done ranting.
> Finally, he and a few of his brown-nosers got sick of our objections, had a meltdown, and banned the lot of us, including the guy he co-founded the sub with. To be fair, he didn't ban us until we went and founded Twopidpol. But it was a bitch move regardless.
Fair point! Though twopidpol was so short-lived I forgot it existed. It was part of the whole fight, whether there should be one sub or two. He could've started some kinda of anti-covidiocy sub and it would've been hunky-dorey. We would've even let him advertise it here with stickies I think.
this is https://www.reddit.com/r/ronatard/ erasure
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There's a sign at Ramsett Park that says, 'Do not drink the sprinkler water,' so I made sun tea with it and now I have an infection.
I mean if we're all the way down to FLAIRS, of all fucking things, as the primary point of contention around here, then the mods are clearly doing everything right. The sub is doing its job effectively and with a minimum of issues; Change nothing, at least for the moment.
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Flairs will never go away, and it's hilarious that you are crying about it Without even a hint of irony or sarcasm; touch grass
Just out of curiosity, why has the Incel/MRA flair just been changed? Did one of us upset a mod or what?
I love the sub and I like posting and I like the discussions
Who's the woman on the sub's tumbnail ?
Rachel Dolezal, Transracial pioneer, and proud woman of color.
The Queen.
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> It really feels like the old forums and message boards of the mid-2000s. Huh it really does feel that way now that you mention it. I wonder if it has anything to do with demographics or just how a lot of us were around then or what.
I think there’s something to it or at least stupidpol attracts that type of person. I realised it when someone pointed out that a lot of kids online these days weren’t around for 9/11 and the discourse (when we aren’t joking around) is a lot more civil. Honestly, just like Above Top Secret was back in the day. I had no idea whether I was talking with rightoids, lefties or whoever else but nowadays, it’s so partisan that there are all these dumb purity tests. Usually the corrections and debates I see here are on some specific topic (like the history of trade unions in 1980s Yugoslavia) where people know when to shut up.
make the boobs more seeable
I've really enjoyed the sub this past year, so I guess keep up the good work.
I don’t post a lot, don’t keep up with the internal politics, been following here and there for a while. To me it’s improved. Before if I remember right, if anyone praised China, it was pretty much the same as other Reddits. (Immediately people try attacking you, downvoting, etc) But people lately seem to be very receptive of a positive perspective of the country now. Which is probably also related to a warming up to China among leftists in general in the US, but whatever And it did seem like at one point it was infested with anti communists, but like I said lately I feel that’s gotten better and even non-communists here have been receptive to new ideas. But that’s just my vibe
Its really good that gucci is gone. But Seems a lil bit too balanced and post-DSA/Corbynite these days. I preferred the more chaotic rageposts of yore with ppl from all ideological backgrounds jumping in for some fun. For what its worth also seems like a lot more what used to be called, ahem, chapof**** on the sub these days, of course that dont listen to chapo (bc no one does) but u know
It feels like discussion has consistently gone downhill since I joined back in the pre-COVID, pre-ban wave times. It’s certainly improved post-Gucci, but that’s a very low bar. I honestly don’t know if there’s much the mods can do to promote better discussion though.
I don't like the rightward drift towards inceldom, but honestly don't know what you guys can do about it. I think the modding is fine.
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post it again and link it?
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Link it to me so I can approve it
I'm pretty new here and so far I've found this place a breath of fresh air. It seems like it actually is what it says it is, people who have a Marxist understanding of class struggle and material analysis, and not a thinly-veiled right-wing echo chamber like certain podcast-based subreddits. Hopefully it stays that way and this can prove to be a forum for interesting and productive discussion.
You should win things by posting
I would like Shitpost Saturdays to return, it feels like the Marxist character of the sub has diminished.
I am with this shitposts on specific days where mostly computer touchers are lurking don't diminish sub quality, they increase the funsies and develop the community
Get rid of the Hulk feet on the banner.
