Is boards.ie a home for the middle class?

tritium

I wouldn't think you have any particular social group overrepresented here, certainly not in AH anyway. You seem to have a core block of right wing upper middle class, core block of left wing traditional working class and a larger middle group who may agree with some positions of either of the other two but not always. The first two groups routinely shout louder, fire off the odd pseudo intellectual rant, ignore (sometimes abuse) posters who don't agree with them and accuse everyone else of being a communist/ fascist. Of course its impossible to say what the actual background of those posters are.

Judging by the overall balance I think I can see between the 'Tax the hell out of the 'rich'/raid the money tree' gang and the 'dole scroungers are scum/end all benefits' gang I wouldn't say either group dominates. So in that sense I'd say boards is a home more for the middle ground, who listen to the megaphone diplomacy of the two extremes, than the middle class - A bit like society in general possibly

Cold War Kid

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

Most of the groups I post on on facebooks are more genuine people. Maybe being able to hide your identity helps very pro government types...

Oh yeh those Facebook groups - full of such delightful people, who are so receptive to anyone who merely disagrees with them. The likes of the lovely The Hub I take it.

Cold War Kid

tritium wrote: »

I wouldn't think you have any particular social group overrepresented here, certainly not in AH anyway. You seem to have a core block of right wing upper middle class, core block of left wing traditional working class and a larger middle group who may agree with some positions of either of the other two but not always. The first two groups routinely shout louder, fire off the odd pseudo intellectual rant, ignore (sometimes abuse) posters who don't agree with them and accuse everyone else of being a communist/ fascist. Of course its impossible to say what the actual background of those posters are.

Judging by the overall balance I think I can see between the 'Tax the hell out of the 'rich'/raid the money tree' gang and the 'dole scroungers are scum/end all benefits' gang I wouldn't say either group dominates. So in that sense I'd say boards is a home more for the middle ground, who listen to the megaphone diplomacy of the two extremes, than the middle class - A bit like society in general possibly

Exactly. The two you mention (I'd throw in staunchly left-wing middle-class intellectuals too) just scream and groan the loudest.

SMASH IRISH WATER

Cold War Kid wrote: »

Oh yeh those Facebook groups - full of such delightful people, who are so receptive to anyone who merely disagrees with them. The likes of the lovely The Hub I take it.

Groups of ordinary decent people. It must scare pro-government types like you now that we can communicate with each other on social medias and don't have to swallow the mainstream press anymore.

southcentralts

Me, I don't come here, there are far too many sexy singles in my area!

dxhound2005

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

As far as I can tell this site is full of people who are very well off and luck down there noses at working class or poor people. Full of snobs.

Most of the groups I post on on facebooks are more genuine people. Maybe being able to hide your identity helps very pro government types...

It's also full of smash Irish Water activists who bring their political agenda on to as many threads as they can. The irony of the abuse and intimidation being visited on ordinary working people by these wasters who claim to represent the working class does not go unnoticed.

myshirt

There are a substantial amount of 'f#ck the poor' type people on boards if we be honest. Without fail there's a thread tearing into the most vulnerable people in our society nearly every week.

Cold War Kid

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

Groups of ordinary decent people. It must scare pro-government types like you now that we can communicate with each other on social medias and don't have to swallow the mainstream press anymore.

Your response claims that I, without any proof whatsoever, am "pro government" - as I predicted to a T.
No, people who attack people for simply not agreeing with them are not "decent".

There are people like The Hub, who enjoy intimidating their detractors, and there are people who are government worshippers - and then there's a whole canyon in between.

tritium

myshirt wrote: »

There are a substantial amount of 'f#ck the poor' type people on boards if we be honest. Without fail there's a thread tearing into the most vulnerable people in our society nearly every week.

There would seem to be substantial amounts of 'f#ck the poor, the rich, the middle class, the young, the old, the guilty, the innocent, the accused, men, women, foreigners, irish, <insert category here>.......type people

Easy enough to find a number of threads on all of the above. Some survive the lock, some don't. I'm not sure you can say with any confidence that the poor get a harder time on here than anyone else

Chijj

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

As far as I can tell this site is full of people who are very well off and luck down there noses at working class or poor people. Full of snobs.

