What Issues Is The Forum Most/Least Knowledgeable About?

[Mr. Smith]

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).

Uh, no...we're terrible about international relations beyond China, Japan, Korea, the Commonwealth, and Western Europe. If it weren't for politicus herself, no one would know even diddly-squat about any of the "third world"/developing countries.

Also, it's far simpler just to say we're bad at much revolving around humans. Which is a pretty natural consequence when the demographic here is political geeks who would literally bore away nearly anyone else.

[Marokai Backbeat]

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've never claimed to be an authority on much of anything. I'm just a guy with opinions I like to share with others like everyone else around here.

[Maxwell]

Best: Groupthink, making insane generalizations that don't apply to the real world

Worst: Not groupthink

[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).

Uh, no...we're terrible about international relations beyond China, Japan, Korea, the Commonwealth, and Western Europe. If it weren't for politicus herself, no one would know even diddly-squat about any of the "third world"/developing countries.

Honestly it's mostly because of politicus and Hashemite that I say that.

[DemPGH]

Strengths: 20th century history and politics, statistical data (some obscure election in 1948 or 1980), current events.

Weaknesses: Events prior to WW I, religion.

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

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I like how everybody desperately pretends they're better than the rest of the plebs on the forum.

'Hohoho Atlas is sooooo dumb and hackish, unlike Le perfect fiscally logical me!'

[morgieb]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

[Maxwell]

I like how everybody desperately pretends they're better than the rest of the plebs on the forum.

'Hohoho Atlas is sooooo dumb and hackish, unlike Le perfect fiscally logical me!'

Nonsense. I am just as bad, if not worse, than the rest of the forum.

[Torie]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

Most of us here I suspect really don't know much about religion. I was raised myself in a religion free home. There wasn't really hostility towards it (other than Catholics based on a perception that they were breeding like rabbits, and their hordes of kids being brainwashed in Catholic schools - yes, all so quaint and ludicrous sounding now). It was just not a part of our lives. I did read some Bible stories on my own when I was about 5 or 6, just because I found them an interesting read. Even then however, I did not confuse a good story with any perception that it was objectively true. As a hobby, in recent years, I have done some reading up on the LDS religion, after becoming familiar with the Mountain Meadows massacre.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Best: Random voting patterns

Worst: Sex

[Torie]

Best: Random voting patterns

Worst: Sex

I don't think we are very good at discerning random voting patterns, because our raison d'être here is to see a pattern in how folks vote, even if in fact it in some cases is random.

[traininthedistance]

Y'know, maybe I'm mellowing in my old age but I can't actually think of a subject where this forum is all that least-knowledgeable, especially if you compare to the populace at large.  Even the sexism discussions: you've got a couple misogynistic trolls, but they get no respect, and TERFs are nowhere to be found; it's mostly a battle between first-wavers and third-wavers, and y'know when you think about it that way it could be so much worse.  Well, I mean, it could be better given that our demographics are pretty skewed and there's intrinsic value in having a broader range of perspectives/backgrounds, but for a site with such a high proportion of youngish males we're actually pretty darn good.

I mean obviously anyone's going to have a dim view of the forum whenever they're a super-specialist in something and everyone else just goes along with the popular rhetoric (my hobbyhorse being urban land use and transportation policy, of course, where I am happy to play the part of the exasperated wonk)– but is that really a fair standard to apply?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

seriously though this forum is pretty amazing at the stuff I'm actually interested in (history, international affairs, maps).

I think the garbage tends to be largely innocuous and even amusing. It has largely depleted much of my interest in US elections, but I think the novelty of Murican politicsis wearing off.

[muon2]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

Most of us here I suspect really don't know much about religion. I was raised myself in a religion free home. There wasn't really hostility towards it (other than Catholics based on a perception that they were breeding like rabbits, and their hordes of kids being brainwashed in Catholic schools - yes, all so quaint and ludicrous sounding now). It was just not a part of our lives. I did read some Bible stories on my own when I was about 5 or 6, just because I found them an interesting read. Even then however, I did not confuse a good story with any perception that it was objectively true. As a hobby, in recent years, I have done some reading up on the LDS religion, after becoming familiar with the Mountain Meadows massacre.

On the flip side, some of us with some experience don't share it much. I grew up in a modestly religious household, but got quite involved with the church as a boy and I spent more than a decade as an acolyte in the Episcopal church. I spent 8 years in grad school immersed in Jewish culture and I even participated in some Jewish services. After I married I switched to my wife's preferred church from her New England home town, the United Church of Christ. I got involved with the UCC church in IL, eventually spending 4 years as a church moderator (president of the congregation). I helped write a church constitution and spent a lot of time on polity issues between congregations of different protestant denominations. Today I attend regularly and am a member of my church choir.

[memphis]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

This is true because there's nothing substantive to be said about it. There are no data points to consider and no evidence to weigh. Any religious discussion, by definition, is just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component.

