Thoughts on Adding a Politics Forum

[Andrew Brunelle]

I feel like it would make a nice addition and I am sure if many people here would like to discuss it, then it should be on the forums. It is important to talk about what is going on around the world because some of it affects us. It depends where you are. If it can be done professionally with all these "smart" people, then I feel that it would be a good idea. And if you do not agree with the idea of a politics forum, you don't have to visit that one. Just go to all the other categories.

For me personally, I would probably not spend much time in that forum, but I do have to respect others' rights to talk about those topics if they wish. They can post them in the politics forum, or you can see them on the General and Introductions forum every day. I believe it will decrease the nonpolitical people's views of the political threads because they will know which category to avoid. There will be almost no chance of having to look at the name "Ron Paul" unless you venture into the Political Forum.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Angela

To all you naysayers: I'm missing something in what you're saying... you don't want to be exposed to political discussion, you want to be free of its influence here, where you feel it's detrimental to your personal development. You want to feel safely sequestered from that area of talk. Right?

Yes.

Why would you oppose a whole separate forum to house that kind of talk, so that you're safe from an accidental encounter? The moderators would pick up stray political posts and move them to the Political Forum. You would have to go out of your way to stumble across Ron Paul or Benazhir Bhutto. You would be safe, safer than you are now!

What am I missing?

Thanks for asking Angela.

I read new threads through the "New Post" search function. I don't really go into individual forums much to look for new threads to read. Oftentimes, when I read a thread, I don't really even know what forum it is in. So, if you were to put all of the existing political threads into a political forum, it would not decrease my exposure to them. However, on the other hand, a separate political forum will naturally encourage people to start political threads. Thus, the net result is that I will see more political threads.

In regard to Erin's comment, it's not easy to ignore. It's not like a subject that I have no emotional connection to like Religious topics, or psychic stuff. I don't care about those topics, and I don't care what others think about those topics so it's easy for me to ignore.

However, a number of political topics carry a huge emotional connectivity, especially as I know that what people do think about the subject can affect me through passing of laws. Thus, it's not easy to ignore them. An example that perhaps you Erin can relate would be a thread titled "How to kidnap and torture children and btw here are pictures of Erin's kid and where they go to school" Maybe Erin, you're highly developed enough to find the example easy to ignore, but I know a lot of people wouldn't. They'd get defensive and jump on the thread if the policy was to allow such a thread. Then, there goes that person's intention to ask questions that were important to their personal development.

Thus for me, it's not easy to ignore a political thread as it is easy to ignore other threads. Politics, unfortunately, affect us. Even with my actively trying to ignore political threads on this forum, I've still got suckered into a few of them on this forum and regretted the time, and energy I spent on them.

I think some of you are probably wondering "Why do we highly developed people who want to intelligently talk about politics have to put up with these lesser developed people who can't just ignore such threads? These people need to do some personal development to improve themselves so it's easy for them to ignore such threads." Perhaps you'd be right, I know I would love to easily ignore such threads, but I'm not at the point yet, and it seems that a number of other people aren't at that point yet. This forum doesn't say "Personal Development for Highly Developed People". It's for "Smart People" who realize that all facets of your life can't automatically change overnight no matter how much you want it to. Thus, there's going to be people at all stages of personal development on here.

I do like Brutha's idea though, of creating a separate political user group so you have to check mark or sign up to have access to the political forum. That way, people who want to discuss politics can do so. Those of us who feel politics would be harmful to our personal development can choose to remain ignorant of it in the same way we non-mods are ignorant of what goes on in the mods forums. It's not a perfect solution, but it can perhaps meets the needs of both those who want to discuss politics with other forumites on here, and meets the needs of those who want no politics in here. One way this can be good for you "yes sayers" is that if someone gets carried away in the political forum and abuses it, but yet is a good poster in the regular part of the personal development forums, you can simply remove him from the political user group, without having to ban him from the entire forum. That'd probably make it a lot easier to moderate the forum - as I know it must be difficult to ban people who contribute a lot...yet cause problems. Not to mention, if you simply only allow those who have a large number of posts, say 100, to join the political user group, then you can help ensure that it'll be a lot easier to moderate the forum then say allowing everyone to jump in at any time. Furthermore, this political user-group can be good for us non-sayers because if you move all political threads there, then our exposure to political threads would dramatically go down.

