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What is your prime motivation when posting in the Current Affairs/IMHO forum?

DialecticAspirations

I'd love to hear opinions on this as I find it an interesting topic, generally speaking, and also from a psychological perspective.

I've also found it somewhat depressing that the most active threads here are often the most toxic (as evidenced in part by the incessant noise of the banhammer, and in part by some threads going for many pages without offering anything actually new or of value), so I'm hoping this poll helps restore my faith in (Irish) humanity.

It will be interesting to see how the results stack up proportionately to the reality of the forum....assuming this poll actually gets any (honest) responses!

Just so I say it, I've already (probably) posted for all of the reasons listed, even though I haven't posted much yet.

I'm hoping this poll doesn't get moved to Psychology or somewhere as then it just won't get many votes and it will get a lot less responses from the users of this thread, as they just won't see it.

(Apologies if this has been done/asked before, but I could not find it with a search. Also, apologies if I've omitted any other common reason for posting in this forum)

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Comments

[Deleted User]

Most people argue because they cannot accept someone has a different opinion to their own, so echo-chambers form where they all agree with each other on everything — and anyone who presents outside that bubble of agreement must be an "extremist" of some kind of other.

It's effectively a form of insecurity — where many people are not validated / secure in the confidence of their own position unless they convert / force others to agree with them.

In terms of myself, I always write to the audience of the thread — those who read it, but who do not contribute. They're probably not even registered members. I am far more likely to sway their opinions because they don't have an agenda.

I fully understand that my chance of changing the opinion of actual contributors within threads is exactly zero, for the reasons outlined above.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122152238#Comment_122152238

echo chamber is a huge issue

Look at the government threads and the Green policies thread for example, it’s the same few posters for years on the thread and if anyone new joins that might have a different point of view the regulars will attack them till they leave the thread and then it backs to the same regulars just reposting the same information over and over again, thanking each other and thinking it’s great

then of course they will complain “boards is dying”

highpitcheric

Calling out shyte.

[Deleted User]

My facts are always correct and my opinions are as always the right ones so I post to counter all the misinformation and incorrect opinions that are here.

Brussels Sprout

There are a lot of threads I avoid in this particular sub-forum because, from what I have seen of them, they're completely toxic and tend to be the same few posters lobbing pot shots, back and forth, at each other, day after day. It's a shame really as a lot of them have the potential to be very interesting topics.

I've learned to mostly avoid:

Any threads on Immigration
Any threads on the Greens / Climate Change
Any threads on Sinn Fein
Any threads on the performance of the Government
Any threads about "wokeness"
Any threads on Israel/Palestine
Any threads on Trans issues

I mostly read/post in the Russia/Ukraine thread as I'm interested in that topic and there are some good posters on there who post links to content that I might not otherwise see. It's not immune to the same toxicity as elsewhere but the mods tend to do a decent job of banning the obvious trolls who continuously pop up in there.

highpitcheric

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122153289#Comment_122153289

No i just go after the obviously nonsense ones.

This used to be a whole lot easier. But these last few years, something changed.

Lord save me for saying this, but even reddit has a better culture of requiring some tiny bit of evidence.

Thats how full of shyte boards has become.

zerosquared

Mainly because there are interesting posts and posters (tho that’s a decreasing number)

But also because there is a dangerous bunch of quite possibly not Irish posters spreading manure and whom cheer for shithole regimes and ideologies from Russia, China, Iran and HAMAS and other Islamists

I don’t want my kids to grow up in a world that resembles these places and goes against the values of this country and western civilisation

Hence it’s important to provide a counter to this noise and debunk these conspiracy theorists and their far left/right nonsense, we seen during covid how harmful conspiracies are and we can see daily on current affairs news just how fucked up the places higher up are.

Goldengirl

Yeah it was an interesting forum until all the 'new ' accounts starting springing up posting anything except of Irish interest or drumming up constant outrage , almost like bots from another country .

highpitcheric

And then there were the ones who decided anyone and everyone who didnt agree with their unfounded brain fartings was quite naturally part of a foreign backed psy op.

Prove it.

- no. Youre just asking for proof because youre getting paid by the kremlin.

