Hear me out: I am a leftist. Don't ban me - this is something i've been thinking about quite a bit recently.
I mean, at a macro level comparing the far left to the alt-right -- we seem to be a lot more focused on egalitarianism (while disagreeing on the means to that end). The alt-right seems to be focused on creating an ethno state, pretty much. Comparing them, the morality clearly skews towards our direction.
However, what concerns me is how we (you and i) are further insulating ourselves into message boards. When I first think about insulation, what comes up to my mind are those idiots who get brainwashed by alt-right facebook propaganda. They interact with it, then that's all they see on their wall, and all of a sudden they are in an echo chamber. We've all heard about these and know how bad they are.
My first thought is: "Oh, well, I'm educated and I read books and theory. I'm not like them. Alt righters are just dumb ass facebook moms who haven't read a book in years."
My second thought is: "Oh, shit. I'm insulating myself JUST like them, though."
I don't know. I'm just kind of conflicted. Left ideologies aren't morally bad, unlike alt-righters. But, at the same time we are creating an echo chamber, just like how /r/thedonald did with thedonald.win -- after we both got banned by a traditional news outlet.
What are the effects of that? Is this good or bad?
I think there are merits to the idea but ultimately I don't think it would be worth doing on this site. Like we should be able to convert others to support socialism, its the only way we'll ever get it but the benefit I got from the chapo sub was being exposed to the examples of the damage done by capitalism ( coup in bolivia, war torn regions, people dying domestically due to no health care, etc.) and if we started debating conservatives I think it would dilute a lot of that. An even bigger concern I have is that there's no way conservatives would stick to just debating economic systems and they would absolutely start having people justify the existence of minorities. Some people saw the sub as a genuine safe space for them and I don't think we should take that away.
Quick addition, people should absolutely consume media outside of this site and I think those who want debates can have them elsewhere, we'll probably have struggle sessions of our own anyways.