self righteousness and the escapist

[Pax Romana]

It is exceedingly rare that people examine their own position and motives enough to change their stances, much rarer again that this happened via another persons forum post. If you post in RnP when you are quoted you are likely about to be berated by someone. If you want nice friendly discussion stick to gaming I find, as Silvanus has mentioned.

I think the important thing to remind yourself (and I am very guilty of this I will admit) that you may not like the point but that doesn't mean you don't like, or would not like, the person. I have actually lost a friend because our political debates became so heated that we didn't like each other anymore. A thing I regret really because in the grand scheme all our talk changed nothing including our minds.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Let me guess, depending on who you ask the person opposite their ideology is "self righteous"... how close am I?

GGers to "SJWs/AGG/AGGROs/Whatever the new battle cry of the month is" and vice versa. Neither side is entirely wrong or right, but anyone entrenched in their opinion can't see that nor can they admit to their faults without deflecting (there are exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions). Take any other heated division of a subject and you can find the same thing.

Not surprisingly where the phrase "self-righteous" is thrown out usually a mirror reveals someone just as guilty of it. The Escapist is no worse for it then the Chans, SA, Reddit, Gamefaqs etc.

The Escapist moderation is able to keep things relatively calm and sane while also being lenient enough to allow a wide range of subjects to be discussed. Despite the grumblings of bruised egos, I think that this has mostly improved during my time here. This is pretty much the reason why I partake in these forums exclusively... others are too harsh or too lenient.

But yes, there is self-righteousness in the escapist. There are people who take a stance but never examine that stance with new information. They deflect and reject alternate opinions, no matter how reasonable, because it clashes with their stance. They wield their point of view like it's the only one that matters.

It turns out that's a pretty common human trait. And I'm fine with that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Debating isn't about proving whether you're right and they're wrong

I really thing you're wrong about that!

Seriously though, as someone who has espoused the "people prefer fighting to talking" maxim to describe forum behavior, that is an uphill battle you're going for. Anger and outrage are addictive. People seek out and post in the most controversial threads they can find, and usually single out someone they disagree violently with to respond to.

Even THIS thread smacks of controversy with its title. It's probably what drew your eye to it.

Make a calm, reasoned, rambling thread that takes all points of view into account and no one will reply to it because no one will have anything to add. =\

 

[Ishal]

As for the self-righteous reputation? I believe part if it was embraced by the staff, the site was once called "the last bastion of intelligence on the internet", people such as Yahtzee and Jim are/were featured and they're not exactly known for sugar coating. I think also the community likes to make fun of itself[footnote]PC gaming master race[/footnote], in jokes that could be taken as serious to people who aren't familiar. There's also a lot of stuff we say when taken out of context sounds absolutely self righteous. [https://twitter.com/escapist_txt]

I'm glad someone brought up the "last bastion" thing.

I never really cared for that. I lurked the site for two years before actually joining. Most of the staff I didn't really care for, particularly Greg and Susan. Not sure what everyone loved about them.

Anyway, I come to these forums because I can have a conversation and I know not everyone is going to agree with me, but at the same time they can't just say "Lol fuk u" and run away.

True, but they can do the escapist equivalent. They can argue their point with 10% logic/reason and 90% snark, condescension, and sarcasm. All very much the bottom tier of wit. This will continue until one party has finally had enough. To me, the "lol fuk u" and waddling off is often preferable. At least it's less drawn out.

I don't mind the chans, honestly. (Though I've never been to 8chan) Both places have their own shitty behavior, and both have their own brand of shitposters. This place is hardly a shangri-la as forums go. And I laugh every time someone puts it so far above other sites. Granted, it comes down to taste. But the smugness, and snarkiness of some posters really gets under my skin, and does so in a way some shitposter on a chan could never do.

But make no mistake, this place has it's trolls. They just wear a different skin. They dance around the rules and act like shitty comedians employing that classic wit I mentioned above. Then there are the concern trolls, you know, the ones who show up in threads putting a dramatic hand to their foreheads to lament the state of things. "Ugh, can't we all just have a civil discussion!!" "I'd like to say I'm surprised people would defend this, but I'm not..." "Can't we all just understand the other side for a moment? No, okay then..." All while ironically adding nothing to the discussion.