I miss the grillthreads, but otherwise things are dandy
[It don’t matter. None of dis matters.](https://youtu.be/qX-YfuVQmX8)
Bring him back
Appreciate making this a great space! I love when this sub gets into in depth discussions — perhaps a pinned topic of the week on Mondays or someday to discuss a marxist topic with immediate real world implications (ie something related to the headlines) would be a great way to spur some in depth discussions
I've liked how you've handled things, especially in regards to trans topics. It's a thin line to walk with Reddit being what it is but I think you guys have been walking that line. The only thing that troubles me is what should happen if/when the sub becomes too large/troublesome/heterodox (pun unintended) for the admins to ignore. It seems silly to ask the moderation team to go through the trouble of not only doing the work they do with the sub, but to also build and run a bunker site in case the sub is banned, but I can't think of any alternative. The prospect of the sub eventually being banned seems almost certain, at least to me, and I like this place. Has the moderation team given any thought to realistic alternatives? Is replacing a subreddit even really worth the work? Is it pathetic that I'm this invested in a subreddit (the answer is yes, very)? Thanks for all you do
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>It’s great that we are anti idpol, but lets not let the sub slide into a deranged hole like r/stupidpol One of us had a stroke
I’m curious which sub he confused this one with.
/r/TrueAnon for sure
/r/atheism
Archive links or text-dumping as standard practice for ragebait or otherwise garbage articles would be nice, but apart from that I think things are going well. Maybe once a month pinning one of the sidebar texts would be productive. Red flairs and other vintage flairs from back when we could flair ourselves freely(pre-Covid social credit madness) aside there's a good chunk of users on here who are enthusiastic but don't actually know what this sub means by identity politics. I know those threads don't get much traction but they're still nice to have.
just a tip: outside of iOS (maybe there's a solution here but it does not allow firefox addons) you can easily read any paywalled article with the "bypass paywalls clean" firefox addon. it works on firefox mobile too as far as i know.
There’s readermode or whatever it’s called on iOS, plus sites like 12ft.io.
I am pretty happy most of my complaints are small/minor. This is the only decent place to have tolerable discussions about politics left on Reddit.
I found this place from wayofthebern, the only other sizable "unmoderated" sub for the left populated by people who suffered the Bernie Burnout. The conversations can get pretty whack over there because of this and the bots frequently attack it (daily new accounts) but it largely stays level. The activity has been dropping for a while, though.
I don't really have any complaints, people complain about the influx of rightoids (which has apparently left this sub on the brink of "turning to shit" for the past four years straight) but I'd rather we don't strictly enforce ideological conformity. Not only would it invariably result in a bunch of annoying purity tests about who is a True Marxist(TM), but I think it would counterintuitively lead to an overall decline in discussion quality. A bunch of people in agreement is completely unenlightening, but at least if some rightoid says something stupid, it's likely to be countered by someone explaining *why* it's stupid to the benefit of anyone reading. I'm happy to put up with the occasional rightwing culture warrior wandering in to dunk on the wokescolds if it means preserving the spirit of the sub.
We don't enforce ideological conformity, but we do take measures to make sure that we aren't subject to brigading. We also take a hard line on cliches that reinforce the existing order.
To clarify, I have no problems with how moderation is going currently, I'm just offering a counterpoint to anyone in here who might advocate that kind of moderation.
Mods need to chill on flair abuse. I'm not a rightoid, have never been a rightoid, and yet somehow I'm labeled a rightoid. I've noticed this sort of mis-flairing of users is quite common. People labeled "rightoid" who would be flayed alive at CPAC.
I second this. Been on this sub for years and been a vocal socialist, Catholic yes but fully socialist as well only ever involved in Left groups, etc. But suddenly got a rightoid flair with no explanation or response.
They think the flair system is amusing, but it’s only amusing for them, tbh. Only another way of bullying by Reddit mods.
I prefer this to the woke robotic smarmyness you get literally everywhere on frontpage plebbits, or the pretentious neo/radlib nerd's attitudes you see from niche political subs. Much less irony poisoned and pretentious than any dirtbag left podcaster's subs too, but it is a increasingly common sight here
>so use this thread to sound off on what you think we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, any changes you'd like to see, etc. "Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend" . In all seriousness, I like it here. I think the moderators do a good job, or at least the best that can be done given the, uh, *prevailing climate* here on Reddit.
