"What's with the anger on ATS?"

What is as, if not more alarming than the media manipulation of public opinion is the general attitude among your ATS members that this all should somehow be swept off of the boards, as if doing this in some way will make all of these issues simply go away.

Cowardly approach, but entirely predictable. Perhaps people have or are losing the ability to discuss sensitive and inflammatory issues with civility and an open mind here.

One member wrote not long ago that he tires of trying to convince the "unthinking" here.

What does that really say to you?

Far too often here on ATS, anyone who disagrees with the popular community's point of view gets attacked for attempting to even present an alternate point of view.

That is sad, and that level of closed mindedness is dangerous.

*Goes back to the realm of the "unthinking"*

It's a sign of the times, plus fear and anger are the very basis of many conspiracy theories.
Just look at the swine flu or oil spill threads, full of doom and gloom.
Don't even get me started on the 9/11 threads.
Conspiracy fans don't take kindly to disagreement, they tend to lash out
and project their anger. Even the UFO threads are full of angry "believers" that think the government is in league with aliens for dire purposes.
The "paranormal" threads love demons and evil spirits, as do the religious threads. Conspiracy has a definate negative slant, it's hard to see it expressed any other way. Such are all message boards and the internet in general.

The problem is, as I have noticed quite allot people just don’t like it on ATS when you say “I disagree”, they take it as a personal insult which it not. This inevitably leads to the debate moving away from the issue and onto petty squabbles, in short some people just need to grow a set and suck it up.

I don’t think this is a huge problem, I just think some people are too sensitive. Some people are very passionate about some topic they are interested in or view they hold, and again when you say “I disagree” they take it as a personal insult. There seems to be this strange idea that I have noticed that some might be shocked to find out that “I disagree” with them but they are even more shocked when i want to debate a topic with them. This is a public forum some people are going to love what I have to say and some are going to hate it. They find it hard to accept a difference of opinion or the realisation that what they hold be fact is actually untrue.

Quite interesting that you didn’t point out the anger that is being directed towards social minorities (particularly Muslims and Jews). I think this is something that has to be addressed more urgently rather than some members having petty arguments with each other.

And don’t worry the summer holidays will be over soon and all the children will be back at school.


[edit on 16-8-2010 by kevinunknown]

I think anger is one of those stages of awakening to the truth. It's alright to be angry, but not alright to abuse others while trying to get your point across.

I know from experience that people don't just wake up all at once. If debates are handled fairly then folks will increasingly have to question their own entrenched beliefs and I think that's what ATS is all about. My opinion is that during increased times of 'awakening' we also need increased refereeing from our gracious moderators.

I'm sure there are multiple reasons as to why there is so much anger on ATS recently. Personally I don't think it's ATS or online forums... I think it's our social deviation which is causing all this anger.

We see it everyday.... our economy, the wars, religious factors, racism... it's all starting up again, you see it all around you. It's been around for decades but I feel as of last few years (after 911) these situations have heightened and are now effecting people on an everyday bases. Recently I posted a thread talking about this exact thing and how I think is being caused... the anger and hate control your "reptilian" side of your brain, which then causes you to focus on "negative" side of life, almost like brainwashing your perception. (www.abovetopsecret.com...)

Our natrual way of being, is in hormony, love and peace.... yet in this prison we call life, we see the exact opposite. This goes against our "natural" way of being...

It is funny... it seems we are the cause of our problem and also are the solution to our problems! Sadly, unless we ALL realize our inner beauty we will continue firing this madness, until we come to a no return state.

You either fuel this fire with love or hate... choice is yours.

PS> I have proposed a solution to this problem, it is guaranteed to work, only if the masses truly try this!
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 16-8-2010 by freighttrain]

I think a lot of the problem is redundancy in some of the threads.

Take the Muslim threads. Many are just re-hatching the same old thing they said in the last Muslim thread.

Same thing goes for the illegal immigration thread.

Good points.

I agree that daily life probably is a source of much of the anger going on.

We all get angry sometimes.

I agree that we should try to keep our cool when debating rather than going directly into insulting others personally and calling them names etc.

I do enjoy debate opponents who focus on the issues, and actually I friend many people I disagree with who I feel, prove me wrong or teach me new things. Exampe : Phage, Chad, etc. They have taught me a lot of things and for this I friend them, even if I initially disagreed with them.

Skilled debaters like that are rare but very fun to engage with.

I do feel that a lot of people misperceive a disagreement as "anger" in a lot of cases. And insults are not always angry, but they usually are ignorant and uncalled for.