Most of the groups I post on on facebooks are more genuine people. Maybe being able to hide your identity helps very pro government types...

Your outlook shapes how you view things.

By the way Facebook groups are the epitome of what is wrong with society these days, full of people who want the best services and minimum tax.

myshirt

I do whole heartedly believe the poor get an absolute asses beating week in week out on boards, with very little defending of them.

Mint Aero

There's isn't many full time working at full time mammy types or bleedin' scratcher types on AH that's for sure

SMASH IRISH WATER

Chijj wrote: »

Your outlook shapes how you view things.

By the way Facebook groups are the epitome of what is wrong with society these days, full of people who want the best services and minimum tax.

No they are not.

They are people who want some change. People who want fairness and equality. People who are sick of hearing about corrupt politicians and about millionaires paying no tax. There has never been such a large gap between the rich and the poor. People are now finally standing up, and the establishment and their lapdogs are running scared.

Cold War Kid

Cold War Kid wrote: »

Oh yeh those Facebook groups - full of such delightful people, who are so receptive to anyone who merely disagrees with them. The likes of the lovely The Hub I take it.

Other then Boards.ie keyboard warriors who hide behind a made up name.

FloatingVoter

The social background and political views of AH posters depends on which number beer they're on.
Y'see ....I've stopped counting and my spelling is coming back.

Cold War Kid

Deleted User wrote: »

Other then Boards.ie keyboard warriors who hide behind a made up name.

Simply saying they're unnecessarily aggressive towards people who disagree with them is hardly being a keyboard warrior; it's a statement of fact.
They and their fans are so needlessly defensive.

Chijj

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

No they are not.

They are people who want some change. People who want fairness and equality. People who are sick of hearing about corrupt politicians and about millionaires paying no tax. There has never been such a large gap between the rich and the poor. People are now finally standing up, and the establishment and their lapdogs are running scared.

If you truly believe that the slack jawed yokels from a Facebook group can run a country and the ideas are viable to make it a success I think you are deluded.

JupiterKid

Well the majority of Irish people today are middle class- so it would seem that posters on boards.ie would follow suit. But what strikes me lately are the number of extreme right wing reactionary posters.

Ruu

Only class I'm in is the school of Grange Hill!

the evasion_kid

Chijj wrote: »

If you truly believe that the slack jawed yokels from a Facebook group can run a country and the ideas are viable to make it a success I think you are deluded.

Couldn't be any worse than the slack jawed yokels that are there at the minute

Chijj

the evasion_kid wrote: »

Couldn't be any worse than the slack jawed yokels that are there at the minute

I'm far from the governments biggest fan but I would rate them 7/10 at the moment, on a personal level I can see growth in jobs from the people I know and they reduced the USC at the budget, albeit at a low amount.

A good bit done, a good bit more to do.

dxhound2005

SMASH IRISH WATER wrote: »

No they are not.

They are people who want some change. People who want fairness and equality. People who are sick of hearing about corrupt politicians and about millionaires paying no tax. There has never been such a large gap between the rich and the poor. People are now finally standing up, and the establishment and their lapdogs are running scared.

If you have evidence of tax evasion bring it to the Revenue Commissioners. You can check their quarterly register of offenders for details of how they deal with miscreants.

If your lot get into power they will immediately let the millionaires off property tax, one tax which they cannot avoid.

darkpagandeath

dxhound2005 wrote: »

If you have evidence of tax evasion bring it to the Revenue Commissioners. You can check their quarterly register of offenders for details of how they deal with miscreants.

If your lot get into power they will immediately let the millionaires off property tax, one tax which they cannot avoid.

Aggressive tax avoidance is not illegal yet.

KomradeBishop

If political parties spend millions on campaigning regularly, they likely spend a bit of that on online discourse too - if industries that have a big stake in political/economic topics that affect them (hint: finance), spend lots of money lobbying on affected policies, they likely spend a bit of that on online discourse too.
There's a lot of precedent of that all around the world - there's nothing unique or special about Ireland, which would make it any different.