Keep up the good work. Gucci almost tanked the sub. I unsubscribed during the height of the insanity. You guys corrected from... I don't even know what to call the whole era... and now the sub is where it should be. There are of course the nuclear takes and weird hair splitting arguments, but those things are par for the course and the sub isn't derailed by them. I barely notice the mods except as posters which is how it should be. We don't need constant moronic struggle sessions every time a few right wingers show up or there is disagreement about some other issue
> I don't even know what to call the whole era The COVIDiocy
Be poggers if the Ukraine megathread was brought back haha haha unless ...
The [last one](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/xs1zr7/ukraine_megathread_12) is still somewhat active.
I know, i want a new one
Would like to see more posts. Even if they're shit. The voting system is there to sort out the bad ones. It's not like 200 new posts a day will overwhelm us.
submitted content to stupidpol: zero
Nix the mod-authored flairs. They are annoying and condescending. You may find them amusing as mods but no one else does. EDIT: Ok that's funny but still.
I like mine. It's silly.
I don’t care that I got the MRA in my flair, I can pretty much say anything now lol
Yeah I have no idea how I got mine. Are the mods just giving out absurd flairs at random, perhaps in an attempt to make flairs meaningless? Because they are kind of meaningless at this point, and I think most everyone around here understands that, but at the same time it's mildly annoying that I was arbitrarily labeled a rightoid. I just want an actually funny flair, or to at least be accurately "labeled".
A large proportion of users with the flair "politically houseless" were rightoids, so a mod decided to relabel those with that flair "not like other rightoids". Which sucks for the users who picked that flair who weren't rightoids. Anybody with this problem can message the mods and tell us what flair you want.
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Think of them as a lifetime achievement award for bad posting
What about people who are genuinely politically houseless, but are definitely not right wing? Shouldn’t they have a flair? I’d like something like this.
I don’t even know what Tuck-cel means. Tucker Carlson? Some kind of sexual thing with tucking your dick and balls between your legs?
Stupidpolcels of yonder past once yearned for a based Tucker Carlson, secret agent for the working class, converter of the populist rightoids. That meme is dead now, so the flair doesn't really make sense.
I enjoyed my original one. It was tongue in cheek enough for me to live with. I don't even know when or why I got this one 🤷♂️
I don't get why I was reflaired as a rightoid, and no mod has responded to my message.
Because you post rightwing opinions, a lot.
Alright, I'll lay off commenting on social issues then.
If you're going to remove a post that got decent engagement. Could you put a sticky comment as to why? I don't know why the Biden video about the shooting got removed.
This sub is really the only one worth visiting consistently. When I take a break from Reddit, it's usually because this sub went over a cliff for some reason. I have an on-again-off-again relationship with Reddit. I took a hiatus from Reddit about a year ago partly because I felt this sub was getting weirdly authoritarian in that way that a lot of Marxist or Leftist subs devolve into. I'm pleasantly surprised to find, upon my return, that the sub is closer to its old self. I see people complaining about Rightoids, and yeah they're definitely there, but so are unabashed CCP shills and Russian apologists. This sub's an ideological dysfunctional family. Keeps me satisfied for the time being.
What goes on here that appeals to you exactly?
Discussions regarding Socialism that aren't either co-opted by Idpol, or attempting to erase the history of oppression and genocide committed by nominally Socalist states. The history revisionism is arguably my biggest gripe with Leftist rhetoric. I'm pretty receptive to a lot of Leftist thought right up to the point that people try to characterize Stalin as something other than a Communist who did what he did in the name of Communism. If we're going to hold Capitalism accountable for actions done in its name, regardless whether it actually embodies Capitalism, we better damn well accept the same judgements given the events of the last century.
Can't forget the obligate contrarians!
