Politics Forum Explained

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/?page=4

Research seems to indicate that ALL of us here on the Politics Forum are destined to continue our unending 'dialog' until the heat-death of the universe.

Lets close the forum and get our telescopes out.....

Dave

Then what would folks do on the other 29 cloudy nights a month? 8O 8O

I'm a little surprised at the lack of discussion. The article only takes a couple of minutes to read and, in a nutshell, describes everyone who posts here pretty much perfectly. Well, it describes human beings, really, a small subset of whom (never more than 100 people) lurk here on the Politics Forum. The number of people who post regularly is even smaller with perhaps a dozen or so from the conservative side and a handful from the left. We all are utterly convinced that we are correct and not one of our frequent posters has EVER said, "Oh, you're right! That article/video/graph shows that I've been supporting an erroneous viewpoint. Thanks very much for opening my eyes...." Instead we say, "That source is biased." or " Here's a source that refutes your source" or "Those facts are not true (because I read somewhere blah, blah, blah)...." or we just resort to name-calling. (Everyone looks in mirror, shrugs) -- if you haven't said "That guy is a complete moron" in a post you've thought it to yourself, haven't you?!

Seems a bit hopeless, doesn't it? Can anyone suggest where we might go from here?

Dave