Then there is the classic move of searching through a thread to find the weakest argument against a position and attack that, ignoring all the others. But other than that, I can agree with your points. I just don't think this place is all that different from other sites. It's a chocolate vs vanilla thing.

 

[Zhukov]

When you say self righteous, do you mean we have a lot of individually self-righteous people here? Quite possibly true, I'm certainly guilty of it, although I'm not convinced that such people are more prevalent here than elsewhere.

Or do you mean we are collectively self righteous about the forum. ("The Escapist is the last sane place on the internet!") If that's the case then I think it's down to the moderation. Keeps things relatively polite compared to an un-moderated evironment. I mean, we've all seen Youtube comments, right?

 

[Charli]

Nah the Escapist has always had that reputation. I don't know where 'started to become a running joke' is coming from, it's always been the underlying tone in here. Even just before I made my official account. Also this side is moderated closely, and people here tend to want to stay, so they don't act out in quite as obvious ways as places like the holy trinity (Chan/Dit/Blr)

They do act out from time to time but it's often more nuanced or because someone became overly passionate and started name calling rather than just straight up provoking for reactions and acting dumb, they adjust their attitude to the beat of the drum you might say.

I'm not here often enough to really step back and look at it but I still enjoy the forums enough to stick around reading a few topics at lunch. And that's all I care about. The reputation of the Escapist forums aren't of much concern to me as long as content flows, and a few interesting things pop up now and then, if not i've other places to move onto.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I don't mind the chans, honestly. (Though I've never been to 8chan) Both places have their own shitty behavior, and both have their own brand of shitposters. This place is hardly a shangri-la as forums go. And I laugh every time someone puts it so far above other sites. Granted, it comes down to taste. But the smugness, and snarkiness of some posters really gets under my skin, and does so in a way some shitposter on a chan could never do.

I...I might have been here so long that it doesn't even register on the radar anymore. I mean I know what you're talking about particularly the snark, condescension, and sarcasm, [footnote]passive aggressive, indirect jabs to avoid modwrath[/footnote] it used to get under my skin but eventually it just... stopped. Kind of like working in retail, it's a shitty job, you know it's a shitty job but after a few years you get used to it. It's interesting how different internet communities have their own way of interacting, as you said, it really is like chocolate vs vanilla.

I am also part of a community where the majority is 20 something females who migrated there from Tumblr.[footnote]It's a pet site about dragons[/footnote] [footnote]I believe the majority on the Escapist is 20 something males but hell if I can back it up[/footnote], if you were to throw the two communities onto the same website... I'm not sure what would happen. I have made topics there that flew really well but wouldn't fly here and vise versa.

 

[Guffe]

For me this isn't a problem, because usually when I say something here, there's someone quoting me and telling me I'm wrong. Then I ask them to elaborate, they do, and I noticed I was wrong because my mothertongue isn't English and usually I've missed some small important detail and then I learn something new
This is my case 90% of the time no matter the topic xD

Has to be said though, that this is in stuff/debates with facts, if someone has another taste in something (ice cream) or other values, there's no real reason to debate, because everyone's allowed to believe in what they want, is it a God or a certain political side that someone is taking. Very hard to change that.

 

[Fat Hippo]

From what I see here, the forums have actually become a bit more level-headed because users like Sung-Hwan, Zeel and EternalNothingness have left.

I kind of miss Sung-Hwan and EternalNothingness. I mean, they were batshit crazy, but absolutely hilarious.

Man, I loved how Sung-Hwan could pretend to be completely level-headed, and looking for a discussion, but when he was presented with anything other than his precise opinion and total agreement (which never happened, because his opinions were always insane), it was as if there was a bug in his programming, and he just...broke. Became completely incapable of storing or processing any new information.

Come to think of it, he was kind of like every bad internet user, but on steroids.

 

[CaitSeith]

I don't know. Some topics usually bring out the worst of people, and I pretty much stay away from them.

 

[visiblenoise]

Despite all the talk about having meaningful discussions and "getting somewhere," all I ever see here in the serious topics are painfully adversarial debate, thinly veiled by a pretense of being scholarly. Nobody ever really concedes a point in good faith, and nothing changes.

 

[RJ 17]

A while back, someone made a topic saying "Come up with your own slogan for The Escapist."