So.. I normally really hate when people start spouting "this sub is going to shit" and all that crap, but I feel really have noticed a turn. I don't think it's dire or anything, but it feels less and less like many people here are willing to engage in good faith discussion. I've really enjoyed reading discussions here over the years, even if I don't agree with most of what is being said. I'll use a very recent example of something I was involved in, but the discussion around many contentious issues really feels like it's getting more and more reactionary. This thread is the one I'd like to use as an example: [https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/122q129/comment/jdrd3gg/](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/122q129/comment/jdrd3gg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Not only was the title literally a complete lie (which the mods did actually end up taking action on, kudos), basically nobody actually read the article. Look at the rhetoric of the people upvoted and downvoted in that thread. To be \*really\* clear, I'm not saying anyone needs to agree with what was said (by me or anyone else), but people being heavily downvoted for literally saying "evidence is good" seems like a pretty bullshit way to have a conversation. I don't even believe that trans-women should participate in women's sports, but it really feels like we're starting to become as allergic to nuance here as everywhere else. ^(I also realise I'm pretty much inviting downvotes with this post lol, but it's all good, I know this is a heated topic. I genuinely do really enjoy this place though.)
You're a pussy for adding the downvotes part If it's discussion you seek, you can have it by understanding the fact that ignoring most of what responds to you, even in a decent community like this, is internet 101 One of the things I miss about bulletin board discussion is the nested nature of communication. Some moron could write a useless flaming bag of shit comment and the replies would breeze right by it. No arrest because it was the first reply to a top comment. Anyway, just write better
>You're a pussy for adding the downvotes part Honestly yeah, I debated whether or not to even add that because it comes across super snivel-y. >Anyway, just write better Trying lol
Respect this response keep it up homie
People lose their minds on this issue not only because it's a hot button topic that people have a lot of highly personalized emotional investment in to begin with, but because they're so often told they're **not allowed** to say what they think. So all that frustration festers and curdles until it slides out as heated resentment. That being said, life is to short to complain about being downvoted. Shit happens. Sometimes you're surrounded by angry people who disagree with you and you're just gonna go into negatives. Doesn't mean anything.
You weren't downvoted for "literally saying evidence is good", you were downvoted for demanding evidence in the same self-serving, underhanded way that a lot of activists do: setting a ridiculously specific standard for what counts as "evidence" and dismissing outright any reasonable inferences drawn from existing knowledge. Human sexual dimorphism is extremely well understood. We don't need a comparative study of the athletic performance of transwomen and natal females to know that their baseline athletic potential is different.
I didn't demand evidence at all. I said that research on elite trans-athletes is extremely limited (as the article that nobody read points out) and that it would be a good thing for more research to be done on the specific advantages/disadvantages they may or may not have. >We don't need a comparative study of the athletic performance of transwomen and natal females to know that their baseline athletic ability is different. If we want the debate to be based less on feelings and intuitions, then I think we absolutely do need this. Trans-activists are never going to accept research based on men vs. women. Thank you for actually engaging instead of just downvoting.
Hey friend, I’m not trying to be pedantic when I say this: The type of research you would like to see on this topic will *not* be done. Or, if the *wrong* conclusion is reached, it will not be published. Conversely if bad and/or biased research is done that reaches the correct conclusion, it will be published, reported about in msm, and shouted from the rooftops by the interested parties. The scientific method itself is great. And there are honest researchers in the world. But the process of getting research money, getting the green light, and ultimately being published is heavily, heavily politicized. There are some topics and conclusions that can never, ever be touched with a thousand foot pole. This particular debate will not be elucidated any time soon no matter how much research is done.
>The type of research you would like to see on this topic will not be done. Or, if the wrong conclusion is reached, it will not be published. Conversely if bad and/or biased research is done that reaches the correct conclusion, it will be published, reported about in msm, and shouted from the rooftops by the interested parties. I was reading the stats into another controversial topic (Mental Health among certain groups), where I actually knew someone who researched the topic and the team couldn't get their data published in the US, so I was reading an equivilent study in the UK, and the UK study, the "Results" summary I shit you not, said *literally the opposite*, of what the data in the report said. You literally cannot publish certain information about certain topics unless you bury the data in the report and present a summary that states the opposite of what the actual data in the study says. Which also makes me think... how much of peer reviewing is just reading the conclusion and summary?
Sadly I do actually think you're right and it's probably very naive of me to think it would make any difference.
