What Issues Is The Forum Most/Least Knowledgeable About?

[DC Al Fine]

This applies to the forum as a whole. My guesses:

Best: Healthcare, drug legalization

Worst: Pensions/Social security, Tax policy

In particular, I've noticed us to be woefully inept on pensions*. Right wingers ignore all the human factors, and left wingers seem to think well funded retirements can just appear from thin air

*This might be because its my pet issue

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Best: How Grant performed in Cook County in 1872.

Worst: Talking to or about women

[free my dawg]

Best: Drugs
Worst: Anything to do with women.

[Phony Moderate]

Best: How Grant performed in Cook County in 1872.

Worst: Talking to or about women

/thread

[Potus]

The forum is amazingly able to relate anything said to a set of talking points. That's fairly impressive. They know a lot about hackishness.

The forum's weak point, which some posters attempt to fill, is meaningful and worthwhile discussion of both politics and policy.

[Free Bird]

Best: Health issues, drugs, how Willkie performed in Vigo county
Worst: Economics

[IceSpear]

I'd say best is the nuances of international politics. I remember being completely ignorant to even the basics of politics in many countries such as Israel and Greece, and have learned a lot from reading the threads about them. Obviously the fact that we have many international posters helps with that, but even many US posters seem fairly knowledgeable about these things.

As for least, I'm going to third the "anything having to do with women" posts. People also seem to be kind of terrible with early predictions. It tends to range from two extremes of "literally anything can happen in politics! Richard Shelby can lose re-election! Hillary is not inevitable!" to "Scott Walker leads by 0.4 points in New Hampshire 10 months before the election? Well, that's it folks. This race is over."

[Cassius]

Most: Maps and Stats
Least: Humans

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Most: Maps and Stats
Least: Humans

Holding my nose and agreeing with Cassius here.

[Mr. Smith]

Most: Maps and Stats
Least: Humans

Holding my nose and agreeing with Cassius here.

[Foucaulf]

Best: redistricting. This is straight obvious.

I'm biased when thinking about Atlas's discussion of substantive policy issues, since from an economic perspective it's all pretty bad. But this is what happens with a forum full of map readers - people tend to classify the behaviour of others rather than analyze them.

Worst: anything to do with gender or race. Again, natural result of the forum's demographic makeup.

[memphis]

Many Atlas posters don't seem to have a lot of experience interacting with the world outside of school/college. They've often excelled at school/college and have put a lot of time and thought into academic concerns. This isn't surprising for young, bright people, but many could use more non-academic experience interacting with people and seeing how things and people operate outside of academia.

[Mr. Morden]

best: Bushie's employment history
worst: who is likely to be a sock account

[Grumpier Than Thou]

best: muh maps
worst: muh wymynz

[Marokai Backbeat]

95% of all gender discussions on this forum are comprised of people who say horrendously insulting or ignorant things about women vs. people who just do drive by snarky dismissals toward all involved. I can't think of any topic this site is worse at discussing.

There are other topics tangentially related in the social issues realm (religion and race come to mind) that this site does a poor job fleshing out, but it's ultimately related to what Memphis referenced. This site is full of young bright people, many of whom are incredibly privileged and largely sheltered from how the rest of the world lives outside their suburb or school.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Many Atlas posters don't seem to have a lot of experience interacting with the world outside of school/college. They've often excelled at school/college and have put a lot of time and thought into academic concerns. This isn't surprising for young, bright people, but many could use more non-academic experience interacting with people and seeing how things and people operate outside of academia.

A summer working demolition or some other unskilled trade will solve that.

[DC Al Fine]

Many Atlas posters don't seem to have a lot of experience interacting with the world outside of school/college. They've often excelled at school/college and have put a lot of time and thought into academic concerns. This isn't surprising for young, bright people, but many could use more non-academic experience interacting with people and seeing how things and people operate outside of academia.

A summer working demolition or some other unskilled trade will solve that.

Lol

My summers working in unskilled jobs turned me into a nanny stater.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Many Atlas posters don't seem to have a lot of experience interacting with the world outside of school/college. They've often excelled at school/college and have put a lot of time and thought into academic concerns. This isn't surprising for young, bright people, but many could use more non-academic experience interacting with people and seeing how things and people operate outside of academia.

A summer working demolition or some other unskilled trade will solve that.

Lol

My summers working in unskilled jobs turned me into a nanny stater.

I can't imagine how that would happen.

[RFayette]

best: muh maps
worst: muh wymynz

[Gustaf]

It's lucky that we have Marokai and Memphis and their extended travelling to the far corners of the globe to inform us about the real world out there.

[Mr. Morden]

After reading some recent posts, I'd like to change my answer:

best: Bushie's employment history
worst: who is likely to be a sock account the fact that the word "muh" is not real, and its usage is quite annoying

[TDAS04]

Best: Maps, elections, voting patterns, redistricting, gay marriage, marijuana
Worst: Economics, women

[memphis]

It's lucky that we have Marokai and Memphis and their extended travelling to the far corners of the globe to inform us about the real world out there.

I have done a fair bit of travelling in my life, but my point has nothing at all to do with going to some exotic destination. It's about being old enough to have lived life outside of school. I enjoyed school quite a bit, but the outside world is just as educational, but in a different way. Jobs, bills, relationships, and all the rest. You learn those things from living life, not from sitting in a classroom. It's not a 19 year old college student's fault he hasn't learned the nuances of those sorts of things yet, but that still constitutes a void of knowledge.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Best: Political geography
Worst: Why religion is bad.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Best: Health care, and international relations not related to Israel or Palestine.

Worst: Anything involving gender or religion (we're not great on race, either, but we're not as bad on it as we are on gender and religion).