[Erin Pavlina]

If I saw a thread with that title, sure I would have to look at it, but that's because it was directed personally at me. I doubt most of the threads will be directed at any one person.

One of the reasons I want the forum is to hear everyone's point of view. I haven't made up my mind on a lot of issues and I want to hear what others have to say. I recognize that I am not an expert at world affairs and want to learn more.

I totally get that if you've got strong beliefs in a certain area it's hard to hear other people's points of view without getting ignited. I've been to other forums where I'm the only person who doesn't eat meat or I'm the only person trying to raise my kids naturally and not on McDonald's and Lunchables. And it IS hard to ignore. But I recognize these people's rights to discuss their Happy Meals. And I'm able to let them have their beliefs without lighting myself up. But it is hard, you're right.

[Love]

Well, first off, I want to say that I thought, seeker5, that you handled your last post in a very effective manner. You carefully responded to other's opinions, thought about how they related to your own, and then produced what you thought as a result. You did that pretty politely, I thought, without bashing or anything of that sort.

This, ideally, is what I imagine a political forum could be like. People discussing ideas in a respectful manner. You've already demonstrated, seeker5, that whether or not to have a forum at all is an issue of great importance to you--as other political issues may be of great importance to yourself or others--but you were able to handle this one well.

Originally Posted by seeker5

I read new threads through the "New Post" search function. I don't really go into individual forums much to look for new threads to read. Oftentimes, when I read a thread, I don't really even know what forum it is in. So, if you were to put all of the existing political threads into a political forum, it would not decrease my exposure to them. However, on the other hand, a separate political forum will naturally encourage people to start political threads. Thus, the net result is that I will see more political threads.

This is true. I also like to use the new posts function. You would see many of the political threads pop up.

In regard to Erin's comment, it's not easy to ignore. It's not like a subject that I have no emotional connection to like Religious topics, or psychic stuff. I don't care about those topics, and I don't care what others think about those topics so it's easy for me to ignore.

I can understand that a certain topic may be harder for you to ignore than another topic. I also think that may be an issue for you to work on, rather than an issue for the group to work on.

I think some of you are probably wondering "Why do we highly developed people who want to intelligently talk about politics have to put up with these lesser developed people who can't just ignore such threads? These people need to do some personal development to improve themselves so it's easy for them to ignore such threads."

LOL. Yes. I didn't use terms like "higher developed" and "lesser developed," but I admit, my thinking was very much along those lines.

Perhaps you'd be right, I know I would love to easily ignore such threads, but I'm not at the point yet, and it seems that a number of other people aren't at that point yet.

I can understand that as well. I also think that all challenges provide growth experiences. Sometimes the challenge comes whether you will it or not.

I do like Brutha's idea though, of creating a separate political user group so you have to check mark or sign up to have access to the political forum. That way, people who want to discuss politics can do so. Those of us who feel politics would be harmful to our personal development can choose to remain ignorant of it in the same way we non-mods are ignorant of what goes on in the mods forums. It's not a perfect solution, but it can perhaps meets the needs of both those who want to discuss politics with other forumites on here, and meets the needs of those who want no politics in here.

I would prefer that than to having no world affairs forum at all. So if that were the only alternative, then yes, I would accept that.
I still think that for that to be the only alternative would be indicative of our inability, as individuals and as a group, to handle such posts and such a forum. I think it's a necessity to learn to live with others and their views, and that while we could potentially escape that challenge by not having a forum or by hiding it here on the site, we couldn't escape that challenge as it exists in the world around us. So why try? It would be a personal development experience just to have the forum and deal with yourself in a controlled and respectful manner.

I have a high opinion of the people that constitute this group, and I feel that everyone could handle such a challenge. Including the "nay-sayers."