For example a previous thread I wrote (that I didn't expect to get any attention but somehow turned into a heated debate LOL!); I was merely defending the rights of humans, and many people automatically assumed I was promoting those things. Which I was not promoting anything other than Freedom. (I was speaking in relation to a hypothetical real life situation rather than Internet issues per se).

The way I see it though, is that people who respond angrily and insultingly towards someone they disagree with, shoot themselves in the foot essentially. Their arguments are defeated before they even get started. And the posters who keep their cool and debate intelligently almost always win. By default.

Also they are in danger of the Ban Hammer. Which I am sad they put themselves in that position. I don't like seeing people get the boot, but I understand exactly why the T+C of ATS are here, and I do not feel pity when people break them and end up banned.

That's how the cookie crumbles I suppose lol.

But yes I personally would like to see people chill out more. I won't force them to, but I will kindly ask that everyone treat each other respectfully and debate accordingly.

Economic stress not seen in nearly a century.

Political division in the United States reaching an apex.

The media pouring gas onto the fire at every opportunity.

Corporations and Politicians looking to capitalize on it all.

Culture war?

The natural outcome of the politics of division over the past decade?

Very few News outlets remain objective....the referee has left the ring.

Not sure how to restore our national discourse...it's a little scary to be honest.

Hmm, this is a familiar theme and lots of people have written about it, perhaps it's just cyclical...

Anger: what are you doing with yours?

*Anger*

Frenzied and scattered
Out of Control
All I can see is lost soul.

Don't know if I'm coming
Don't know if I go
Don't know the answer
I don't know, I don't know.

Grasping and reaching
Nothing is there

The anger is coming
The anger is here
The anger is knowing
It's all that I fear.

It's coming from me
But I blame it on you
It's making me blind
I don't know what to do.

It's burning me down
It eats me alive
It's hurting me now
I'll never survive.

The anger is real
But I make it a lie
The anger I feel
Is the anger I hide.

Nobody can see it
Nobody can know
Nobody can touch it
I don't know, I don't know.

~Myhre




[edit on 16-8-2010 by LadySkadi]

Very well said. Eloquent! I have been guilty of this myself recently in a few posts, some of them in one of my own threads. It's odd how it
can slither into your life, if you don't keep a regular vidgle. Point taken.

[edit on 16-8-2010 by randyvs]

Originally posted by Retseh
Your main problem is weak enforcement, I have seen overt racism dealt with via nothing more than a "warning".

Enforcement is a balancing act few members have the opportunity to experience.

Additionally, while abhorrent, racism and its related intolerance are unfortunate but valid examples of free expression. I would much rather encourage our members to call it out for what it is, and expose the ignorance of a racist world-view, than eliminate from our site those who think that way.

If we remove one group from posting on ATS, which will be the next group voted for elimination?

I'm reminded of the rules in a Masonic lodge—two topics you cannot discuss are politics and religion. Why not discuss those topics? Because it's almost impossible to sway someone else's position. It does nothing but let two people claim that their way is the "right" way with no accountability and nothing to back up their claims.

I would say we've been on a slippery slope since before the 2008 elections, and we didn't really return to status quo after the elections were over.

Meanwhile the atheists and the Christians are attacking each other right and left when they're not ganging up on the Muslims.

It puts us in a bad position.

If we could keep all politics to the political forums, and all religious discussion to the religious forums, it might be better, but it's almost impossible to separate either of those elements from some of the other discussions going on here.

Well I get the impression looking at the threads over the last few days that the issue seems to be, as usual, "foreigners".... of some description.

Be they "Muslims" or "Illegal Immigrants".......


Same old same old really.

Come on folks, it's not just what you say, but how you say it. I have openly and vociferously disagreed with some folks here lately on some very sensative issues. The debate got intense, but not angry. In the end, the debate would end with a polite agree to disagree. It is one thing to have a heated debate. There is nothing wrong with that, so long as you can keep to the subject matter and not attack the speaker.

Sometimes, it helps to try to see things from the opposition's point of view. This is not a way of "wimping out'. If you think about some of the greatest quotes in strategy, they all center around the idea of knowing your opponent as well as yourself. When you call a person a nasty name, you are putting up blinders and actively denying the fact that this is a real person with a real opinion that is based on *something* that they learned or experienced.

Not everyone who disagrees with us are evil and hateful. Sometimes they just see things differantly.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
How Bad Is It?

It's not horrible, at least not when compared to most other online web sites that allow commentary, but it certainly seems to be heading in a direction that is contrary to our stated goals of focusing on the topics and not each other.