My submission was "Welcome to Escapist Magazine: At Least It's Not 4Chan."

More to the point, this isn't anything new or specific to The Escapist...it's a symptom of the internet. Anonymity goes a long way to fueling bravado and "self-righteousness".

 

[sageoftruth]

I'm willing to believe that self-righteousness can be combated. As was mentioned, we're kind of conditioned to avoid admitting we're wrong, but steps can be taken to bypass that obstructive defensiveness. I've done some reading on rhetoric. At first I was put off by the idea that people can be tricked so easily by the way you say things, but the great thing is, you can use those same tricks to try to prevent people from becoming defensive.
I often attempt to do this by talking up to the person I'm arguing with, rather than talking down. I emphasize the amount of thought I put into everything the person says, and present all my arguments as suggestions or simple questions from a student to a teacher. If you approach the opposition like you're trying to be taught by them, rather than the other way around, it can take the edge off of them admitting to being wrong. More importantly, it can also open you up to admitting you're wrong if that's the case.

 

[Josh123914]

"Welcome to Escapist Magazine: At Least It's Not 4Chan."

/thread.

I thought that was the site's reputation according to other forums was being arrogant and snobbish, due to our big ranty posts and lack of images & <10 word responses.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

so it's starting to become a running joke that these forums have become a little bit let's say arrogant and very loud over the course of a few years and I thought it would be a good time to kind of address why that is. I personally gave my thoughts another thread which I will quote here

most forums are echo chambers even though most people don't realize it. Reddit and even 8chan have this problem of separating people into different clicks by giving them each a section you can stay in. The escapists is what happens when you completely remove it. it's kind of fascinating, it kind of shows us how self-righteous and arrogant we really are. I remember when a bunch of 8chan members decided to come into the escapist to "destroyed echo chamber" why they were talking in an echo chamber. Some of them learned the ways of the forums (some of them who are probably talking about this issue here) and others got suspended or banned and nothing really changed.

anyway the point I'm trying to make here is that the reason the escapist is so self-righteous is because a lot of people in there political beliefs don't see the people who they disagree with as people but more strawman they talk to behind their backs. The escapist is what happens when you have to face another reasonable human being with a different political beliefs. We don't like to be wrong and it kind of turned us into Dicks.

I'm sorry if this sounded pretentious or stupid just something on my mind.

I thought it would be an interesting topic to expand on its own thread. So what do you guys think the escapist main problem with people being a little bit to self-righteous is.

p.s I'm not talking about one group of a certain debate of being arrogant I think debates in general on the site on both sides have this problem.

p.s.s sorry for poor grammar.

tbh one of the reasons I don't contribute to the "big" discussions here is because there's ALWAYS someone (it doesn't matter what you say or how) who will go full "devil's advocate" on you.

I don't mind discussion but when you know it really doesn't matter a shit what I say I lose interest.

Of course you can have sensible discussions online - but there are some people here that use "intellectuallism" (what my dad might have called lawyer-isms) to put people down - without really discussing the issue at hand. I've always been of the frame of mind that will say it as it is.

Only pyrrhic victories are won when you simply force your opponent to give up.

When people start philosophising and giving me this so called "intellectual" bs I lose interest very fast. It's great that you can ask questions that I don't know how to answer - and in an RL conversation I would ask you about it so we can all be clear. Online I simply can't be bothered. Go massage your ego elsewhere. I can't (and never have been) bothered to talk to people who want to consider themselves my mental superior.

I should clarify a little here - I'm quite happy to concede to someone who makes a couterpoint with good sense. But too many people, both here and the rest of the internet, are simply looking to "win". With that all you get is people grandstanding and bullshitting and the acutal point of whatever it is that's being discussed gets lost.

I've seen this far too many times and simply tire of it.

TL;DR Smashing my head into a brick wall hurts me and solves nothing.