[Angela]

There are several topics here that raise people's ire -- things that folks have a "high emotional connectivity" about. Are we to minimize discussion of all of those things, or just the ones that you personally object to, or don't feel add to personal development?

What I mean is, everybody has topics that either don't interest or actively bug us... it's up the individual, I feel, to either ignore or deal with those topics, and ignoring or dealing is part of our particular path in personal development. Our resistance itself is an avenue for growth. For myself, that has included the whole topic of religion, which many might feel the same about as you feel about political discussion.

[seeker5]

I also missed some of the issues in my previous post.

First, One of the issue is why I do my best (even though I slip once in a while) of avoiding the daily news, including political news. This goes to Steve's article about why he broke his news addiction by avoiding the daily news: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...ews-addiction/ He stated:

Originally Posted by Steve's article

When I stepped back and looked at the big picture, I realized that news was worse than worthless to me. It provides the compelling illusion of valuable, factual information, but when you bite into it, you get nothing but poisoned air.

Adding a political forum to this place...invites the political and daily news in. That just seems so wrong, and so against the spirit of what Steve was talking about in this article.

At the end of May of 07, the article inspired me and I did a 30-day trial on not watching any TV news. I was successful in breaking through a habit of watching TV news for several hours a day. I followed that with a trial of stopping the reading of all online news, including political websites that I had followed for eight years. I succeeded. During the fall, I joined a Ron Paul meetup group as I already knew a lot about Ron Paul before he ever ran for President and was excited to meet like-minded people. However, after I realized I was once again getting too involved in politics and started to see the shift in my thinking back to the negative fear-based thinking, I resigned from the meetup group, and stopped all Ron Paul email groups. I've even avoided using Yahoo Mail new email interface in favor of its old interface because there is no way to shut off the news on the front page of the new email interface. So I've done a lot to avoid political and daily news. Now, for us, to invite politics and daily news into this site that inspired me to avoid politics and news...seems like the world turning upside down.

Second, there is an argument that politics is an extension of personal development. However, you can use that argument with just about any kind of topics. That's because gaining any kind of knowledge is a form of personal development. However, it's not the core of personal development, it's not the crust of why people go into personal development. It's more of a sideline, an extension. One could use the argument that having a forum on how best to rape someone is a personal development issue, as that involves acquiring knowledge and improving one's skill in achieving one's aim. But is it really the direction we want to go in?

Third, there is an argument that because there is a demand from some people to have a forum, we should. However, if we choose what to have on here simply by demand, then what about spam? There clearly is a huge demand for spam on this forum by counting the number of times people attempt to post spam. So, why aren't we advocating the creation of a side forum for spam? Judging by demand is not the answer to figuring out what kind of forums we want to have.

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

One of the reasons I want the forum is to hear everyone's point of view. I haven't made up my mind on a lot of issues and I want to hear what others have to say. I recognize that I am not an expert at world affairs and want to learn more.

Erin, it feels that you're not going to get everyone's point of view regardless. As we've read in this thread, a number of us do not wants to talk about politics, or read about it or see the headlines of it. So you're already only going to have a portion of the users in this forum interested in answering your questions, regardless of how it's set up.

Finally, Erin, I know you're interested in having some influence in the political realm, and you've said beforehand that perhaps Steve or you may run for a political office some day in the distance future. So you're wise to educate yourself on these topics. However, realize that your attempt to educate yourself through this forum by creating an open political forum can and will denigrate this forum for a number of us.

[Bliss Sage]

I also took measures to eliminate my exposure to news and politics. I sold my TV over a year ago in order to escape BBC World because I used to sit in front of the TV crying and feeling useless and upset. It had an awful impact on my daily life and it was somehow addictive.

Nowadays I only hear about politics from my mom, who dreams of getting Bush impeached and who has taken up work in politics again since she retired. I listen to her and I am happy I don't have to be exposed to such things and thankful I don't live in the U.S., where I would never be able to avoid exposure to Bush and American politics. She can handle it, I can't.

Additionally, I used to take part in forums on a different website where politics were a topic of discussion and there were so many fights in those forums and I can't remember one person writing there who was actually writing with the intention of learning with an open mind.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Bliss Sage

... the intention of learning with an open mind.

