I'm Out

[Dill]

(08-20-2023, 06:14 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I thought it was bad in the Trump years with the number of sensationalist threads posted about him, but all I see in this forum is threads started based on click-bait conspiracy theory propaganda. The discourse inevitably gets hostile whether it is because of frustrations with people who ignore reason and logic or because someone has too much of their personal identity wrapped up in these topics. I am guilty of the former on the regular.

I stopped watching football a few years ago because I found myself too invested in the sport. I realized I was putting myself through unhealthy levels of stress over something I had zero control over and really meant nothing to me in the long run. About two years ago I found myself constantly consuming political news. Non-stop. Podcasts about politics from all across the spectrum and I realized it was doing the same as football did for me. So I toned it back and mixed in other podcasts about outdoorsy topics, humor, and history. I changed up my social media consumption and eliminated almost all politics from it, instead focusing on Scouting and my volunteering efforts.

I find myself now getting too stressed over the frustrations I have with people on here. People ignoring evidence or making claims without any. Buying into the propaganda from either side of the aisle while claiming the others are the ones being brainwashed or having the truth hidden from them. As much as I am a proponent of trying to educate people on the issues and provide evidence to support good policy decisions, I cannot justify continuing to stress out about the willful ignorance of those who go through their existence with these political blinders on, refusing to acknowledge anything that would contradict their worldview and just floating along looking for confirmations of their preconceived ideas. I know that is what makes people comfortable; I know that psychologically this isn't abnormal. It is the human condition. But that's why I feel like I need to pull back on my interactions on here.

Each day I open a couple of different browser windows tied to different Google accounts. One for Scouting stuff, one for work stuff, and one for random things. This is a tab on my random things browser pretty much every day. It sits in the background and I check in on it periodically to see what people are chatting about. I am going to stop opening it up by default with that browser window. I will probably check in, maybe weekly, but y'all are ***** crazy. I just can't be on here as regularly as I have been.

I've been thinking about this a while, but with a new semester starting this coming Wednesday which means my second year of grad school, I think it is a good time. So, good luck. Be nicer to each other. And for ****'s sake, read a primary source every once in a while.

This is a loss for the forum. A loss for you too, as this forum gives some detailed insight into how people are actually responding to political events.

Hope you return someday, though, after a nice rest.