An experiment I have been running

I was recently involved in a conversation which spurred me to perform a cheeky experiment upon my fellow members. The discussion involved the reason why there are not as many terror incidents in Japan, committed by fundamentalist Muslim persons.

For some time I have been upset that people who advocate the killing of entire regions of the planet, the Middle East for example, often get starred for their posts, mostly owing to the small number of xenophobic drool peddlers who cannot resist a little Muslim bashing, cop apologism, holocaust denying or things of that sort.

And so I performed a little experiment. I wrote ghastly things, things about killing all right wingers, or deporting them, so that the nation in which I live could actually move forward without their backward thinking getting in the way, and do you know what? I got many fewer stars than a right wing poster of equally savage intent. This leads me to believe the following:

1) The posters who called me out on it were solid and right to do so.

2) That there were not more of them concerns me.

3) There is a strong right wing bias here.

It seems to me that a right wing poster who had gone after the normal targets of right wing loonies, would have been starred a great deal more often than I was for my lefty post, which concerns me greatly. If a thing is wrong for one reason, or from one angle, it is wrong for all reasons and from all angles, or none at all. The double standard at play confuses me, because I never really thought of this place as a right wing locale, quite the opposite in many respects.

Also, I am sort of concerned that my posts were not removed, since they were deliberately designed to be badly reasoned, and contained reference to doing violence to people purely because of their political beliefs.

What is going on around here?

originally posted by: TrueBrit

Bear with me. Unresponsive iPad issue.

Hopefully the experimentation involves latex and photographic documentation.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Maybe the experiment involves getting his iPad to work?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
Bear with me. Unresponsive iPad issue.

Ooh can we see your teddy bear them?

Probably would make a rather good forums thread of match the mod to their teddy bear.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Hopefully the experimentation involves latex and photographic documentation.

I couldn't tell if this was a joke about medical emergencies or the latest fetish to come out of Asia.

a reply to: Maxatoria

Hehe, I actually have not got a teddy bear. I have a Chucky, you know, the possessed doll? But that's about it! My son got it for my birthday, the nutcase!

So proud of that boy.

originally posted by: TrueBrit

1) The posters who called me out on it were solid and right to do so.

2) That there were not more of them concerns me. .

I saw some of your posts but what I thought was that you were being ironic.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
I couldn't tell if this was a joke about medical emergencies or the latest fetish to come out of Asia.

Yes.

a reply to: TrueBrit

I would not be too concerned. As you were playing with the minds of what you seem to imply are weak-minded others, so may they have been playing with yours. That would only be fair, right?

Haven't clicked on much of those types of threads lately, so I missed your experiment. I think your findings are valid, though. Cheers!

I have been busy and as such saw no such posts but would agree that if I saw something from TrueBrit that was against the grain I would assume that he was making a statement about such nonsense and raise a glass to his comment with said tounge in said cheek.

a reply to: TrueBrit

It has long been well known that tyranny gives growth to conservative (right wing) ideology due to its typical message of reducing government and increasing freedom.

I would have been surprised if it were left wing more common. Fully expected right wing to be more common. Especially for a forum that focuses on tyranny

a reply to: Aliensun

I am not implying anything of the sort.

I do not assume a persons mind is weak simply because they have not reached the same conclusions about how to be a decent individual that I have. I may believe that they are wrong in their conclusions, but plenty of persons smarter than myself and stronger of mind have found themselves in that situation.

Furthermore, I have found the sorts of post to which I am referring on this site over a course of the last two years, although things have been getting markedly more heated, and much less civil and decorous for some time, especially with regard to the a sort of rhetoric that I come across these days. Like I said, this has been brewing over the course of the last few years, and is not just a recent problem. I merely wonder why it is that someone who posts lefty murderious filth, is any less likely to receive stars than someone who posts righty murderous filth. I do not understand why one is accelted by some, and the other is not, since both are horrid and wrong, no matter which way you look at life.

a reply to: TrueBrit

3) There is a strong right wing bias here.

While the mods seem more or less evenly split, there is in my opinion, disproportionately more participation from right wing users in political threads/threads about politicized topics. There are also more of these threads being started by right wing users. There's a lot of far right bias in the alternative media which is a staple of many ATSers too.

It shouldn't be too difficult to test this hypothesis by gathering some stats from the political forums.


a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I suspected as much.

I've missed those threads, which surprises me a little as I am always being told I am on here far too often.

All I can add is, I think overall this is a fair balanced site and I said the same thing when someone claimed it was full of Liberals.

My thoughts are, if I did see a thread authored by yourself, proclaiming the deportation of right wingers, I wouldn't believe you were being serious and wouldn't star or flag anyway. That sort of language is far too narrow minded to be rewarded with stars and flags.

Did you receive applause from any of the mods?

Ia reply to: TrueBrit

ATS is a business, if a certain viewpoint is attracting more users at the moment, then that viewpoint is more likely to be promoted than viewed with suspicion by those who do the numbers round here
. A caged response to you

originally posted by: TrueBrit
What is going on around here?

You're not the only one who has noticed it, there's way more closed minded people here than there used to be, there's a lot more trolls too or at least people who seemingly act like you would expect a troll to act.

There's more people in favour of extremities for either left or right and not enough balanced centric individuals.
There's a lot of xenophobic Muslim haters
There's a lot of people who hate on Russia whenever they get the chance
There's a lot of cop haters who want to see them all burn rather than just the bad cops

Generally the site is full of people who want to see the world burn and the only importance to is how it burns according to their sway whether left or right

There's just too much ignorance, hatred and fighting among each other here these days

a reply to: Cobaltic1978

It was not a thread I started. I thought it would be far to obvious to conduct my experiment in a thread authored by myself. People would not have bought it. Some were very eager to believe that I was actually a foam mouthed, blood seeking son of a thousand bastards. It was very disappointing to realise that some people really were just waiting to have their erroneous conclusions vindicated, where my person and comportment are concerned.

a reply to: theantediluvian
You never know about him. At least it wasn't farm animals and maple syrup.