How does DU go really "underground"?

[kentuck]

Will this small discussion group, which is well-known and well-hated in right-wing circles, be able to survive in this new environment?

Will they soon be in the same boat as their better-known ally, MSNBC? Will the Admins be offered a good price to sell?

We can imagine the talk around the water cooler at MSNBC this morning. It is probably not a lot of talk about job security. Who will be let go first? Joe and Mika? Or Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid? Or Ali Velshi? It cannot be a comfortable place this morning.

But, one must wonder just how far they will go with their crackdown on "liberal" media?

Should DU be more vigilant with whom is permitted thru the doors?

[NewHendoLib]

1. My answers

Question 1 - yes
2 - no
3 - I could not care less. I've not watched TV in 15 yrs
4 - no
5 - DU is very vigilant

[Girard442]

2. I'm much more afraid that TFG's minions will kick the plug out of the wall.

[barbtries]

3. and burn down the house. nt

[Girard442]

4. Yeah, well, restraint is not their thing.

[erronis]

11. they'll want total control of the internet - that'll be trump's "great wall"

Just like the russians, the chinese.

Enjoy these conversations, while you can.

[Sympthsical]

5. Your last sentence is the problem

DU is demographically much, much older than the general population. If it declines (or the admins retire or whatever), it will be because fresh blood, fresh viewpoints, and evolution are stymied by vigorous gatekeeping, calcification, and ingrown thinking.

In a space that is already kind of discouraging to new people - young people in particular - and ideas outside a very narrow, narrow, narrow band of thought, making it less welcoming wouldn't be a solution to anything.

But the five people who are left would be thrilled, one imagines.

And the same could be said for the Democratic Party. Politics is won by expanding to get as many people as one can on board and enthusiastic about your ideas. Making admittance harder is how parties lose.

At the end of the day, ask yourself this question. Are you actually keeping people out, or is it a situation where other people are happy to see you locked away somewhere?

[kentuck]

6. Good points...

....but are there any dangers of annihilation by infiltrators? I would agree that up to this point, DU has been very vigilant and well-moderated.

I do not want to wake up one day and be the only person posting in this esteemed group.

[marble falls]

51. No. None at all. We'll be around in the form we are as long as admin wants. A long time.

[Xavier Breath]

12. Rec.

[TheProle]

26. Fucking nailed it.K&R

[Scrivener7]

38. You don't seem to like it here.

[Sympthsical]

39. On the contrary

I enjoy myself immensely.

But then, I'm one of those types who finds everything some level of funny.

[Scrivener7]

41. Perhaps I should have said you don't seem to like the people here. Funny though we may be to you.

[Sympthsical]

42. One must never assume a we

When even the I part is arguable.

[muriel_volestrangler]

45. How (and this question goes to anyone who recc'ed too) is DU "discouraging to young people in particular"?

In general, people agree the Democratic Party is a broad tent, and some have blamed its failure in the past election on being unable to satisfy all of its potential voters. I don't think the party's appeals to voters and DU's looks at new members are at all comparable.

DU does have ideas about what is acceptable discourse here, but it's never been age-related. It's based far more on talking points - because long experience has taught us the kind of things that people who aren't really likely to support Democrats, but are likely to try and peel off some Democrats, start talking about. Remember there have been entire sites dedicated to trying to get DU to fail.

[brush]

52. Hmmmm? You don't seem to enjoy your time spent here. IMO DU is pretty much aligned with most center-left and...

progressive Dems.

[MineralMan]

7. I can't see any reason for DU to go away, frankly.

It's been here through more than one GOP presidency, and even one Trump presidency.

As long as we keep the discussion going, there's no reason for DU to close its doors.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

16. The past doesn't equal the future.

We've never had a fascist dictatorship before (Trump didn't get a chance to establish one in his first term but will in his second term).

If we lose DU, then that will be the least of our worries.

[GreenWave]

36. I wouldn't say least. I need a dose of sanity that I find here.

But if we are already self censoring or talking about it, then the bastards have already won.

[Hekate]

9. KnR to see where this goes. Hi, Agent Mike!

[LudwigPastorius]

18. If Musk, Ramaswamy, and Trump have their way, Agent Mike is going to be out of a job.

He just might be interested in joining us.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/shut-it-down-vivek-ramaswamy-wants-to-close-fbi-and-sack-1-5-million-employees-under-trumps-new-cost-cutting-department-doge/articleshow/115318235.cms

[madinmaryland]

33. Agent Mike Hunt??

[Hekate]

34. I don't know if we ever knew his last name, back in the day

[thebigidea]

49. Bev Harris was full of shit on everything else, why would you believe her about that?

She WAS the one who made up "Agent Mike," after all.

