You could be a flat earther and provide countless links to evidence
Probably not 😉
Its not an echo chamber for me, if it was, you lot would all be heavily tattooed, beardy singlespeeders with niche bikes and liking of extreme music.
Whereas most seem to be vanilla middle of the road bifflers with a passion for battery bikes and geary suspended nonsense.
So I come on here to see the norms in their natural habitat " with virtual David Attenborough narrative" going on in my head.
"here, we see the desperate mating display of an sad males, past their prime, trying to impress a single female of the mountain biking species, by virtue signalling with plumage made from a cut up guardian newspaper" etc..
politics wise it can be very middle of road, slightly whiny, softy lefty, piffle, with the odd spike of frothy right wing bile, that gets shut down by the "big hitters".
Its basically all the nerdy spods from school that used get ****ted for being wet, having a chance to pile on those that used to rough them up a bit, whilst the rest of the world just carries on un-phased by the views of some pale, male and stale folk that pedal bikes a bit.
Battering away making the same point repeatedly and appearing to refuse to listen to the alternatives
It depends what you mean by 'listen' to be fair, by virtue of reading a post that person has 'listened' to it. They don't need to suddenly change their position to have heard it.
The politics effect is just that no educated person under 60 votes conservative. This forum is basically educated people under 60. QED.
If you want to find Tories, go to a bingo hall.
I’ve absolutely no idea how you ruin a thread with a set of opposing arguments or broader analysis.
Doesn't particularly have to be counter arguments, as TJ said it can be supporting arguments but just repeating them over and over and over and over. Or death by word count, etc., and its near cousins, death by a million quotes and death by a thousand links.
That said - there may be some mitigation to this. Too many people in my opinion now read the first few posts, decide they're going to respond and go straight to reply without assessing the debate that has already happened. Leading to two things - it sounds like they're repeating the same thing over and over because others already said it, which can also feel like a pile-on if these posts are to refute or counter a contentious one from some time ago. Secondly, because people do that, many recent posts are not read and considered in the debate and so they get restated, not specifically to reiterate the point but as a means of bumping their point back to the top so it gets read in the first place.
FWIW there's a few on here with whom I largely don't agree but I'd very much like to go to the pub, sit and discuss a lot of the topics on those threads with over a beer but I tend to not return to a thread after their second (identical 😉) post on a given topic,it's a shame but it's the upshot of it being a medium completely lacking nuance and subtly.
some pale, male and stale folk that pedal bikes a bit
Well, that bit is very true, for 90% of posters.
But Echo Chamber? You could post any answer to any question, or opinion of your own, and you are guaranteed to have someone disagree and argue with you... whether it's something worth arguing about or not! So probably not an echo chamber, even if not very diverse.
Are you serious? Anything remotely politics based is famous for it.
A politics thread usually goes thus:
- "OMG isn't Brexit/the Tories terrible!"
Followed by numerous posts robustly agreeing. The moment a different opinion is expressed, doesn't have to even be a contrary opinion, they all round on the user as a troll in a big display of pious outrage/virtue signalling righteousness. They do this because they know 'trolling' is against the rules of the forum and so hope to have the user banned as punishment for having a different opinion.
Seems to be a wider issue tbh, the creeping authoritarianism of the left.
Outside of politics though this forum is an amazing place.
If you think this is an echo chamber, just go and find the Sun / Express on Facebook and read the comments under any news article...
Seems to be a wider issue tbh, the creeping authoritarianism of the left.
Is that what they call it now when lots of people don't agree with you?
If it is an echo chamber I'm happy as it lets me know that I'm not alone.
You could post any answer to any question, or opinion of your own, and you are guaranteed to have someone disagree and argue with you…
In fairness there's a few cases where one user could post someone else's opinion verbatim and the owner be along to disagree with it promptly.
My facebook is an echo chamber for sure. Everyone on there ( well bar 3 out of 400) have very similar political views, similar world views and so on. If i want a reality check on something its pretty useless.
If i ask for views on something on here I will get a variety of views from a variety of world views and of political views and I find that valuable
I will also get pulled up for woolly thinking / posting which keeps me on my toes
Sure we are missing the far right politically on here but the centre right is well represented as is the centre left and true lefties
I use the political compass in the sense of EU norms - the UK is well to the right of most of europe. I see little difference between the labour party and such centre right groups as the CDU in Germany. What is considered centre left here would be centre right in european terms
If you think this is an echo chamber, just go and find the Sun / Express on Facebook and read the comments under any news article…
Absolutely. I'm sure you're right. Echo chambers aren't unique to stw.
