Facepunch Anonymous Political Confessions Thread: I just want darkness for all - Polidicks

I don't think it's a coincidence that people who contribute the least to Polidicks criticize it the most. I think theres an expectation that Polidicks should be somehow entertaining to a passive viewer, as if it's a performance and not simply one large, amorphous, asynchronous conversation between a bunch of people in a room who happen to walk past each other from time to time.

The forum definitely had a higher amount in the past. There used to be some people on this forum who would go out of their way to harass trans people. Thankfully most of the dangerous ones left or were permabanned. I was not a member then, but I've heard stories about it.

Holy fuck, why is 99% of all confessions about politics. I liked these threads way better back in the day when people just vented about personal problems instead of seeing all these broken record political standpoints. I get that this is the stuff that worries people but hot damn.

because this is the political confession thread, in polidicks?

Reading goes a long way.

I'm Californian and pretty liberal on most social and economic issues but I am also staunchly pro-2A. These two thing I feel isolate me not just on Facepunch, but on the internet as a whole. I've got FP calling me a trump-lovin redneck for believing firearms are an essential right for americans, and then people on the right unironically threatening to napalm my friends and family for the crime of living in California. As an Oregonian liberal who is also staunchly pro-2A I think this may have more to do with the way you argue than what you're arguing. Cause I argue in favor of the second amendment pretty frequently and I don't recall ever being mistaken for a Trump supporter. Facepunch seems less and less open to actual political debate. Even Asking a controversial political question usually ends with mocking or dismissing the question outright. I feel like it's not even worth trying to understand other people's political ideas any more. You can directly blame the intellectually dishonest assholes who have shat up the site since the presidential election for that. People are so tired of intellectual dishonesty and arguing semantics that legitimate attempts at discussion a controversial topic will come across as more of that unless you're extremely careful about your wording. Adding onto the last wall of text, again, I totally understand why there's so much vitriol, having to deal with a party that's made "be a disingenuous asshole" the party the line, but I wish people here were a little more willing to be genuine and courteous to those that disagree. Yeah, a decent portion of the conservative viewpoints on here clearly don't give a shit about discussion anymore and are just here to have a go, but I feel like there's a better chance of -maybe- getting a decent response out of them, why they're acting like that if you're friendly and level with them. I see your point but I have to strongly disagree. I've tried. Many times. It accomplished jack shit. You can only waste so much time on such bullshit discussions before classing it as a total waste of time to try and be civil towards them. You have to do what works and that's typically laughing them out of the thread as quickly as possible which involves not being civil. Transgender folk on Facepunch need to pop a Valium and actually argue with a level head. They seem to freak out and play into the hands of people shouting "mental health problems!" regarding transgender rights. We get so heated about it because every transgender article inevitably is filled to the brim with the same kinds of users who immediately show total ignorance on the subject and refuse to be educated. It's incredibly frustrating when the first or second post in a given thread always has to do with how a kid shouldn't be allowed to get HRT or SRS as if that actually even happens to begin with. And like in the recent thread on exactly that subject you can have half a dozen people explaining this multiple times per page and you will still consistently get people coming into the thread and spewing the same ignorant bullshit. It's a lot better than it used to be, thankfully, but it's still quite bad. It's the reason I usually don't read past the OP in transgender-related news threads anymore. It's so frustrating seeing people spew completely ignorance on a subject and completely resist any attempts to be educated on the subject even when you're being civil. (See the above quoted confession's response for an elaboration.)

I agree with everyone who says polidicks is too samey. Some of the replies seriously annoy me. Yes, even the ones I agree with! What discussion is being furthered when you repost facepalming Mike Stoklasa for the 12th time this week? Hey, why not wait until Boilrig actually posts before calling him out? I'd be an idiot to inform my worldview on internet forum drama, that's where some of the confessions fall flat to me. There's people criticizing politics for being a show, but also forming their opinions on how bad a poster looks? This is like Paris Hilton giving someone shit for being superficial. Listen to what they're arguing for, and base opinions off of that. Don't be the guy who gets so caught up in saying "labels are bad, sides are bad" that you discount a point just because it's made by a liberal poster, ironically because of the label you gave him and the side you think he's on

When I was younger I was something of an activist. I'm sure that the views and terms on transgender have changed a lot since then, but... Wasn't the consensus about ten years ago that gender dysphoria was, in fact, a maladaptive psychological disorder, and the best way to treat it was to allow the affected individual to transition? I'd like to understand why and how that changed - if it has.

