Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evolving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
I'll be blunt:
Why the hell are we getting this worked up about the budget bill that was passed this weekend?
I recall having similar questions last year when GAW had a practical collective meltdown over similar spending bills. It seems that the forum was too consumed by emotion to be the effective researchers we are called to be.
My opinion is that the spending bills is a colossal distraction on what we should really focus on.
Take Trump for example: I have noticed that, not even once in recent memory, neither he nor his team ever consider attacking the spending bill. Not this time, and not before. Seems to be that Trump and his team is signaling that we have far more important things to look at that a spending bill that we have no realistic chance at stopping forever.
Also, I have the feeling that we are getting gaslit into getting too emotional over this bill, from our enemies riling us up to cause our anger to overpower our reason, to our "influencers" like Catturd and Posobeic, whose income and reputation is dependent on how angry and fearful the MAGA base is (and independent on how critically thinking the base is).
We have far more important things to worry on, like making sure Trump gets into power. If we have to punish Johnson, that will need to be done after Trump takes office.
It is kind of pointless to boot him out if election day is less than seven months away. We need to focus on energies accordingly.
it's never a bad idea to use your brain to do your thinking instead of emotions. but we've gone on for literally years now about what's a distraction and what isn't- why do we have to pick what we focus on? there are enough of us and we're smart enough to maintain a big picture and dive whenever we want, on whatever subjects we want.
I have not yet seen a link here on GAW to the actual Bill that was passed yet.
Your comments are astute.
I'm supposing the high level emotional chaos is the result of the latest shill tactic and also the mod efforts to control discussion. I'm seeing a lot of low updot 3 year passionate accounts making rebel rousing comments and back a couple weeks ago we had a post stickied for a few days policing content rather than out saucing research... the mods do a mostly pretty good job but blew it on that and opened up a low effort emotional degeneration here.
Funny that you mention that. I have noticed that a ton of fishy and sus activity from accounts that are created years ago (sometimes even towards the beginning periods of the forum) but do not have the posting or commenting history of someone who is a active and fruitful participant. Maybe they are lurking a lot, but my theory is that many of such accounts were created back then by these shills and trolls, went joyriding around the forums, were put away into dormancy when the heat becomes too much, and were brought back out again once people's memories faded or the shills needed more numbers for a job.
Same thing over at Truth Social; noticed that a lot of the shill accounts have creation dates dating back to the 2022's and does not have a lot of history until recently where they were brought out to troll and pollute, like there were dormant for a long time.
We really need a system to deal with said sleeper accounts.
Just had this happen with a user with like a 25 count post score though he/she’s been around for a couple years and comment history is overall contrary to others. I deleted my post because I was trying to help some people out who were interested in the matter-and he/she sniped on it right away and I think that’s their MO. Snipe, cause deflation and less board action. I’ve noticed this for a very long time personally. It’s like they lay in wait and must have a situation going on like that Southpark episode where they’re gaming in the basement- fat, bloated, eating hot pockets and their mom is coming with a bucket to have them take dumps in. They lurk and pounce and occasionally comment in what they think is a brilliantly negative way. .
But I’ve noticed this a lot and it’s directly why I don’t post much anymore unless I’m ridiculously excited about something but even then I get my stuff shot down and field stripped and nobody even sees it really. I’m here to help. I’ve never attacked anyone personally. Not once. I don’t criticize. I don’t doom. I try to be humorous when possible. I’m too dumb to sit at the grownup’s table so I keep it simple but geeeeez I’m tired. Been here a long, long time and it has changed a lot here.
It used to be a friendly and supportive place. A full breath of fresh air and safe haven from the foaming at the mouth, viscous attacks and negativity at Patriots.win. There used to be no dooming allowed and that was a strict rule, there used to be no cursing (specifically F bombs,) there used to be no personal attacks, there used to be no antisemitism etc. I’m just tired. Don’t know where else to go though.
Just as an aside- if you ever look at your followers on TS and there is a blank on the side that says “follow” or “unfollow,” click on the person’s name and the hit “block” which is under the “...” tab at the top right of their profile. I just like getting rid of the deadwood.
Yep I just posted about this in general chat about a week ago. Beware of the trolls