It's very easy to control discussion online: Drive the quality of discussion down to such a low level, for select topics, that nobody really wants to participate anymore, and then just make excuses to repeat the same points that back your political end-goals (or which are otherwise advantageous in that way - even if just as a distraction), again and again.

If you make people lose interest in the topic, that's a win - bonus if you get to perpetuate myths that back your political views in the process (creating scores of 'useful idiots' who will help perpetuate those views - these are likely the vast majority of certain extremists).
That's why variations of 'dole scrounger sipping champagne on a beach in Lanzarote' is the myth that will never die.

You can usually spot this, by seeing that people are only putting on the pretense of a debate, instead of actually debating - or are otherwise using deceptive arguments.


So no, for certain topics, Boards probably doesn't really represent the public or even the forum userbase that well - you do get extremes on both sides (I've seen what appeared to be an actual North Korean Communist hint death threats at posters before :pac:), but the larger the number of extremists on one side, spouting the most excessively extreme version of their views, the more they can make the middleground/'moderates' shift in their direction (or give the appearance of that) - shifting the Overton Window - i.e. shifting the range of acceptable discourse, and perpetuating myths which back their political aims.

porsche959

Whether the OP is right or wrong, got to lol at posts saying there is no class system in Ireland.

The naivetee of some.

tritium

Cold War Kid wrote: »

Exactly. The two you mention (I'd throw in staunchly left-wing middle-class intellectuals too) just scream and groan the loudest.

Haha yeah forgot about them

Got to love how a thread can quickly invalidate itself though! Is boards middle class and the first few pages are a slew of posters with telling us how evil the rich are and how they control everything against the poor. I predict we'll shortly have the equivalent meaningless wall of noise from the other fringe in counterattack. Shortly after that we'll have the standard pseudo intellectual nonsense you mention. Possibly with lashing of whinings about how other posters are being dishonest or misrepresenting them as their arguments get dismantled by the uncomfortable facts....

A fairly standard boards thread so....

MRnotlob606

I am drinking champagne out of a welly.

MRnotlob606

KomradeBishop wrote: »

If political parties spend millions on campaigning regularly, they likely spend a bit of that on online discourse too - if industries that have a big stake in political/economic topics that affect them (hint: finance), spend lots of money lobbying on affected policies, they likely spend a bit of that on online discourse too.
There's a lot of precedent of that all around the world - there's nothing unique or special about Ireland, which would make it any different.

It's very easy to control discussion online: Drive the quality of discussion down to such a low level, for select topics, that nobody really wants to participate anymore, and then just make excuses to repeat the same points that back your political end-goals (or which are otherwise advantageous in that way - even if just as a distraction), again and again.

If you make people lose interest in the topic, that's a win - bonus if you get to perpetuate myths that back your political views in the process (creating scores of 'useful idiots' who will help perpetuate those views - these are likely the vast majority of certain extremists).
That's why variations of 'dole scrounger sipping champagne on a beach in Lanzarote' is the myth that will never die.

You can usually spot this, by seeing that people are only putting on the pretense of a debate, instead of actually debating - or are otherwise using deceptive arguments.


So no, for certain topics, Boards probably doesn't really represent the public or even the forum userbase that well - you do get extremes on both sides (I've seen what appeared to be an actual North Korean Communist hint death threats at posters before :pac:), but the larger the number of extremists on one side, spouting the most excessively extreme version of their views, the more they can make the middleground/'moderates' shift in their direction (or give the appearance of that) - shifting the Overton Window - i.e. shifting the range of acceptable discourse, and perpetuating myths which back their political aims.

I remember the poster who that poster who had bizzare predilection for North Korea.

TwoShedsJackson

One thing I've learned from AH is that if you are poor or on the dole it's your own fault for being such a lazy freeloader.

anncoates

There definitely seems to be a quite young/studently demographic that nonetheless appear remarkably well versed and experienced in topics like old age, taxes, parenting, long term unemployment,marriage and so on.