I think most people are only liberal because they’re younger or have a silly idealistic view of the world, boiling down complex issues into stupid one line singers like “tax the rich”. People shouldn’t have free upper education, most people take pointless degrees for the sake of delaying real responsibility for a couple of years. what exactly defines a "pointless degree". Oh no, a liberal arts degree doesn't have an exact job for it, but the skills you learn over the course of that degree can be applied to a wide variety of jobs. Oh the humanity of those people taking "pointless degrees" to delay "real responsibility".

I have to say. Discrediting trans people's voices because of the high comorbidity of dysphoria with mental illnesses is a really low blow and kind of insulting. I'm saddened to see so much of that here.

Also I'd like to see a statistic that "most" people who get a higher education get pointless degrees. What about all those people getting degrees in science, law, business, computing, design, etc. etc. Not every college class is gender studies and sociology.

If some of the edge-masters confessing in this thread actually had the balls to post their views more often then maybe polidicks wouldn't be such a supposed hivemind??? Like you guys control the shit y'all are bitching about. Let your actual concrete views stand up to scrutiny instead of hitting up the confessional with weak-ass "leftists r wrong and ruining everything" posts. I'm usually chill with just lurking in polidicks, yeah I've also noticed a leftward trend since the days of the Sanius Squad, and while I'm pretty ok with that tbh, it's frustrating to see so many confessions about this shit but none of these people actually trying to put forth well constructed arguments of their views.

Some of the conservative views on 2A here have really helped change my mind on the issue by lurking and reading well constructed arguments from people who have a good understanding of the subject matter (unlike me). Too bad that those people are often overshadowed by the edgy posters here to tr1gg3r the libz or just unironically have no empathy for anyone or anything.

in my experience trying to pick apart communist arguments and antifa arguments when it comes up, no matter how well researched or how fundamental a philosophical case i can make, a dogpiling horde of three arrows and ancom avatars comes pouring in to make the case that proactively punching bad people is ok because the hypothetical potential consequences of their ideas is violence, so therefore it's self defense, and also peaceful demonstration is undesirable and violence is the only meaningful way to affect change because muh political consciousness. So every time someone makes a broad moralising claim about how the g20 rioters are heroic paragons of all that is good, eventualy i just started ignoring those people because no matter how many quotes i dug up from lenin or marx to support my case or how many books, historical or contemporary, i cited, or how many millions of corpses i pointed to to support my claim of "this doesn't work", it was never real communism, and it was like talking to a brick wall. So eventually i just decided it wasn't worth it and let them make the claims unchallenged. And that sort of extends to people claiming capitalism is a dead end or free speech is a problem or a non universalistic law is fine because muh oppression or whatever. It's just exhausting and all the people who may have found value in the arugment will have left after the third page of it. It just wasn't productive I think the difference is that it feels good to go "the goverment should fix this!" or "This group needs unique rights!" whatever in response to some event, and making the counter argument needs to be careful, thurough and meticulous. So it's fun and gratifying to make big claims, and tiring and time consuming to counter them. And that's not a partisan claim in any way, though i think the left deals more in moralistic claims since it's function is to correct society, and the right's job is to maintain that which already exists, which would sufficient explain that dynamic.

Also, most of the leading industries in social media are made up of post-college kids with liberal arts degrees. So clearly that isn’t the problem. Have a bunch of friends who did liberal arts and are now working for Universal music, Buzz Feed, Various Advetising agencies, etc...

I feel like communism is barely discussed in polidicks though, and likewise though antifa gets brought up on a semi-regular basis responses to them tend to be a mixed bag. Hell I usually talk about how dumb I think antifa is and usually get away more or less unscathed.

this was primarily around the time that richard spencer got punched, so it was a rather popular issue.

That's largely because everyone here acknowledges that communism, or at least revolutionary communism, is a failed political ideology simply because the combination of the instability caused by a revolution combined with the ease of authoritarianism in a communist society means that inevitably a strongman comes to power, and that strongman usually abuses their power. The only way socialism would ever work as an ideology is through a slow creeping series of reforms that don't massively upset the fabric of a nation. In fact to some extent it has been what we've been working for with the establishment of social democracies in the western hemisphere, and so far it's working pretty well that way, at least when conservative asshats don't fuck it up that is.

Here's a confession that isn't anonymous; Guillotine memes make me super uncomfortable and it's idolizing a very bloody stage of history that had many innocent people caught in the crossfire shouldn't be idolized.

to be a bit un-serious-ish the only thing i can think of that would make me take the alt right a lot more seriously is if they own up to how subjective what makes you laugh is and stop saying "the left cant meme". because as a leftist i could say "the right cant meme" since a lot of their memes dont make me laugh, but if they fit your kinda humor then the memes themselves are just fine (i guess im a meme centrist, lol)

It's just harmless jokes. Don't lose your head over it.

the alt right has no self image beyond their shitty memes so they desperately try to make them as obtuse and self-referential as possible. I wouldn't think too much about it

and even if someone gets their degrees in these, so what? they now have a range of skills they can apply to many different jobs. That's the whole point of a liberal arts degree in the first place. It's Liberal in the sense that you gain a wide variety of skills that can be applied to a lot of different workplaces and jobs.