[afleitch]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

This is true because there's nothing substantive to be said about it. There are no data points to consider and no evidence to weigh. Any religious discussion, by definition, is just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component.

True, though I tend to find you actually get better and more honest discussion about it 'as a thing' and what it means to people outside of it's dedicated board.

[muon2]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

This is true because there's nothing substantive to be said about it. There are no data points to consider and no evidence to weigh. Any religious discussion, by definition, is just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component.

One could make the same statement about politics. I suspect that's why they say you should never bring up religion or politics at Thanksgiving dinner.

[politicus]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

This is true because there's nothing substantive to be said about it. There are no data points to consider and no evidence to weigh. Any religious discussion, by definition, is just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component.

One could make the same statement about politics. I suspect that's why they say you should never bring up religion or politics at Thanksgiving dinner.

Politics has data points and you can weigh the evidence of fx electoral data. If you treat religion in the same way, you generally get into trouble.

One example would be a Sorbonne doctoral thesis by Danish linguist Tina Magaard back in 2005 where she compared how much violence and violent rhetoric occurs in 10 different religions, which resulted in Islam having by far the most combative language and the highest level of intolerance towards other religions. This folllows logically from her very thorough collection of data points from the textual analysis and  weighing of the evidence.

It gave a debate of whether you can interpret this as Islam being a more violent and combative religion or whether all quotes should be seen in a specific context and should really mean something else and less violent. Quantative data in religious science seems always to be challenged by "contextualists" and semiologists etc. in a way polsci data are not (or at least to a far lesser degree).

[muon2]

I like how so many of us can come together and agree that the forum is terrible at discussing religion, regardless of what sort of discussion it is that we'd prefer.

In this forum's defence, I think most places are bad at discussing religion.

This is true because there's nothing substantive to be said about it. There are no data points to consider and no evidence to weigh. Any religious discussion, by definition, is just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component.

One could make the same statement about politics. I suspect that's why they say you should never bring up religion or politics at Thanksgiving dinner.

Politics has data points and you can weigh the evidence of fx electoral data. If you treat religion in the same way, you generally get into trouble.

One example would be a Sorbonne doctoral thesis by Danish linguist Tina Magaard back in 2005 where she compared how much violence and violent rhetoric occurs in 10 different religions, which resulted in Islam having by far the most combative language and the highest level of intolerance towards other religions. This folllows logically from her very thorough collection of data points from the textual analysis and  weighing of the evidence.

It gave a debate of whether you can interpret this as Islam being a more violent and combative religion or whether all quotes should be seen in a specific context and should really mean something else and less violent. Quantative data in religious science seems always to be challenged by "contextualists" and semiologists etc. in a way polsci data are not (or at least to a far lesser degree).

Most political data in the US relates to the correlations between voting behavior and variables like ethnicity, socioeconomic status, parental politics, age and location. The same data exists substituting religious behavior for voting behavior, and doesn't generate any significant controversy.

The example you give would be analogous in polsci to a study that correlates members of a political party to the likelihood to engage in protests or violent crime based on tenets of a party platform. A study like that would meet with just as much challenge.

[politicus]

Most political data in the US relates to the correlations between voting behavior and variables like ethnicity, socioeconomic status, parental politics, age and location. The same data exists substituting religious behavior for voting behavior, and doesn't generate any significant controversy.

The example you give would be analogous in polsci to a study that correlates members of a political party to the likelihood to engage in protests or violent crime based on tenets of a party platform. A study like that would meet with just as much challenge.

Religious sociology is a separate discipline and I actually think the forum does okay in discussing that.

Regarding the thesis, you have a point, and it may be a bad example, but the fundamental texts of a religion have a different character and importance than something as temporary and often mostly symbolic as a party program.  Textual analysis is at the core of religious studies and the data points you can acquire from a textual and linguistic analysis are far easier to challenge than the sort of empirical data polsci typically uses.

[muon2]

Most political data in the US relates to the correlations between voting behavior and variables like ethnicity, socioeconomic status, parental politics, age and location. The same data exists substituting religious behavior for voting behavior, and doesn't generate any significant controversy.

The example you give would be analogous in polsci to a study that correlates members of a political party to the likelihood to engage in protests or violent crime based on tenets of a party platform. A study like that would meet with just as much challenge.

Religious sociology is a separate discipline and I actually think the forum does okay in discussing that.

Regarding the thesis, you have a point, and it may be a bad example, but the fundamental texts of a religion have a different character and importance than something as temporary and often mostly symbolic as a party program.  Textual analysis is at the core of religious studies and the data points you can acquire from a textual and linguistic analysis are far easier to challenge than the sort of empirical data polsci typically uses.

But the empirical data of polsci is overwhelmingly political sociology and equivalent to its religious counterpart. The things that the general public would typically consider a political debate between non-politicians are "just a tedious back and forth on semantics, feelings, and navel gazing, with a heavy tribal sociological component." That's what I was getting at.