But horrible by ATS' long standing standards. Many a poster has said, "This isn't ATS....."

Additionally, we tend to see an ebb-and-flow of tonality issues, and most-often it gets somewhat worse in the summer months and around major elections.

Yup.

What's causing it?

I'm absolutely convinced that the perfect-storm of stressful and anger-inciting issues effecting our daily lives are a major factor in the tonality we bring to posting on ATS.

However...

I also think the mainstream media is poisoning the well, sometimes to a critical level.

YES!

IMO they are today's terrorists working at the bequest of the REAL power. The MIC.


*snipping for a reason. Excellent reasoning. My thoughts would just take away from them. Read that again folks.*

Indignation and intense wrath certainly has a valuable place within the discussions on ATS. These are important issues we're facing. the game "they" would have you play is to take your eyes off the ball so as to blame anyone and everyone on the other "side" of any given issue. Which is misplaced and unproductive outrage.

Make one a pawn. A blind one at that.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

Don't let "them" infect your sensibilities and allow their artificial anger to infect how you interact with other members here on ATS.

Yes. We have as common bond here. We ALL don't trust the PTB, whoever they might be. Believe what you will, maybe you'll change you mind on a thing or two, I have but we're in this boat together. Got a better one?

It's important to be passionate about what's happening in the world, but don't let that passion contaminate your words such that people react to how you post, not what you post.

This is hard, really hard. But on the other hand, it's worth it. It's vitally important for society as a whole to learn to move beyond this culture of bitterness perpetuated by mainstream media, and focus on the issues and not each other.

Yup but sometimes you are surprised. Faux, I mean Fox, I'll never call it the former again, reported this story:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Damn good piece. We have to realize that once we get past the propaganda we want the same things. Ditch the propaganda and the anger follows. THEN we're talking to each other.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Well, there's angry people everywhere, so there's no reason to think they wouldn't be here too. I've noticed that people who are ego driven have a hard time dealing with new ideas that require a shift of consciousness. For those people it's like saying you're wrong and have always been and so new perspectives are taken as a personal attack. These are the people we can help.

Then there are the trolls who like to derail arguments with emotive attacks designed to insult posters and throw them off their point. These people can't be helped because they are acting with mal-intent from the start.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

I also think the mainstream media is poisoning the well, sometimes to a critical level.

You are totally correct.

The MSM has been pushing hot button issues purely for ratings and controversy, as they always have.

Just open CNN or FOX right now, most of the top stories are deeply connected to these issues. They purposely incite it and inflame it in order to generate certain reactions from us.

Let us not fall for their bait. It's a trap.

I honestly believe the MSM wants us to go insane and do really stupid things as a result. Giving them more "justification" to be self-righteous and possibly "justifying" a "police state" where we have NO freedoms left...

It's a dangerous world out there.

We just gotta be smart and refuse to hurt each other over it no matter how bad it gets...because that is what they want isn't it? Insanity and violence.

[edit on 16-8-2010 by muzzleflash]

I'm the author of the Why the west should fear muslims thread which is probably one of the so-called "hate threads" you mention since its currently on the frontpage of the ATS web site.

To make it clear; my intent is not to create hate, and, I also do not think my ideas and questions create more hate. At the most I believe such ideas only reveals hate that is already present in the community. So I ask; is it better to surpress what is by the general concensous termed "bad" or is it better to bring such ideas out into the light? Is surpression better than questioning?



[edit on 16-8-2010 by Acharya]

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


What's the difference between anger and passion? To a large extent they seem the same.

How could people possibly be angry? Let's see;

1. 9-11

2. presidential commission on 9-11

3. Colin Powell testimony before the UN

4. Iraq and afghan wars. Endless redeployment of same troops, "stop loss"

5. Patriot act, Fisa

6. Katrina and aftermath

7. promoted scams of carbon tax and swine flu

8. economic meltdown, housing market collapse, high unemployment

9. panic on mandatory vaccines

10. idiotic health care reform, credit card reform, banking reform

11. open borders, drug war south of the border

12. gulf oil disaster, fissures on ocean floor?

and a possible new war in the middle east brewing, and, and, and.......................

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
I would much rather encourage our members to call it out for what it is, and expose the ignorance of a racist world-view, than eliminate from our site those who think that way.

That does go on but

Sometimes we get called on it as "Baiting" or "Trolling" etc.

If we remove one group from posting on ATS, which will be the next group voted for elimination?

Group? no one group in particular.

Just enforcement of the T & C more rigorously as a whole.