I just want everyone to get along... I too so wish.

Most ideaologies require utopian thinking and sell people on that utopian thinking. Attempting to create an idealogy without utopian wishful thinking is actually incredibly difficult.

I know a big polidicks secret. Lets just say, a recent newly made moderator was tudd all along I ultimately agree with the previous confessions regarding climate change. Any politician currently that denies it's real whether due to complete ignorance and disregard for the sciences, or simply denies it due to having their pockets lined with coal/oil money, is an existential threat to the continuation of the human race. Every single one of them should be barred from political office and charged with crimes against humanity. We are edging dangerously close to the point of no return. Our planet is dying at a rate that migrating away to Mars is not feasible enough for a sustainable population with our current technology. I sometimes think that if the political climate continues as it is right now then some brave people should take note of the MAGA bomber and take care of those responsible. I know that's a very extreme belief, but the politicians that have maybe 5-10 years of life left to live with more money in their bank accounts than any person on Earth would know how to spend, are evil, selfish, faggots. They deserve a lengthy jail sentence, and if they "get away" with it, the ultimate sentence of death. These people do not care about the sustainability of human life beyond their own, and should not be allowed to threaten our existence under any circumstances. I vote democrat in the states and but if I was from another country I'd probably be really into far right politics, I just think its embarassing to be a nationalist from a country thats such a convoluted mess of race with really boring history that's literally just bits and pieces from other cultures. What the fuck is there to be nationalistic about lmao Socialism and anarchism are cool ideologies but I'd fucking kill myself if I was forced to browse internet communities of them. There is points where they near the feeling of peak reddit atheism culture or furry fandoms We need to leave the UN.I think Hillary Clinton was always going to lose, and in a way I'm glad for that. I just wish someone else had won too. I was the first among my social circle to point out that Donald may have a chance since his two biggest opponents were Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton of all people. That was the day he announced his campaign. I was hoping Bernie or Green Party would make it. They did not. Sometimes I wonder if we're so cock-sure of Trump being appointed through Russian meddling, would it also be true that Russians arranged to set him up with such easy opponents? As someone who thought they were trans for 2 years, and then realizing I was just extremely self conscious about being overweight, I believe that people who are "trans" are mentally deranged. I believe that those who are Trans are just extremely self conscious and wants love and support, and the best way to get that is to be Transgender. Every Tran person I have seen is extremely overweight/ugly, and never even pass. Trans people are just lazy overweight people who want the easy way out, they want to be loved and appreciated without having to put the work into improving their life. But I'll be real, that isn't my main view. I believe it is possible scientifically for Gender Dysphoria and Transgender people to exist but it's EXTREMELY rare and less common that the Media shows. They are just classified as Hermaphrodites. Going to finally comment on one of these since they are so prevalent: What is with people and not understanding the idea of "not your body, not your experience"?🤔 We really need to make bad sources bannable again. The recent thread on transgender children is proof of that. Horrible source and idiots are falling for its lies left and right, forcing us to correct them. Joining the anti politically correct is just another genre of political correctness. Way to think for yourselves /pol/.

people talk a lot about gangbanging arguments to death when i barely see even a half decent argument to be made in most such cases?? like if your argument is shit it's not going to be well received, there it is in a nutshell, learn to discuss properly and you might actually get heard instead of spouting pundit meme points.

It could be worse. We could have unabashed communists here who love to unironically state that anyone that disagrees with them deserves gulag.

As someone who thought they were trans for 2 years, and then realizing I was just extremely self conscious about being overweight, I believe that people who are "trans" are mentally deranged. I believe that those who are Trans are just extremely self conscious and wants love and support, and the best way to get that is to be Transgender. Every Tran person I have seen is extremely overweight/ugly, and never even pass. Trans people are just lazy overweight people who want the easy way out, they want to be loved and appreciated without having to put the work into improving their life. But I'll be real, that isn't my main view. I believe it is possible scientifically for Gender Dysphoria and Transgender people to exist but it's EXTREMELY rare and less common that the Media shows. They are just classified as Hermaphrodites. projection: the post

The last bit is semi right, I think its less than 1% of the American are trans but I could be wrong. I think the reason that a lot seem to be around is generally due to the friend groups you have as LGBTQA folks congregate together for protection purposes.