Well, white people are obviously European and Latinos can claim some lineage from Spain/Portugal. I think that would make up the majority.

I doubt it, but the census will tell us more, I'm sure.

Just to clarify- I'm talking great great great grandparents and stuff, not actual immigrants.

White people are obviously European? What if they are from South Africa or Australia? Sure, their lineage may eventually go back to Europe, but it is two or three times removed. Assuming White = European is as bad as assuming "Black" = African. Dark or light skin doesn't decide what part of the world your family immigrated from.

meh, Australian = European, unless they are aboriginals.
I was just saying that people are people. Wasn't expecting it to get so technical.

If you want, we can take this to the race thread, lol. :-D

@Hunter,
Really, the guy who wanted to argue that a reduction in income can't cause a deficit doesn't want to get technical??

heh, fine. but let's do it in another thread so I don't ruin this masterpiece.

When I first joined this site all the relgious and political threads.Had me thinking that there where alot right winged gun totting etremists on it.After being here for awhile I find the split pretty even.
I also believe that alot of people respond to these posts not based on there views but rather to stir the pot sometimes.It's like being in a debate club even if your against the side given to defend you will do your best to debate it.The thrill is finding flaws in others logic or statements.
They just enjoy playing devils advocate.And they know who they are.

"I think the ideological split is quite even, although some people tend to make better arguments than others." - i don't know what even is, i mean it depends on what you think the political middle ground is.

It is possible to see this site as extremely liberal, especially if you lean toward the far right, or vica-versa.

If on the other hand i was to define this site as centerist then the centre is just what you find here with people equally argueing on both sides - and hence the conclusion that we are pretty even-handed...

As for anti-religious, I don't know about anti-, i know there are few threads that start 'I believe in God and you should too' (which might be seen as pro-religious) I don't go around posting 'if you believe in God you are an idiot' but then I don't see anyone posting 'if you DON'T believe in God you are an idiot' either - i'd rather see religious debates as interesting conversations than about telling others what to believe. (neither pro nor anti religion, just talking about religion with theists and atheists having their say)

Now if you come from a background where this kind of conversation is not common then it may seem anti-religious, but i don't really think of it that way.

Here you go Dingle. It's wikipedia, but when has wikipedia ever lied?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_American#Demographics

White Americans in 2000: 211,460,626 | 75.1%
Americans that claim European descent in 2000: 171,801,940 | 60.7%

The site is generally very liberal, but economically it leans left. Of course, you'd never guess because Chrispminis and I are responsible for approximately 1 in 25 of the posts on the forum, and we are both pretty far right.

Hunter, it definitely doesn't seem like that in the urban centres of America. I believe those stats, but I would like to point out that at this point in time Hispanic is a cultural designation on the census and not a racial one, such that Hispanics are classified as White Americans despite that many would now make the racial distinction.

Re: The original topic. It's quite well known that the internet is young, atheist, libertarian, and listens to metal. Now it's true generally that younger people tend to be more liberal, but it does seem like libertarians take up a large part of the online population, including the youth. I have no doubts that the youth of the next generation will be more socially progressive than the last, but I'm not so sure whether they'll be as economically left leaning as is stereotypical in our time. I'm pretty sure the next generation will be more atheist/nonreligious than ours as well.

As for this site, I would say it's more left leaning. On the whole, people here are more socially progressive. It's harder to find decent support here for interventionist American foreign politics, the death penalty, or the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. Have we ever had a debate about illegal immigrants? The only issue I'd say that does lean to social progressive here is probably abortion. Otherwise people are pretty left-leaning here in terms of classically leftist stances on issues.

Maybe for economic issues we're more evenly split. I'm happy to note that we have some centrists among us despite that it's usually a bitter feud between libertarians and socialists. Maybe I'm biased, but I think there are more active socialists on the forum. I've only been more recently active but often when I would skim the forum I would find the usual liberal suspects (Jamie, dexter, etc.) ganging up on TGM. I think I've been able to take some of the heat off him in the past few threads haha.

There are probably more atheists on this site than theists (at least in terms of active forum participation), though we do have some excellent theistic representation who always seem ready to take on atheism. Crazy Anglican comes to mind.