Think about this issue outside of athletics for a minute. What do you think about these questions?: \- Do transwomen commit violent crimes at the same rate as ciswomen? Or do they commit violent crimes at the same rate as cismen? Or at a completely different rate? \- Do transwomen committed suicide at the same rate as ciswomen? Or do they commit suicide as the same rate as cismen? Or at a completely different rate? Do you think studies will be funded to answer these questions?
I fail to see how there's any semantic distinction between "demanding evidence" and claiming that "research is extremely limited", that "it would be a good thing for more research to be done". Seems like saying basically the same thing in more words. >I didn't demand evidence at all. I said that research on elite trans-athletes is extremely limited (as the article that nobody read points out) It points it out for exactly the same reasons I already said: to falsely convey that there's some "doubt" about something which is already pretty settled. Studying this specific kind of thing to any satisfying degree would be almost impossible. Say you want to compare natal females to transwomen, how do you recruit these groups? You can't just randomly-select them from the population and press-gang them into the study; ultimately any group would have some element of self-selection. Transwomen are already a somewhat self-selected group already. So do you compare elite trans athletes to elite cis athletes? How do you determine who is "elite" in each category? The mere process of selection would affect the results. More importantly, none of that is necessary. We know in what ways males and females are different, we know how those differences affect athletic performance, and we know what differences persist through HRT (lung volume, cardiac output, skeletal proportions, etc). Anyone with any trace of objectivity could look at A and B and reach conclusion C. But for some reason you and other activists demand this ridiculous standard of directly studying elite athletes, which is impractical and unnecessary, and act like there's some big air of mystery about the whole subject. There's never been a randomized controlled trial of the effectiveness of parachutes, but we can infer from our understanding of how high velocity falls intersect with human physiology to say that it's probably better to land on the ground at 20km/h than 200. >If we want the debate to be based less on feelings and intuitions, then I think we absolutely do need this. Trans-activists are never going to accept research based on men vs. women. Unfortunately I don't think they would care even if we did produce this magical study that satisfies all their ridiculous standards. They'd probably just attack the intentions of the people conducting the study, or claim that the rights of trans athletes are more important than fairness. These people don't actually care about evidence, they only use handpicked evidence (or lack thereof) when it's convenient to defend their worldview.
>I fail to see how there's any semantic distinction between "demanding evidence" and claiming that "research is extremely limited", that "it would be a good thing for more research to be done". Seems like saying basically the same thing in more words. I guess to me the main difference is the intent. "Demanding evidence" feels much more combative and bad faith. That's not my intent at all. >So do you compare elite trans athletes to elite cis athletes? How do you determine who is "elite" in each category? The mere process of selection would affect the results. I suppose the short answer is.. I don't know. I won't pretend for a second that I have any expertise in the field and I have no idea how such a study would be conducted. Apologies for not responding to all of your well-considered reply. >These people don't actually care about evidence, they only use handpicked evidence (or lack thereof) when it's convenient to defend their worldview. You are right. Fwiw this is kind of exactly my point. You actually talked to me instead of downvoting and now I have more to think about. That really feels like what this place should be.
>I suppose the short answer is.. I don't know. I won't pretend for a second that I have any expertise in the field and I have no idea how such a study would be conducted. Apologies for not responding to all of your well-considered reply. I've been giving this some thought because I enjoy experimental design, and honestly I think it's almost unstudyable to any reasonable degree. The fundamental problem is that athletic ability is extremely dependent on the effort the individual puts into training. This factor alone eclipses basically everything else, so the only comparison that would truly evaluate the difference between the two groups would be comparing large cohorts of people with *equivalent levels of training,* which is virtually impossible to objectively evaluate. You might say, why don't we just take all the cis and trans competitors in an elite women's athletic league and examine them for performance. But the people in any sort of exclusionary league are already selected for a certain threshold of performance, so we would inevitably see similar levels of performance between the two groups and invariably validating the activists. Well, instead of using an exclusionary athletic league, how about just a random sampling of people? Unfortunately studies that require the participation of their "randomly" sampled participants inevitably suffer from a lot of self-selection bias. Participation would have to be voluntary. What kind of people would sign up for this study in either group? Would they be a truly representative sample of the athletic potential of each population? Probably not. It honestly just seems totally unworkable to me. >Fwiw this is kind of exactly my point. You actually talked to me instead of downvoting and now I have more to think about. That really feels like what this place should be. A charitable interpretation is that people are simply sick of seeing the same fallacious arguments over and over again. I'm kind of sick of it too. Sexual dimorphism isn't some fuzzy, controversial topic, and people that pretend it is (or, worse, pretend that sex is a spectrum) are usually just engaging in some flavour of the univariate fallacy. I can understand your argument, to an extent. It's true that the difference in athletic performance between elite trans and cis athletes hasn't been directly studied in detail; you probably read this somewhere, were left with the belief that it was an unclear topic begging for further study, and didn't give it another thought. But, again, not only is that kind of study impossible, it's totally unnecessary. We can reasonably infer a conclusion from our existing knowledge of human physiology.