 

[SweetShark]

We must create a Manga which each time two unique/crazy looking escapists members fights for their opinions.
Our Hero Taco will have a Special-Super-Ultimate-Move Reason which most of the time will leave the other members without a solid defend move to protect their righteousness.
Then we will have the Tsundere Caramel Frappe being the the best friend and Oni-san Okami be the secret love interest with a dark secret.
Me I will be one of the enemies of Taco and his friends which support Furries, MLP, C.O.C and T.I.T.S.
BUT THEN SUDDENLY WHILE WE FIGHT, A DEUS-EX MODDIMA COME DOWN TO STOP THIS FIGHT!!!!
BUT AGAIN THE MOD GIVE PUNISHMENT TO ONLY ME BECAUSE I AM NOT POPULAR AS THE MAIN TACO CHARACTER!!!!!!
AND THEN THE HERO WE WILL START AGAIN UNTIL THE SERIES REACH 10+ VOLUMES UNTIL THE WHOLE PLOT WILL GET BUTT-SH*T-CRAZY!!!!!
FEFEKFDKFJJEDFKJEKJFKEMFKEKMDMKEKMF

You have the right to disagree with me. But you must know I am a very good defender Type Mutant character..

 

[Lightknight]

People in general are self-righteous. Most people believe that they're right, it's the human condition. It isn't specific to here.

For example, your post here can be taken as handwaving and stereotyping the community based on your own anecdotal experiences as self-righteous and arrogant itself. Especially as you decide that you're not only able to evaluate the entire community as a whole but can also compare it to some imagined norm as being above or below said average.

We're turtles all the way down, man.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Aaaaand... BINGO! I think I counted all of the current Buzzwords in that one.

Of course people are self-righteous on the internet. They can say what they want in a 'fire-and'forget' mode, with no repercussion. They can type in constant extremes, thinking about what they say and how they say it without the pressures of having to think on the spot and say what they really feel like in actual conversation. They don't have to deal with the fallout of insulting someone face to face, and don't even have to see the response from their probable misguided opinion. They get to make their point and juctice is served.

You then take the demographics of this site into consideration. We like games. We like geeky shit. We were probably (as a collective) in the upper third of our school academically but the bottom third socially, and we didn't care. We concocted opinions and morals silently without sharing them... and then... BOOM. a medium came where we could express ourselves without the awkwardness that came when we tried in real life. We were not conditioned to this type of discussionary interaction, and we are probably doing it wrong. Then again, we have been for years, and it is now the norm.

It is probably safe to say that a majority of people here are those who shy away from conversations such as the ones here in real life. I know I do. I am one to avoid conflict in my life, but on occasion can be drawn into arguments online where I will say things in ways I would never dare if sitting in an actual group.

An example I have from this site that backs this is in the user groups. I was a member of some of the bigger active groups like the Brovengers and the Injustice League and the discussion in those, whilst usually civil, could get heated, partucularily when discussing something with opinionated. On the other side I attend the UK Escapism meets (when work allows me) and am a memeber of that group. Nearly everyone in there has met others in real life, or will at some point and that is why they joined the group. The way people talk and act there is very different and is always civil. Then in real life, at those meets, there are never actual heated opinionated discussions that aren't quicky reduced do to the effect real life and tact has on the situation.

So, all in all, hiding behind a screen pouring your inner thoughts and feelings that have been brewing over time definitely changes the way you act around others, and the way you would usually tackle a subject.

 

[omega 616]

On the whole, not saying it is true for everybody, has made up their minds on everything. Their mind is closed off completely, they don't even consider they could be wrong, they just argue their side and mock the opposition.

Take the good ol' classic "is their a god", theists will always say " but the bible says ...." and atheists will always laugh at them and "say but the burden of proof is on you". Nobody will budge from either side, nobody will even say "I'll give you Y that but can you admit X?".

Even now, some of you are probably reading that thinking "well, of course there is no god" (or the opposite of course).

That's where it all comes from, the internet is THE place to argue ... the more you argue the more entrenched you get in your opinion on that subject, that's where those emotions you describe come from

 

[shrekfan246]

There is also such a thing as looking for information, but arguing is the wrong way to go about it.

Debating and arguing aren't always the same thing.

Make a calm, reasoned, rambling thread that takes all points of view into account and no one will reply to it because no one will have anything to add. =\

That's why "Sonic '06 is objectively better than Portal" will forever be the only thread I've made that had any sort of forum success.

OT: "Have become" is the part that gave me a chuckle from OP. I was reading people saying The Escapist was nothing but passive-aggressive snark and snobbery and elitism back in 2011. I wouldn't really say it's gotten better since then.