[Hekate]

50. Never knew that about her--just that we were collectively uncertain about BushCheney...

…and the USA PATRIOT ACT (remember, it is an actual acronym) . Democrats who traveled to protest might find themselves shoved into a container at the docks overnight, or simply herded into chain-link ”Free Speech Zones” or…

Jesus, there were some actual bad things going on in the world outside our little haven. As far as I could tell, our fictitious Agent Mike was just DU’s attempt to bring some lightness in while giving a name to our anxiety — I used to have to remind some members that talking about assassination in an online forum is a Very Bad Idea.

[Prairie Gates]

10. Admins should give us the ability to delete all our posts

They should also have protections in place to prevent sign-up email addresses and Star Membership payment info from being scraped or captured by any entity.

[Prairie_Seagull]

15. Seems a very important question.

Site security should become more of a consideration.

That said, so far, so good. Right?

Edit- Yo Gates.

[TheKentuckian]

22. Nothing is really ever deleted. It is way too late to hide now.

I don't object but it is a very, very false sense of security.

Go out on your feet rather than on your knees.

[multigraincracker]

13. Change is the only thing that remains the same.

[QED]

14. IIRC there was a Yahoo group set up for such an "emergency"

It was a long time ago though...does Yahoo even have groups anymore?

[keep_left]

23. Isn't there also a Discord group for DU?

I think one was set up during the hacking event that happened during the 2016 election.

[Magoo48]

17. It's better to error on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion.

If the time comes where someone shuts us down or runs us down, we’ll have other pressing issues occurring in our lives which need immediate attention.

[Nigrum Cattus]

19. Don't get paranoid or defeated

There are always "rats" in all groups -
Don't get discouraged
Never give up or give in
If MSNBC gets bad, some media will fill that void, somewhere.

[electric_blue68]

20. Regarding Sympthical's comment (see below) I'd like to hear examples of this...

"In a space that is already kind of discouraging to new people - young people in particular - and ideas outside a very narrow, narrow, narrow band of thought, making it less welcoming wouldn't be a solution to anything.".

So what do you consider this "narrow, narrow, narrow band of thought" to be?

So, I happen to be old (71) [don't clutch your pearls] when I joined. I did feel discouraged upon joining here.

I also enjoy interacting with people of all ages - for instance waaaay younger cousins, or young people in my interest groups.

So how have young[er] people here felt unwelcome?

[Sympthsical]

24. Try having a conversation about student loans

It was . . . hostile. Seriously, posts beginning with "The problem with kids today" must've been resisted through sheer willpower. Conversations about starting out in life. Education issues. The costs of things. "The economy is totally fine!" Ok, kids today are living at home longer because they can't afford to move out for . . . "Everything's fine! Why do you hate our party?!"

Seriously. I get those responses. All the time. And I'm in my 40s. But we've been half-raising teenagers and early 20s nieces/nephews and have a large extended family, so we're getting an eyeful of what the world is like for youth.

It all gets dismissed. And if you're super lucky, you might get a, "My perfect daughter/son who is 26 and the CEO of All The Things Inc. is doing very well for him/herself after earning a PhD in Parental Bragging Rights," and you just roll your eyes at it.

Demographically, people are in different places in life. If you got yours, retired, built up a little wealth or a nest egg, things are easily weathered. If you're young, looking at the career and cost of living landscape, you have some commentary.

But newp. People don't want to hear it. Oh well.

And then it's . . . "I can't believe we lost. What was Gen Z thinking?" Well, I dunno. What was Gen Z thinking? You could've known if you, I dunno, actually listened when people were talking to you. But nah. Let's not do that. Let's just shush the damn kids up. And certainly let's not deign to go into any of the spaces they inhabit.

When Taylor Swift endorsed, people thought that job was done. Which, LOL. Seriously.

[electric_blue68]

31. I didn't pay that close attention to student debt though I certainty kmow some about, the debt forgiveness for some....

etc. It's certainly became an increasing problem. The actual loan part (getting one, the terms I don't know details).

Costs of things. Some things have risen more than others, and faster making it difficult. People would have to go back and compare periods when this has undoubtedly happened in times before.

Of course, I think the sort of flipside is the problem with wages, and slow increases. And that could depend on which industries, particular companies, and levels within a business. Not to mention the span of years when the minimum wage didn't properly keep up which would then possibly raise up the higher wages at some point.

""I can't believe we lost. What was Gen Z thinking?" Well, I dunno. What was Gen Z thinking?.......And certainly let's not deign to go into any of the spaces they inhabit.".

