Uncomfortable Topics: Uncomfortable Topics.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In fact, I bet Faust and Trip could gin up some kind of bot that would randomly populate the thread with posts from old threads, thus allowing us to have the same old fucking shout-past-each-other conversations, without the need for typing it all out again.

Did that last week, decided to beta-test ITT, how do you like it so far?

Let's try an experiment, shall we?

Uh-oh. What kind of experiment?

Well, I was thinking that the next time things heat up on the board, we can all just pee on our monitors, and record the results.

TGRR,
Knows that the other way sure as fuck isn't working.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

In fact, I bet Faust and Trip could gin up some kind of bot that would randomly populate the thread with posts from old threads, thus allowing us to have the same old fucking shout-past-each-other conversations, without the need for typing it all out again.

Did that last week, decided to beta-test ITT, how do you like it so far?

Having thought it over some more, I LOVE IT.

I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WORLD
LIFE IN PLASTIC, IT'S FANTASTIC

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Atheism.

Like communists and anarchists, I don't believe atheists exist.

Damn. Normally the slightest mention of that will start off that cycle for ten pages.
Certain topics just have us going through the motions, other forums call it a trigger warning a topic that elicits specific responses from large groups of people.
I personally hate seeing a thread with "uncomfortable topic" or "trigger warning" or whatever variation, we should be able to rise above that.
For a while whenever a Drug, Magic, atheism etc thread would appear and people start going through the motions posting the same exact arguments with each other I'd post pictures of hard hats/fall zone or other cautionary building site pictures, just to remind us that we've had those discussions before, we didn't reach a concensus so we might as well try to approach it from a different angle.

Frankly, I think that an "uncomfortable topic" is one that is not discussed much and that in general people tend to shy away from, not one of the tried-and-true recurring party-argument themes that crop up over and over again. Is it really "uncomfortable" if it's discussed ad nauseum on every board on the internet?

I wasn't referring to a specific case, each forum tends to have their own variations of these topics, on SA it's transgenderism. We have our own Ad Nausium topics, the ones I've listed Magic, athiesm, drugs elicit the same responses over and over.
Personally none of those topics are ones that interest me very much.
There are the Partykiller threads you see everywhere, but one of the reasons I like this forum is we tend not to have them.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. I wouldn't consider a board's go-to button-pushing subject to be an "uncomfortable topic". In my mind, an "uncomfortable topic" is one that isn't discussed very often because people shy away from it, but, when started in a reasonable and accessible manner, can generate a lot of thoughtful (non-inflamed) discussion.

Some examples of topics that I would label "hot-button" rather than "uncomfortable":

Abortion
Circumcision
Transgenderism
Gay marriage
Drug legalization
Atheism vs. religion
Socialism vs. capitalism
New Age/Alternative medicine

They can't make people all that uncomfortable, because they talk about them all the damn time.

Clearly though, enough people have a different definition of "uncomfortable" that there is now a proliferation of threads in which "uncomfortable" has been used in the topic header as a synonym for "My Pet Topic".

[navkat]

For what it's worth, my "topical discomfort" thread was meant to be a playful jab at that. "Topical" had a double entendre.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For what it's worth, my "topical discomfort" thread was meant to be a playful jab at that. "Topical" had a double entendre.

Yeah, I got that.