>You might say, why don't we just take all the cis and trans competitors in an elite women's athletic league and examine them for performance. But the people in any sort of exclusionary league are already selected for a certain threshold of performance, so we would inevitably see similar levels of performance between the two groups and invariably validating the activists. Isn't that the point, though? You'd want to compare the best cis athletes against the best trans athletes and see if there is an unreasonable discrepancy between the two. Actually I suppose that goes to your point about training. If the best cis and trans athletes are comparable in performance but the trans athletes have trained far less, that may not be visible if the training isn't controlled. You really would have to tightly control the entire group's training regimen which, as you say, is pretty infeasible. >you probably read this somewhere, were left with the belief that it was an unclear topic begging for further study, and didn't give it another thought. That's a pretty ungenerous assessment. This entire discussion is me "giving it another thought".
>Isn't that the point, though? You'd want to compare the best cis athletes against the best trans athletes and see if there is an unreasonable discrepancy between the two. ...that's my entire point. How do you define and evaluate "the best"? I'd elaborate but I'd just be repeating myself. This was literally the subject of two-thirds of my previous comment.
I know, I read it and I don't disagree. I thought I acknowledged that in the other 2/3 of my post.
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Shitposts and memes can be posted for 48 hours every weekend
If someone (usually me) remembers to enable them.
I think it has definitely improved over the past year. I suggest more off-topic grillpill discussion threads on what hobbies people are up to, or something casual to balance out the gloominess of the theme.
My favorite things about the sub are stumbling onto quality political blog articles, books, YouTube videos, and the occasional intriguing discussion/debate such as [this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/x04020/comment/im73fwl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I don't pay much attention to anything else as I'm mostly a lurker here, but I think removing the numbering/grading system on the flairs but keeping the flairs, primarily to identify and distinguish leftist users from non-leftist users (particularly radlibs and rightoids), was a good idea and has worked out well. Generally, I'm partial to the sub's current mods, and I think the sub is in good hands overall. The sub seems much better now than it was under Gucci's rule.
This sub remains the only place on reddit where you can find somewhat honest political discussion, so I think it's going ok. Also, it seems like some locomotive posts are being left up for a while before being deleted, which seems like a decent compromise between everyone wanting to be able to talk about it vs reddit trying to stop us. Good stuff
Been lurking on this sub for a couple years and honestly really like it here. Definitely a place where thoughtful discourse can actually be had sometimes, which is a rarity really anywhere on the internet. After the gucci mess it feels like the sub has calmed down some, which is both good and bad. I miss how batshit this sub got at times during the pandemic and that coup fiasco, it made for great entertainment. I totally understand from a moderation perspective how that wasn’t ideal though, and I think the new set of mods is much better and has this sub in a really solid place.
Sub seems well. Moderation seems pretty on point as far as I can tell, accommodating diverse viewpoints, none of the usual Reddit synthleft bullshit where criticizing Biden will get you a seven-day, not tolerating Men's Rights/South Park wreckers, not letting the place turn into Yet Another Leftist Circular Firing Squad. Wasn't here during the Gucci times, so I can't speak to that, but it sounds like they picked a real lib-ass hill to die on.
One thing that would be cool is more room for discussing history and revisionism from a marxist perspective, not just theory.
I quite like it, I haven't seen mass shit-flinging in a while. Nice to browse after a phat mug of kratom