Wednesday's Most Active Thread

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Second 2024 Republican Primary Debate Thread" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. That this thread was the most active yesterday is a little surprising given that it was only created at 8:30 pm. It managed 11 pages of posts in just a few hours. I didn't watch the debate and don't have it in me to read all of the posts in this thread. If what I see on the first page is any indication, the thread is probably not worth my time, or anybody else's for that matter. The first thing I noticed was a Nikki Haley shill. The poster authored one of the first responses saying that Haley had done a great job. Two posts later, the same poster wrote to say that he was 69 years old and had never seen a candidate as strong as Haley. In the very next post, the poster responded to his own post to say that he is 49 years old and agrees. From this we can conclude that Haley is winning the vote of sock puppets between the ages of 49 and 69. I'll leave the question of whether that is a key demographic to others. It also looks like the moderators got more attention from posters than most of the candidates. The very first post of the thread pointed out that collectively the candidates participating in the debate represent only 36 percent of the polling average. If they were a single person, former President Donald Trump would be beating them in polling by 20 percentage points. As a result, it is not clear what these candidates are hoping to achieve. They may be running for second place or hoping to be chosen as Trump's running mate. But, in some cases, both of those goals seem pretty unobtainable. For instance, I don't think Chris Christie has much chance of either. One issue that seems to get a lot of attention in the thread is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' position regarding Mexico. Apparently he wants to send US armed forces into Mexico, a position about which posters were divided. Some posters were actually supportive of the idea of going to war with our southern neighbor. This highlights a big difference between the dynamics of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Among Democrats, pressure is always placed on candidates to show that they are moderate and willing to compromise with their opponents. In the Republican Party, candidates are incentivized to out extreme each other.

The next three most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed but are still going strong. I'll skip them and go to the thread that was actually fifth on the list yesterday. That thread was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Widespread looting in Philadelphia right now", the original poster wrote about reports of looting in Philadelphia. Crime is one of the few issues on which Republicans appear to be gaining any traction. Huge amounts of effort are devoted to portraying Democratic-run cities as crime-ridden ungovernable hell holes. Crime in cities is highlighted and blamed on Democratic policies such as "Defund the Police". True to form, the very first response in this thread was to blame the looting on "Defund the Police". Never mind that virtually nobody has defunded the police. The poster making this allegation managed to find an article that suggested that $19 million had been cut from Philadelphia's police budget. But, the poster apparently didn't bother to read the article. Had he done so, he would have realized that the budget originally included a $19 million increase in police spending. That increase was removed, meaning that the budget would not either be cut or increased. Later, Philadelphia removed some services such as crossing guards from police responsibility and placed them in other agencies. The funding went with the services, so police funding was cut, but so were the department's duties. Crossing guards are probably not what most people think of when they think about fighting crime in any case. But, it is really too much to expect honest debate about this topic. Few, if any, of those drawing attention to crime in cities are really interested in reducing crime. Rather, their goal is to benefit politically from fear of crime and any blame that they can generate. In what I increasingly believe crime thread proponents see is a feature rather than a bug of such conversations, these threads are almost always accompanied by healthy doses of racism. Almost all of my involvement in such topics is to remove racist posts. It is no surprise that many websites and discussion forums no longer allow comments or threads about crime. Moderators have to choose between preventing discussions of crime, tolerating racist posts, or investing tremendous efforts to moderate such topics. None of these are great choices.

Next was a thread titled, "Is this petty to tell costs to a date?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. One of the things I pride myself on is staying relatively in touch with folks younger than me and not adopting an "old man" mindset. But, threads like this really put this to a test. The original poster says that she has recently started dating a man who texts her the cost of tickets and drinks or whatever they plan to buy for their dates. The original poster is put off by this, not because she ends up splitting costs as a result — she has plenty of money and the cost is negligible to her — but because it kills the romance of the relationship. She wants to know if she should just propose to be friends with benefits, explain why she is not feeling the relationship, or just stop seeing him. Maybe after 27 years of marriage my dating game is stagnated and atrophied, but I don't think this is how any of this should work, up to and including posting on DCUM about it. First, if the guy is inviting her, he should be paying. No question. But, in these days of online dating, I guess everything is much more businesslike. She implies that she wouldn't mind splitting costs in a FWB relationship. But, she also says that both she and the man in question are continuing to date others. So, aren't they effectively in a FWB situation already? So, in that case, why is she bothered? Moreover, why is she worrying about committing to a guy who is clearly not committing to her? He either thinks he has a chance of meeting someone better or has no intention of committing to anyone. Splitting bills is really the least of the problems at this point in their relationship. Those responding are divided about the guy. To some, his behavior is cheap and not to be accepted. Others see it as normal in the early stages of an online dating relationship. There is some dispute about whether the man should be expected to "court" the original poster, in which case he should be paying when he invites her on dates. But some posters have a view similar to mine and suggest that he has no interest in building a relationship. In the end, the original poster (at least I think it was the original poster) said that she had "friend zoned" the guy.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum and titled, "Ready to be done with Disney". The topic of Disney in our travel forum has always been somewhat surprising to me. There are some posters who are very devoted to Disney World vacations and other things Disney. Historically, I would not have said there were many Disney-haters, but there were a number of posters who just didn't get the big deal. That has changed a bit since Disney has become politicized, but before that the strongest anti-Disney reaction would have been "meh". For the Disney fans, however, "meh" is not an acceptable response and there have been many threads in which Disney fans have attempted to convince those who were indifferent towards Disney of the errors of their ways. The original poster is definitely in the "meh" camp, sliding towards "hater". He says that he just returned from 4 days at Disney and found the experience to be an "[o]verpriced and very poor experience". He said that paying for extras is basically required, raising the cost even more. Several posters agree that Disney costs too much and is not worth the price. A number of posters also say that Disney is dirty and rundown these days. After a couple of posters comment about families that spend upwards of $10,000 for a trip and go annually, one poster weighs in to say that describes his family. His family enjoys the trips and think they are worth the price. Other posters expressed similar sentiments. One thing I noticed is that the Disney fans were a bit more subdued then normal and, while comfortable with their choices, were not as determined to convert others as has been normal in the past. Nevertheless, emotions ended up running high in this thread and by the end posters were questioning each other's intelligence and dismissing what other poster's teens found enjoyable. I thought that one poster posted an insightful comment saying that Disney is simply not elite enough. For the amount of money spent vacationing there, the poster expects a first class experience. Instead, she ends up mingling with the "average joe". But, for the "average joe", the experience likely feels elite which is why Disney World is so crowded.