Why is Letsrun considered toxic?

NYDCRunner1 wrote:

mike weston from burn notice wrote:

Leftists try to silence any views that differ from their own. Leftists are the most intolerant people on earth.

There is no need to tolerate stupidity. This basic commonsense understanding seems not to be able to make its way through your side 's cognitive dissonance. Years before the proliferation of social media, when libraries and Encyclopedia Britannica ruled, no one held the view that the world is flat. Now, with the rise of social media, there are stupid people trumping that the world is flat. Gimme a break!

You are allowed to have a view that is reasoned. All unreasoned, stupid, brain dead crap, should never ever be tolerated.

+1

Of course Letsrun is toxic. You think you're just a bunch of regular guys while giving vent to every kind of prejudice.

The worst for me is just the fact that any number of threads just get completely derailed and ruined by obviously very right leaning people raging about covid/sheeples/woke/the left in general which inevitably leads to an argument and completely detracts from any actual conversation other than the things this vocal minority want to talk about. I'm fine with a thread arguing about covid, or the travesties wrought upon us by the left, but it's really hard to read anything on here recently due to the amount of times the above are brought up, in multiple different threads, with nothing new added to the argument.

NYDCRunner1 wrote:

mike weston from burn notice wrote:

Leftists try to silence any views that differ from their own. Leftists are the most intolerant people on earth.

There is no need to tolerate stupidity. This basic commonsense understanding seems not to be able to make its way through your side 's cognitive dissonance. Years before the proliferation of social media, when libraries and Encyclopedia Britannica ruled, no one held the view that the world is flat. Now, with the rise of social media, there are stupid people trumping that the world is flat. Gimme a break!

You are allowed to have a view that is reasoned. All unreasoned, stupid, brain dead crap, should never ever be tolerated.

Why do liberals always have to call conservatives stupid? Just state your argument and leave your intolerance at the door. If the liberal elite didn't have such disdain and condescension for conservatives, Donald Trump would never have been accepted as leader of the Republican party. It was his recognition that the "superiority complex" of liberals had such resonance with the targets of their scorn which catapulted him to the presidency.

Once and Future wrote:

The worst for me is just the fact that any number of threads just get completely derailed and ruined by obviously very right leaning people raging about covid/sheeples/woke/the left in general which inevitably leads to an argument and completely detracts from any actual conversation other than the things this vocal minority want to talk about. I'm fine with a thread arguing about covid, or the travesties wrought upon us by the left, but it's really hard to read anything on here recently due to the amount of times the above are brought up, in multiple different threads, with nothing new added to the argument.

There was one day in the last couple of weeks when I looked at the board and saw almost no political/toxic threads. I thought perhaps the boards were back on track until Cain's lawsuit hit and that catapulted the deep divisions in society back to the front page. Given a lack of controversial topics, the front page of the message board does gravitate back to running especially during championships and big marathons. But society right now is so divided and the anonymous nature of the forum so apt to spawn opinions that would not be voiced in polite society, that it takes very little to get a dozen political threads going. And beyond politics there are Nike/anti-Nike doublets and he's doping/he's not doping controversaries always bubbling just beneath the surface.

Been here for over a dozen years. I fully understand why the pro running community thinks that LRC is toxic. Pro runners are recognizing how important mental health is in their sport. There is currently a sea change going on in not just pro running, but in sports in general about how mental health impacts performance. Matt Wolff, the pro golfer with the goofy, but highly effective, swing, had to take a mental health leave from the tour after only being a pro for just under two years. Wolff quickly won on the tour and finished 2nd at his first US Open and 4th at the PGA championship. But Wolff had to take a few months off because of the pressure. And for Wolff, a big issue for him was his relationship with his fans. He was too hard on himself when he did not play well because he felt like he let his fans down. Then, in tennis we saw Osaka and Raducanu suffer mental health breakdowns. And these are sports where the players are financially secure for the rest of their lives. Osaka is the richest female athlete in the world right now.