DialecticAspirations

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122152238#Comment_122152238

I like your idea of focusing on the large, silent majority when you're posting - doing this while ignoring any low quality/vacuous posts is very stoic and no doubt helps maintain sanity.

There's probably more than one (psychological) level to motivations for posting, and the options I gave are for the most superficial level, i.e. what the poster thinks the reason is behind their post.
Beneath this perceived reason, there's usually something else - an unconscious reason.

This deeper reason could be insecurity, as you say.
Or it could be a desire to feel good, for a moment, as I suggested in the "Banned from Iran/Israel" thread.

This desire to feel good is sometimes manifest as virtue signalling, sometimes as a feeling of happiness that you (may have) helped someone else, and sometimes as an ego-driven desire to demonstrate superior knowledge / debating skills / English etc.
All of us have most likely posted at one stage or another for each of those 3 reasons (among others) though we're loathe to admit it.

[Deleted User]

Gurwinder Bhogal is interesting on this.

[Deleted User]

One of the reason I post is I genuinely can't understand why indviduials sprout the non evidance based opinions they have so I like to counteract that a bit with an evidance based answer.

The things is if a posters is a true believer of what ever they post, evidence doesn't matter to them what matters is what they feel/belive about the issue.

lmao10

This forum is mainly a bunch of far right types trying to make it seem like their opinions are normalized. Of course that gets blowback from regular decent people and I think it's a money maker for the owners as that type of thing attracts engagement. The forum seems to have died a death compared to what it was. I wish I was around during the boards beers days. Id say most of those posters are long gone.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156720#Comment_122156720

Sort of opposite I think. This forum is mainly a bunch of fairly normal people representative of a cross section of Irish society, whom a small group of loo laas are determined to try and paint as xenophobic right wing racists. This small group attempt to shut down debates and steer them certain ways. Quite what their motivation is, I find unclear. I suspect they are mostly beneficiaries of tax payer funded organisations/ services who are protecting their nice cushy numbers.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156720#Comment_122156720

maybe the people of those days are gone because they got bored of disingenuous people labelling anything or anyone that they disagreed with in political or social terms as ‘far right’… 🤪

Just for a bit of context. Somebody, ‘far right’ was Benito Mussolini….(Look him up) Not people with everyday concerns about mass immigration or social issues stemming from it. 😉

DialecticAspirations

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156012#Comment_122156012

Would you recommend a specific work of this person as it relates to this topic?

Or do they just comment about it on a blog/X etc?

Thanks

eggy81

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156720#Comment_122156720

😂😂 far right me hole.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122157049#Comment_122157049

https://substack.com/%40gurwinder Look at some of these.

https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/dramageddon-the-virtual-civil-war?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

[Deleted User]

This is a really interesting thread it's a pity it's not getting a better debate.

For example posters that have over 20000 posts about asylum seekers or 20000 posts about SF or any other single issue posters with an enormous amount of posts what are they hoping to achieve?

Or posters who post vulge abuse about poltitions often seeming to believe they are witty what are they hoping to achieve?

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122159548#Comment_122159548

I think by their very nature, online fora are more likely to attract people who feel their minds are already made up; that they have all the evidence and conclusions they need to know — and that any new evidence must first align with those conclusions before being accepted as evidence worth having. Not all, of course, but most.

But that's a problem, because this is too comfortable and certain and fixed. It leads to the kind of imperious attitude we see on many threads where some people are literally looked down upon as lesser for having the temerity of holding the "wrong opinions". In other words, the person isn't just "wrong" from an evidential standpoint, they are considered a lower caste of people; a moral judgement is made.

I think, as a general rule, being too comfortable in a political worldview is a bad thing. It almost always means that the mutilating rot of confirmation bias has set in, and that alone acts as an intellectual straitjacket that suppresses good arguments, good evidence, and good reasoning.

Above all, the primary motivator is what makes the person feel better about themselves and what they "believe" is right — even when it has been conclusively established that what they believe is sometimes wrong.

DialecticAspirations

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122158155#Comment_122158155

Thanks for this link ("Dramageddon") - not only a very interesting read, but within it the author provides links to (many) excellent academic papers and articles.
I've only got through a few so far but plan on reading them all.

