Texas set to allow unlicensed handgun carry despite outcry

[Dill]

(05-31-2021, 01:06 PM)CarolinaBengalFanGuy Wrote: I don’t know why you’re acting like pretty much everyone does the exact same thing. Only difference is this is your echo chamber.

I'm not "acting like pretty much everyone does the exact same thing," or I'd not have asked you the question I did.  

All political discussion forums are not "echo chambers"; and this one is not (though it may be losing some of its diversity).  Echo chambers are created when people with different political views are shouted down, insulted, and chased off, so true believers can share their "truths" in a safe space. They don't have to explain observations, terms, or analogies. They can count on everyone "just seeing" them. 

If, from the get go, enough people consider posted news articles written from other political viewpoints to be "shitting on everything and anything [they] believe in," they may turn a vibrant and diverse forum into an echo chamber by reducing opposing view points. 

The echo chamber effect only disappears to the degree each side is willing to work to understand (not agree with) the other. That can't happen unless each adheres to norms of civility and rational discussion. It can't happen unless each side poses the other questions and counter-arguments, and the other stays for an answer. And it can't happen if one group already believes they know all they need to about the other side, believes they can "predict" what they say, etc. Or if questions and counter-arguments are perceived as simple attack.

One of my goals in this forum has been to understand what the "other side" thinks and why. Often--most of the time--this is not easy. Some opponents are often ready to tell me what's what, but not to follow up questions I may have. If a rare a thread produces lots of discussion in which "the other side" lays out motivations and reasons for their views, then I consider it, and its participants, to be making a valuable contributions to the forum.  Some might be happy that former rightists like Bfine and Lucy are gone, but I am not one of them. If you didn't personally attack them, those guys stood for questions, and more questions. They haven't been easy to replace. 

Hence my question about your does-it-agree-with-my-beliefs standard. Not everyone is on the same page in this forum, in terms what they expect to get from it, or out of other participants.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.