Then there were the old days when diplomat was our resident teabagger, Sicarius the anarchist, oh and Invictus used to participate extensively in forum debates to inject a more realist perspective. We still have some great characters nowadays. Acosmist probably holds the title for highest sarcasm per word density. In just seven words he oozes more sarcasm than most people could fit into four hyperbolic rhetorical questions.

"The only issue I'd say that does lean to social progressive here is probably abortion. "

I meant to say "that does NOT lean"

"why? Why does this particular website attract that type of conversation? What makes it so popular?"

You would say the opposite is true... Diplomacy players are less likely to get into God-arguments, recognizing the (obvious) stalemateline ;)
On the other hand, controlling what others think and do is what diplomacy is all about!

Based on Chrispis post above, I had to go look at the census form. (My wife filled it out in our house). Black/African is one race, whereas Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino and Other Asian are all listed separately. How are those considered separate races??

Funny, I notice the conservative threads whenever I glance over and was forming this theory that the right is more attracted to this game than the left. Maybe this is evidence that it really is balanced and we see what we want to see.

"Maybe for economic issues we're more evenly split. I'm happy to note that we have some centrists among us despite that it's usually a bitter feud between libertarians and socialists. Maybe I'm biased, but I think there are more active socialists on the forum. I've only been more recently active but often when I would skim the forum I would find the usual liberal suspects (Jamie, dexter, etc.) ganging up on TGM. I think I've been able to take some of the heat off him in the past few threads haha."

I'm planning to go out all-guns-blazing after my exams :)

I,m sure there is a test out there that can be used to determine where you stand on the topics often discussed in the forum.
If most people answered honestly.I bet they would be shocked at where they stand in the left-center-right spectrum.
We all have opinions of ourselfs right or wrongly and sometimes it takes outsiders or friends who observe you to get a more accurate feel of who you really are.

Well its also difficult because 'center' keeps moving. And center in the US <> center in Europe and center on webdiplomacy <> center in real life.

There are a few cases where it isn't true, but generally...I am the center. So, if you want to figure out where you stand, just figure out how far out you are, by comparing your thoughts to my posts. ;)

intelligent people talk about politics, philosophy (which wasn't mentioned originally) and religion, which is similar to philosophy. that's why. it's enjoyable and stimulating, and parallels some of the reasons we play diplomacy even

@Dingleberry, I think part of the race on census forms is just practical. Every East Asian individual I've ever met in the US can tell me where their ancestors came from. I've met maybe two African individuals here who can, and one of those was only so far back as to Haiti, not to their African origin. Maybe these are just my friends, but I'd bet the vast majority of African Americans couldn't tell you anything more specific than African/Black. Of course, genetic diversity is higher in Africa than other continents, so if any area deserves to have that level of specificity, it's Africa. I just feel it's impractical to ask.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30663385@N00/140105427

Anyway, yeah, the Internet is liberal.

Attribute that to whatever you want but it's the case.

This site is less liberal than the internet though.


On the topic of being white vs. European. My ancestors haven't been from Europe for something like 150-200 years. However, my body is European, I have European descent, etc. I have an English complexion because my ancestry is English. The same would be so if my ancestors happened to detour in Kenya or something.

So for the purposes of genetics I am European. For the purposes of citizenship, I'm American. What else do you need to know? White, black? Those are colors.

See, and this is what I wanted. A nice discussion about political tendencies.

I find it more and more likely that the whole site does lean toward the center, and that you just notice arguments you disagree with. There's no point in preaching to the choir, and there's no point in listening to the preacher.

Backing him up, on the other hand...

http://politicalcompass.org/index

I liked this site. I think it gave a pretty accurate scale of where I am economically and socially. Its also has some surprising iconochasms, contradicting stances of current and past political figures.

I've taken the test before, and I didn't like it. There are too many questions that make little to no sense to me, or are phrased in a way where my answer is different then it normally would be. A couple example questions to show you what I'm talking about:

1.) "Our race has many superior qualities, compared with other races." What race? Human race or your specific race/culture? I answer that question in 2 different ways depending on the meaning.

2.)"Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged." Is it a better idea? of course. Would ever actually be put in a large scale working model? probably not, so it is not better in that sense.

Bonus.) "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." lol, I thought this one was relevant to Diplomacy. :-P

Oh, and I'm at almost the same spot as Friedman on the graph. :P

Good point. Its still fun though.