I found these two particularly interesting (Apologies, can't seem to get hyperlinks working properly) :
The Online Disinhibition Effect : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8451443_The_Online_Disinhibition_Effect
The Psychology of Online Political Hostility: https://gwern.net/doc/sociology/technology/2021-bor.pdf

A relevant and revealing/shocking quote from your main link:
"Research suggests narcissists are more likely to be political activists. Further, the narcissistic trait of entitlement is linked to political correctness and alt-right attitudes". Interesting that narcissism seems to not be limited to one side of the political spectrum.

Back to the poll now, I thought it might be interesting to look through the new Iranian president/helicopter thread as an example, in order to compare it with the poll results as they currently stand.
I’ve reviewed the 1st 50ish posts and mapped them into the 7 categories as best I could (I’m leaving out the last category as it’s partly driven by disinterest/dislike of the poll, not motivation for posting).
I’ve adjusted the %s of the poll by removing the last category, to get a better like-for-like comparison.

Results I see:

I want to engage in thoughtful and constructive conversation and offer my opinion or useful information…
46.8% (Thread) vs 38.10% (Poll)

I feel strongly about an issue (aka I am right, damnit), and while I may repeat myself sometimes…
17% (Thread) vs 33% (Poll)

The anonymity allows me to have conversations about topics
0% (Thread) vs 4.7% (Poll)

Ok, I'll admit it, I love virtue signalling
10.6% (Thread) vs 0% (Poll)

I'm gonna get 'em!
8.5% (Thread) vs 4.7% (Poll)

I love complaining
0% (Thread) vs 10% (Poll)

I just want to have a laugh every now and again and post something funny or troll a bit
17% (Thread) vs 9.5% (Poll)

I've not mentioned which posts I've put in each category as I do not want to be accused of attacking any posters / breaking any rules - everything remains anonymous.

I also left out a couple of posts as I wasn't sure of their meaning or they seemed irrelevant to the thread entirely.

It should be noted that each unit in the poll represents one person, but each unit in my categorisation represents one post. Some people have posted several times in the thread, others just once. But I believe there is still value in a comparison.

Obviously it's just one thread, the grouping is subjective, and the poll is a small sample, but the comparison of a real thread with the poll results is interesting nonetheless.

It's heartening to see so many posts being in the 1st category, even if they are mainly news/link/update sharing because the story is so new. Maybe as threads get older and there is less news to share, less posts fall under this category, and more go in the "naughty" categories…

Necro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156720#Comment_122156720

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122156752#Comment_122156752

This is exactly what's wrong with discussion in CA nowadays, everyone rushing to put labels on each other. Far right this, loo laa that… what's with the tribalist stuff? Post in a civil manner without attacking groups of people and you get better quality discussion!

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164002#Comment_122164002

Maybe because labels are useful? Birds of a feather, flock together. We label many groups for convenience.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122165671#Comment_122165671

Labels aren't used for convenience.

They're frequently used to abandon any critical engagement with what might be a complex, layered topic.

So rather than engage with nuanced points, it's easier to label that person and therefore block any meaningful engagement with any points they may have.

Whilst labels do have their place, often for the most accurate and extreme cases, they are at the same time abused for the above reasons.

Potatoeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122157247#Comment_122157247

This is an old communist play, keep saying lies about your opponents and eventually people will believe them.

corkie

Because the Politics forum is to strict/stoic. I have two recent threads in here now. First was in Politics for awhile but didn't get any traction. Although getting good views, seems nobody else interested in the topic.

Second went straight here because I listened to mods recommendations/advise on a place to put it.

Gentlemanne

I like to pop in as one of the like 5 posters who're not some form of conservative.

Big laugh at the guy who brought up echo chambers as something other places are .. Do ye really think this subforum is so impartial? I practically get a headache in here with all The_Donald style posts echoing around my skull.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122164002#Comment_122164002

I noticed nobody ever nitpicks posters who judge something to be "far left".
I'm really not so sure why you guys have all these right-wing talking points but then get upset when someone says they're right-wing. With some of you, I've never seen someone so certain of their beliefs yet so embarrassed of their politics.