Tazzymtb has us down to a tee. That was brilliant. Contains a sort of venom I'd usually only reserve for disc braked road bike users.
Jambourgie
they all round on the user as a troll
Thats not just true of right wing opinions. Someone accused Ernie of trolling the other day. I've been accused of it as well
Yup - I like Tazzys analysis as well and it dovetails neatly in to how I see it.
I do not feel at all part of the consensus on here. IMO the consensus in general is waaaaaay to the right of me and I am only centre left or in Ernies words " some sort of wishy washy pale pink liberal"
Tazzymtb’s post above should be in the Wikipedia description of this place…
A quite magnificent description 😂😂
I didn't say 'right wing opinions' tj. I said 'different'.
That kind of illustrates my point: if you have a different opinion, you're 'right wing'.
I missed that. sorry.
“woke” I’m hazier on. What’s it mean?
It means “being aware of racism.”
Quite how it’s supposed to be an insult I’m not sure, but here we are.
Well done you, using a decade out of date definition to paint me as a racist.
Go ask the average person on the street today what woke means and race will figure very little.
Social justice virtue signalling is to me what woke is. Lefty biased for sure, but it's own distinct thing set apart from genuine left leanings.
The tragedy of wokeism, is that it's going to push more voters to the right.
Perfect example is the recent gender madness in the Scottish government.
It's certain to push some voters to vote tory. In Scotland. Where the vast majority of us detest tories and all they stand for. It's ****ing heartbreaking.
I had a quick read back through the original covid thread to posts dating from around the time of Mar-20 to Aug-20. Lo and behold - when the Tories were bounced into doing the right things by the inescapable reality bus hitting them, the majority of posts were supportive. OK, some reasonable moaning about how long it had taken, but I would say STW was actively pro-government at that point. Same with, mostly, vaccine uptake, from what I've seen.
So, basically, when the government are acting in the best interests of the country they seem to get a pretty good time on here. That it takes something like covid for them to do anything in the common good isn't really the fault of STW.
And FWIW, I am obviously only talking about the bare-bones social distancing and lockdown policies here - not the subsequent revelations or spin-offs like track and trace and the alevels fiasco.
Is this the thread about ebikes?
Where the vast majority of us detest tories and all they stand for.
Does that include Douglas Ross' and the Scottish Conservatives' views on the gender thing?
Is this the thread about ebikes?
Plenty of motorcycle forums for those people to frequent.
We all get this, right? If you post something and you get a disagreement in response then it's NOT an echo chamber. That's the opposite of an echo chamber. There is no debate/argument in an echo chamber.
Its basically all the nerdy spods from school
Yes! the heavy metal fans!! He's right you know 😆
Thats not just true of right wing opinions. Someone accused Ernie of trolling the other day. I’ve been accused of it as well
Whereas no-one has ever accused me of trolling. Good at it aren't I 🙂
I got Mark to join the debate! I am so proud! I feel vindicated! do I get a prize?
I had a quick read back through the original covid thread to posts dating from around the time of Mar-20 to Aug-20. Lo and behold – when the Tories were bounced into doing the right things by the inescapable reality bus hitting them, the majority of posts were supportive. OK, some reasonable moaning about how long it had taken, but I would say STW was actively pro-government at that point. Same with, mostly, vaccine uptake, from what I’ve seen.
It's a bit like the left/right thing, everyone's authoritarian, as long as it's authority over "those" people.
Bankers bonuses - cap 'em
Driving licenses - not issued until 30 and revoked at 55
Income Tax - 100% at £5 over whatever I earn
Number plates for bikes - HOWVERYF*&%£*!DAREYOU
Same with liberalism:
Equal rights for you, and you, and you, but not you as I consider you deviant. And definitely no free market economics.
do I get a prize?
Life-long membership without the option.
We all get this, right? If you post something and you get a disagreement in response then it’s NOT an echo chamber. That’s the opposite of an echo chamber.
You realise that the above part of your statement is a long way apart from the second (correct) bit don't you.
