Is it my imagination

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Or is this place getting really depressing and whiny?

I mean I know to a certain extent, we all come here with our problems. But it seems like there's a whole defeatist mentality going on here. It wasn't like that when I first came here.

Having Autism isn't the end of the world, neither is having sensory issues.

Yep, I agree wholeheartedly

The defeatist attitude leads, inevitably, to the self-fulfilling prophecy that defeat is inevitable.

I think that's why I have somewhat distanced myself as of late. Not needing the negativity atm.

For those not near the equator, its either the hottest or coldest time of year.

I'll chalk it up to a phase.

I agree. But Wozerree,I just read about an elephant that was rescued from 50 years of torture a couple of weeks ago. The elephant CRIED in happiness when released and is now doing well. Sorry, your avatar just reminded me of that.

I heard about that, but I couldn't make myself read the story. I have thing about elephants. I think (if it's possible), I may have been one or known one in a past life.

I should start another website where we can proactively work together (and share music)!

I don't know really, I have seen a couple of posts talking about bullying and being socially isolated, I am not sure the posts are what you would call a defeatist attitude but rather people seeking advice for a problem.

As it is a general autism forum you are more likely to find people posting for advice about issues.

I don't know about others but I post sometimes to see if people can relate to what I am saying, its always nice to know you are not alone, I don't think that is defeatist, I suppose I focus on issues I have and want people to relate to them but I think you are more likely to want people to relate to problems you have rather than positive experiences.

I like people posting for help because I like giving advice

Maybe a humor section would be a great idea?

I really love that idea, so many good comedies I would like to share

Yes, unfortunately. There are so many people who ask for help then shoot down any ideas or suggestions made regardless of merit, or complain about how they are such a helpless victim of 'the system' so why bother, even though the life they describe is often better than some of us can possibly ever hope for. Then others join in and all say how hopeless it all is and why bother, woe is everyone etc. Maybe there are a lot of people dealing with particularly bad depression at the moment and posting through the veil of their emotional state?

A lot of the posters I respect the most who made me really want to keep battling on and trying to work for improvement seem to be on hiatus or not posting much and the negativity is now dominating because it's going unchallenged by those who are feeling apparently burned out from trying to counteract it. It all makes me ill tempered and that doesn't help the tone of my own posts.

What can we do to bring back the vibe that WP used to have or to turn the current low feelings into something more positive and productive? Any ideas folks? I'm willing to commit to trying to turn it around if others are.

All sorting into dichotomies, like positive and negative, is done 100% in the imagination.
The individual both applies the label, and decides how they will think about that label.

Therefore I vote no.

To me, information doesn't need to conform to a collectively preconceived and artificial environment that supports mental euphoria.
I see such an expectation to be analogous to the desires of a drug addict.

I've seen statements about like "what doesn't serve me weakens me", and that kind of thinking worries me greatly.

It also seems very neurotypical, and yes I do realize that many people here aspire to be more like that.

Last edited by olympiadis on 22 Jul 2014, 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I must be as bad at reading the mood online as I am offline because I haven't really noticed. Then again, going about my business in a blithely casual manner is like, my M.O.

I can relate to the frustration in your first paragraph, and I'll sign on to the action plan in your third paragraph. I reserve the right to complain occasionally, but I won't dismiss help peremptorily.

I think the "defeatist" attitude is demonstrably present on this site--but it is not pervasive. Many people actually have positive attitudes on this site. Defeatism is irritating, because it stymies all who come in contact with it.

What is pervasive is argument based primarily on what people see as being logical--rather than argument based upon life experience. There's lots of argumentativeness on this site--which could, ironically, be said to be the polar opposite of "defeatism.'

Then there are the people who believe WrongPlanet is absolutely a cauldron of sexism--ridiculous! Sexism exists on this site--but to call WrongPlanet a "sexist" site would be ridiculous.

It's an argumentative site--but it's not a defeatist site, nor a sexist site.

Hadn't noticed.
I mostly stick to the news section, or random.

Except that it was, and in pretty much the same degree as it is now, which is to say a handful of threads at any given time.

I think you have a case of Frequency Illusion.


When you (anybody) first come here, you bop around the threads and land on the ones that are immediately interesting/compelling/relevent. There is no sense of the site as a whole because it really is very large with many subforums and archives spanning back to 2008. Your impression of the site will be dependent on what threads you have chosen to land on initially.

As time goes on, you spread out. You visit subforums you hadn't yet visited. You read a larger swath of threads. You start to notice threads/ thread subtypes that you hadn't noticed when you first started. Once you make a category in your mind of this "new" thread subtype that you are noticing, the Frequency Illusion makes it seem suddenly pervasive. You brain makes up an explanation for it appearing "with improbable frequency" which is that the tone of the forum has changed.

Except that the tone of the forum hasn't changed. Those threads were always there in about the same density they are now. They just weren't the threads you were compellingly drawn to as relevent to you when you first started.