The intention of learning with an open mind is exactly what Erin says she would find valuable in a forum set up to discuss politics.

Learning with an open mind is not something that's available when you impose censorship -- especially when you impose it upon yourself.

The Pavlinas will set up a political discussion or they won't; either way, political discussion is going to be something that takes place here. How will you deal with it?

[Steve Pavlina]

This is an interesting discussion, and I think both sides have very valid points. It reminds me of the time when I was an officer in the Association of Shareware Professionals, and there was a divisive debate over whether members should discuss politics in their private newsgroups. This was in 1999 or 2000. Eventually we created a "soapbox" newsgroup where members could go to discuss topics like politics. It was very controversial at the time, but I was supportive of it. In the end I think it worked out well because it kept the other newsgroups clean. I don't think I ever posted in the soapbox newsgroup myself, but I thought it was a good idea to create a place for those messages. As far as I know, that newsgroup is still functioning today.

The technology for newsgroups is a bit different though, since one newsgroup's new posts didn't get mixed in with the others.

It seems to me that it would be easy enough to disregard politics threads if you aren't interested in them though, even if they show up in the new posts list. You see the title, say, "not for me," and skip it. At least that's what I do for threads that don't interest me. I can't possibly personally read everything posted here (over 140,000 messages).

The main reason I'm considering adding a politics and global issues forum would be to create a place for people here to discuss it in the "smart person" style. I think it would be a waste of space for people just to argue with each other.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by seeker5

In regard to Erin's comment, it's not easy to ignore. It's not like a subject that I have no emotional connection to like Religious topics, or psychic stuff. I don't care about those topics, and I don't care what others think about those topics so it's easy for me to ignore.

@ Seeker,

Religious debates and psychic stuff may not be emotional issues for you but they are for many forum members here, and many people in general.

Religion, in particular, has the potential to oppress people in ways that nothing else quite can. I've personally known (and dated) guys who were celibate for 10 or 15 years because of the religious and social stigmas associated with homosexuality. In many countries its still totally justifiable and expected to beat your wife if she doesn't live up to religious moral expectations and doctrine.

Does that mean that we should stop having spiritual conversations here because it might offend those groups? Of course not. Violence is generally very hard to justify when a little light is shown on it. And transparency and open dialogue can be that light.

It seems a little unfair to suggest that its Ok to push other peoples emotional buttons when it comes to religious or psychic debates, but not allow any discussions that might have a chance of pushing yours.

I understand that you know a lot about politics, and I feel badly that you regret the time you spent on posting about them here. But to compare the creation of a political forum to the creation of an article about how to kidnap or murder someone is not fair at all.

[Brutha]

Originally Posted by seeker5

Second, there is an argument that politics is an extension of personal development. However, you can use that argument with just about any kind of topics. That's because gaining any kind of knowledge is a form of personal development. However, it's not the core of personal development, it's not the crust of why people go into personal development. It's more of a sideline, an extension.

Originally Posted by seeker5

Politics, unfortunately, affect us.

Personal Development is about dealing with the things that affect us. The more something affects us personally the more it is also a part of Personal Development to deal with it in a benifitial way.

Third, there is an argument that because there is a demand from some people to have a forum, we should.

I argument was maily that the comparison to the car forum doesn't hold up because there's no demand for it.

[Bliss Sage]

Originally Posted by Angela

The intention of learning with an open mind is exactly what Erin says she would find valuable in a forum set up to discuss politics.

And the point I made when I wrote about learning with an open mind was that nobody was there to learn.

Learning with an open mind is not something that's available when you impose censorship -- especially when you impose it upon yourself.

What I am doing is not censorship. I'm deathly allergic to peanuts--I tried them out and now I make all the effort I can to "censor" them from my diet. It's not censorship, it's protection against harmful substances.

The Pavlinas will set up a political discussion or they won't; either way, political discussion is going to be something that takes place here. How will you deal with it?