There is no debate/argument in an echo chamber.
If you feel unable to voice an opinion, to offer disagreement or arguments that's still an echo chamber. If you voice a different opinion and you're punished, castigated, pilloried, excommunicated or ostracised, it's an echo-chamber.
If different opinions are dismissed out of hand, ridiculed, derided and otherwise devalued it's an echo chamber.
It's only not an echo chamber when that disent is debated, considered, discussed, allowed and most importantly encouraged to exist along side the prevailing one.
TINAS.
I don't think so.
The point I was trying to make was that when our excuse for a government do actually do something for the common good, I think it is usually pretty well received on STW.
The issue is that this happens so rarely (especially post-2016) that they get a rightfully rough ride on here - not that they give a shit what the likes of the majority of STW posters think. Because... well see post above about educated under-60s.
I wouldn't want to be part of a community that thinks, for example, that Brexit is a good idea because it patently and objectively isn't. It just isn't.
The point I was trying to make was that when our excuse for a government do actually do something for the common good, I think it is usually pretty well received on STW.
Only if the majority agree. (and else where you'd have found plenty who didn't)
We've been trying to define and identify the common good since we had a sense of societal existence. We've not manged it yet and I doubt, for all its wonders, STW is any more possessed of this knowledge than the millennia of human beings before us or indeed after us.
The point I was trying to make was that when our excuse for a government do actually do something for the common good, I think it is usually pretty well received on STW.
It was, until there was a rumbling of unofficial guidance that you could only go out for 1 hour on your bike and have a scotch egg.
At which point it seemed like the majority decided that the rules were to prevent people having gatherings with their mates in their gardens like yobs, rather than having gatherings with their mates in the woods.
@Mark no, what you're describing is an [I]epistemic bubble[/I]. An important part of the definition of an "echo chamber" - at least from the modern, media perspective (no idea about a real, acoustic one 😃) is that opposing opinions [I]are[/I] voiced, but they are then immediately rubbished/insulted/quashed by the majority in order to (seemingly) re-inforce the validity of the prevailing opinion within the said chamber. Not that that's what happens here 🤔We all get this, right? If you post something and you get a disagreement in response then it’s NOT an echo chamber. That’s the opposite of an echo chamber. There is no debate/argument in an echo chamber.
STW is any more possessed of this knowledge than the millennia of human beings before us or indeed after us
I think it is a fair bet that it is closer than Pistonheads, though.
It's not an echo chamber it's individuals shouting into the void.
zilog6128
Full Member
We all get this, right? If you post something and you get a disagreement in response then it’s NOT an echo chamber. That’s the opposite of an echo chamber. There is no debate/argument in an echo chamber.@Mark no, what you’re describing is an epistemic bubble. An important part of the definition of an “echo chamber” – at least from the modern, media perspective (no idea about a real, acoustic one 😃) is that opposing opinions are voiced, but they are then immediately rubbished/insulted/quashed by the majority in order to (seemingly) re-inforce the validity of the prevailing opinion within the echo chamber
prove it.
😉
prove it with links. lots of links. and at least 6 paragraphs of text.
That's not what I understand to be an echo chamber and not the definition applied to the way our social media networks tend to be echo chambers. The echo is the sound our our own opinions being validated and 'echoed' back at us by the members of our own networks ergo, we are fooled into thinking that our opinions are the consensus/majority opinions. The mistake we make in those situations is conflating that echo with the wider views of society. Hence why so many people were shocked at the Brexit vote result as we'd simply not been exposed to the opposite views in sufficient quantity and fell into the trap of believing the 'echoes' we were hearing were the views of the majority. They weren't. We were simply hearing our own views echoed back within our own bubble or 'chamber' due to the way the algorithms matched us up with similar views within our social networks.
......opposing opinions are voiced, but they are then immediately rubbished/insulted/quashed by the majority.....
But then you also get echo chambers which are so sterile that you don't even get that.
The obvious example is the Brexit thread. According to a fair few people on here Brexit is still a hugely important and topical issue, and yet the Brexit thread hardly ever gets any new posts these days.
I can only assume that Brexit thread contributors got bored with the relentless echo of their own veiws.
It’s not an echo chamber it’s individuals shouting into the void.
At themselves! 👀
