[lookout123]

I don't think anything structural needs to change in the cellar. The beauty of the cellar is that it is a self policing community. I've been to other communities that are heavily moderated and regulated and they suck. Personally I don't like some of the changes I've seen in the culture of the cellar in the last few years. I have the ability to either whine about it (which I have), try to be a catalyst for what I'd like to see (I'm not so good at that), or leave (which I've done for months at a time). That's self regulation and it works. While I have zero respect for a couple of dwellars I dont' want some system in place where we vote their comments in or out of the threads. They're free to be assholes and I'm free to respond how I see fit.

For me I think the cellar is just a sympton of a much larger problem in our society. This is a reflection of discourse in the world now. Ideas are really not that important anymore except as a banner to wave pretentiously in support of our political/social identity. The right believes they are superior to the left because they're "more patriotic and american", "stand for values", and are obviously much more intelligent. The left believes they are superior to the right "because they care about the middle class", "believe in compassion", and are obviously much more intelligent.

It seems most people refuse to consider that two people can look at the exact same data and come to drastically different conclusions not because one is brilliant, kind, and pretty while the other is stupid, evil, and smelly. We have all experienced life differently and because of that have different priorities and different views of what the ideal society would be.

Of course those we have voted to rule our lives benefit by keeping us divided so they stir the pot with rhetoric to keep us battling right v left, rich v poor, black v white, red state v blue state. No one wins except the ruling class.