That's my business.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Dan

It seems a little unfair to suggest that its Ok to push other peoples emotional buttons when it comes to religious or psychic debates, but not allow any discussions that might have a chance of pushing yours.

You're right. It wasn't fair of me to ask that my topic of hot buttons be avoided while we discuss other people's hot button topics.

However, I haven't heard of a good counter-argument about why we should invite political and daily news into this forum, when Steve writes that we should avoid them on a daily basis. Given that I would normally check this forum several times a day, I could be hitting my daily dose on them.

Originally Posted by Dan

I understand that you know a lot about politics, and I feel badly that you regret the time you spent on posting about them here.

Not all of it, but mainly when I've gotten myself into a political debate.

Originally Posted by Angela

political discussion is going to be something that takes place here. How will you deal with it?

I've thought about it. My options range from quitting this forum to not using the "new post" button. I'll make my decision when the political forum shows up and see how it goes on.

[Steve Pavlina]

I don't quite understand the "daily news" argument. It's not like a political forum would include an attached news feed from the Associated Press. Members would still start their own threads on topics of interest to them.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I don't quite understand the "daily news" argument. It's not like a political forum would include an attached news feed from the Associated Press.

I've seen political forums on other sites where members would start regularly start threads about news item of the day. Some people do it here sometimes.

Members would still start their own threads on topics of interest to them.

With the political forum, people may be doing more of it.

[seeker5]

Originally Posted by Dan

Religion, in particular, has the potential to oppress people in ways that nothing else quite can. I've personally known (and dated) guys who were celibate for 10 or 15 years because of the religious and social stigmas associated with homosexuality. In many countries its still totally justifiable and expected to beat your wife if she doesn't live up to religious moral expectations and doctrine.

That's true too, I had forgotten how powerful religion can be on the culture. However, I was an atheist for 15 years in the Bible Belt in the U.S. and I wasn't affected really by it. I also have a friend who is gay in the Bible Belt, and he has plenty of sex, even if he has to hide his true nature from his family and bosses at work. I'm kind of used to being different from everyone around me, so stigmas doesn't really bother me. For myself politics is more troublesome because instead of stigmas, you have laws backed up by the police force who have the right to shoot you. However, your point on the negative power of religion is well taken. After all, a number negative laws in the U.S. are an effect of certain religious beliefs.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Bliss Sage

And the point I made when I wrote about learning with an open mind was that nobody was there to learn.

What about me, or Erin, or the other people here who feel committed to a responsible discussion about things we care about, with people we trust to talk about it from a context of personal development? You don't think we're all nobody, do you?

What I am doing is not censorship. I'm deathly allergic to peanuts--I tried them out and now I make all the effort I can to "censor" them from my diet. It's not censorship, it's protection against harmful substances.

okay, I understand. I guess I disagree with you that open, responsible discussion is a harmful substance. And if you feel it is, you are wise to stay away from it.

That's my business.

That's so true. It was meant as a rhetorical question really -- political discussion is here, that's the reality of it, and for you it looks like "dealing with it" means "staying away from it." I was thinking that "staying away from it" would likely be easier if it were in a tidy, self-contained forum, instead of running rampant and free throughout other unrelated threads, and you seem to feel otherwise. There you go.

seeker5, I don't think it's likely that this place would be overrun by people showing up just for the sake of political discussion if there were a dedicated forum, but I can understand your concern about that happening.

To me it looks like the folks who want to avoid political discussion feel much more strongly about not having a dedicated thread than the interested folks feel about having one. So maybe it's not so important to build a dedicated thread, after all.

It strikes me as working against the naysayers not to have a dedicated thread, but oh well. I'm not really interested in political discussion myself right now (although I'm not allergic to it!), so I'll just continue to not notice the threads that don't interest me. And I feel that you people who want to work out your thoughts and feelings in the area of politics and world affairs should feel welcome and safe to do that here. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it, when I'm ready to!

[Bliss Sage]

Originally Posted by Angela

What about me, or Erin, or the other people here who feel committed to a responsible discussion about things we care about, with people we trust to talk about it from a context of personal development? You don't think we're all nobody, do you?