Would older people be welcomed enough if respectful to have a discussion; in the places they "inhabited"?

But as far as "what were they (Gen Z) thinking", I mean if you (they) paid even a modest amount of attention they could see the stark differences between Biden originally, then Harris, and Trump. Easily, look up Biden/Hartis policies on line. Surely that was easy enough to do!

"Demographically, people are in different places in life. If you got yours, retired, built up a little wealth or a nest egg, things are easily weathered.".

You do realize that a fair amount of order people didn't "get theirs", or if they did may have lost it through various misfortunes.

It's not all roses and unicorns up here in eldarland.

[muriel_volestrangler]

46. I also saw plenty of support for full forgiveness of student loans

DU is, despite what you've been saying, broader than one viewpoint. And you want it to be broader, which means you're going to meet people who disagree with you about things. As well as people who agree with you. "What was Gen Z thinking?" may be flavour of the month now, but "what are Boomers/Gen X/Millennials thinking?" has been the topic many times too.

And, of course, any forum to the right of DU would be less likely to agree with student loan forgiveness. And the electoral results do not seem to indicate that student loans are a priority of Gen Z (male, anyway), judging by the exit polls.

[allegorical oracle]

53. Any reluctance I'd have to discussing, say, student loans is that I never had one. In the 1960s, when

it came to college and you lacked a) a scholarship, or b) parents who could afford to pay, or c) you worked days and went to night classes, or d) you were female and told to not bother because you were just going to be a housewife, anyway, then you likely didn't go to college at all.

Fact is, we're all the product of who, what, where, and how we grew to adulthood. But enjoy reading your comments and hope you contribute often.

[Hekate]

25. Hmmmm. Good questions. ETA: I see a fulsome answer. Won't delete, tho.

I’ll be interested to see what the reply is — there’s a couple of posters who make these observations periodically, and I always wonder why they bother to stay at a site so limited in their estimation, a site that might as well be an old-folks home with all of us sitting around the TV waiting for Death or Dinner, whichever comes first.

[electric_blue68]

29. Heh! This "old folk" is making art, jewelry, cautiously (covid crowd) going to a museum or two...

getting downtown occasionally (still covid cautious) to look at stuff, special food, art supplies etc. 😉

[allegorical oracle]

35. And in my 70s I'm chain-sawing trees downed by two hurricanes. Had to back off from a

rattler the other day. Four feet away, it quieted down, and I had a good excuse to go back to the house.

[electric_blue68]

37. Blessing on your continued strength. Glad you saw/heard the rattler in time! Enjoy your countryside.

My cuz (71) on his property goes and chops wood. 👍

[allegorical oracle]

44. Thx. Wood chopping isn't my thing --- good for him. We need to keep thinking young. nt

[canetoad]

21. If there is an attempt to purchase

And subvert DU by the right wing, it's bound to fail. The value lies in the domain name, which, like it or not, is Democratic Underground. Change that and the value evaporates.

[marble falls]

28. If the intention is just to shut it up, cache is not a consideration.

[marble falls]

27. If we told you, it really wouldn't be underground, now would it. Look to the skys in the east. Mums the word.

[TomSlick]

30. Jean a de longue mustache.

Répéter. Jean a de longue mustache.

[electric_blue68]

32. So the posters who rec'd Sympthsical's detaled comment to me - want to add more details of your experiences, or...

observations?

[kentuck]

43. Open the door and see how long it takes to dilute the the entire group.

The DU would become worthless if it was not monitored the way it is at present. It doesn't take much to disrupt a discussion group, as we have learned from the past.

This does not equal censorship or lock the door to other opinions. We need new opinions, I would agree. But not every opinion.

That is all I am saying.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

40. No one knows the future.

But the one thing I do know is the other side wants us to quiet down. They want us scared. They want us to hunker down and hide. They want us to lock up so others can't come and see the other side of the coin.

It makes what they want to do easier.

I for one don't play that game. The founders of this site don't either. We are going to keep going till whatever happens, happens.

[SupportSanity]

47. What to do?

First off, I think DU is one of the best things on the planet. I love it. And thanks to those that created it and run it.

But right after the election, I direct mailed EarlG about this. An authoritarian fascist regime coming into power in two months is a game changer.

I don’t want someone knocking at my door because I expressed anti Trump opinions on this board.

This concern had already been expressed previously by others. And if there is any way of finding my identity from anything on this board … well that would have me scared shitless.

My two cents worth. Thanks.

[JCMach1]

48. There needs to be a Tor accessible version of DU

That is decentralized.

darkDU