So, in the pro running world, even the top athletes do not have anything near the kind of financial security as golf or tennis and are constantly dealing with incredibly high pressure races and expectations from fans and sponsors. On LRC, most of the pro runner talk is either an accusation of doping in the case of a great performance or the "____ goes home devastated" when someone has a bad race. While pro athletes in football, baseball, soccer, etc. are accustomed to the sports radio smack talk, pro runner are not. Pro runners are able to live in anonymity and are not the kind of media figures that other pro athletes are. I was at the park with my kid on a nice day. There were dozens of parents and kids on and around the playground. Shannon Rowbury was there with her kid. 3 time Olympian and AR holder. No one recognized her.

LRC is entertaining if you have a thick skin. But I would never expect pro runners to be able to endure what goes on here. Pro runners these days have to be on social media and leverage their image to make money plugging gear, sports drinks, etc. They cannot be on LRC posting about Trump or COVID and still expect to be a brand ambassador.

Armstronglivs wrote:

Of course Letsrun is toxic. You think you're just a bunch of regular guys while giving vent to every kind of prejudice.

You think you aren't a fully blooming hypocrite?

I'm a pretty middle-of-the-road centrist with libertarian sympathies. I think there's a decent diversity of viewpoints here and that's good, but I also would not care if there were more aggressive moderation against:

1) personal attacks against public figures

2) overly racial discussion (too many threads on race+violence/intelligence)

3) sexism -- the post Huddle tweeted about was offensive, pointless, and not worth keeping up on the boards

4) blatant misinformation. We have like 10 threads a day claiming that vaccines kill people and don't work.

I will note that much of the most aggressive and insulting posting comes from right-wing posters, as well as most of the misinformation.

I throughly agree with you and I remember that thread and I, like you, found it divisive, transparent, and rather offensive and objectionable fundamentally,

What i am saying is that i sense the site has improved considerably since then.

I surmise that a lot of that had to do with a period in which the site owners may have been away for awhile.

Regardless, I am seeing less of it as of recently.

ihatejoe wrote:

NYDCRunner1 wrote:

There is no need to tolerate stupidity. This basic commonsense understanding seems not to be able to make its way through your side 's cognitive dissonance. Years before the proliferation of social media, when libraries and Encyclopedia Britannica ruled, no one held the view that the world is flat. Now, with the rise of social media, there are stupid people trumping that the world is flat. Gimme a break!

You are allowed to have a view that is reasoned. All unreasoned, stupid, brain dead crap, should never ever be tolerated.

Why do liberals always have to call conservatives stupid?

Because they are?

What would you call someone who argues the world is flat or that 1+1 =3? That is the level of stupidity that conservatives demonstrate constantly. There is no other description that I can think of that accurately sums up their abject refusal to think. I for one refuse to give people who are willfully ignorant the time of day. People are entitled to be informed. With a click of a couple of keys, we have incalculable amounts of knowledge. There is no excuse.

As I've said there's many other platforms which are far more toxic than LRC and incite hatred, bullying, personal attacks. Social media is a cesspool. Unfortunately it is human nature to gossip and talk sh.it about people. Most people do it everyday behind peoples back but generally not directly to their face. Gossip and sh.it talk provide people entertainment in an otherwise boring life. Again, it's just human nature. Sad but true and everyone does it once in a while. Is it together? Hell yes. The internet provides a similar platform as talking behind peoples back with the added reality of hiding behind a computer screen which exacerbates people being emboldened.

rojo wrote:

. . .

2) I also think in the year 2021 people are used to only seeing things they agree with. If you are woke, you watch MSNBC and have coffee with your friends in the Ivy faculty lounge. If you are conservative, you read Fox News, read the Daily Caller, etc. Here you read things you may not agree with.

The default now is to call something you don't agree with a racist, sexist, etc.

For what it's worth "woke" is widely used by right wing punditry as a dog whistle for those wishing to claim victim status for themselves at the hands of "the elite" rather than acknowledging that more deserving others hold that status.