J.Edward

Interesting thread. ^

Before I sold out bought in to be an accounting major, I was a philosophy major. Consider yourself warned.

Does anybody else feel like it's a little harsh in here...

Yes. Let's take this in three directions:

1. WHY does it feel like it's a little harsh in here and

2. "in here" - is this limited to the UA forum on FT, FT in general, the web, the USA, Western Society in general, or humanity at large?

3. WHAT'S to be done?

Addressing the first point of WHY: many posters view their relationship with the carrier on an emotional/feeling-based level. The drawback from this is the lack of rationality in interpreting events. If a criticism is presented about the object of an individual's emotional investment, the default response will be emotional.

Said another way, the emotional response will lack reason, be fueled by indignation, and composed of name-calling/ad hominem attacks/or shooting the messenger rather than an honest assessment of the criticism and a reasoned, logical response.

This is the source of the harshness, IMHO. This is also what opens the door to whoever shouts the loudest is the winner, not whoever reasons best.

The best counter I can offer to this is when responding, be mindful of Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement and focus on the top 3 points of the pyramid, not the bottom parts.






Further complicating matters, and serving as a segway to my second point, many people think they possess, but in reality do not, the fortitude to respond rationally when presented with points they disagree. As they say, the first step is admitting you've got a problem. Sadly many are not even at this point of self-awareness when it comes to being able to engage in logical discourse. Tom Sowell's comment, "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling." seem particularly on point here.

Continuing with the second point, and risking veering dangerously close to OMNI territory, the cultural climate of the western world, in which our little forum exists, is hyper-focused on the individual/emotional, not the collective/rational. (If you want an in-depth analysis of why I suggest you start with Alan Bloom's

The Closing of the American Mind.

The Closing of the American Mind.

Those who've read Strauss/Howell's

The Fourth Turning

The Fourth Turning

, will see we've progressed from the unraveling/3rd turning of the 80's/90's to the crisis/4th turning. My point here is both Bloom & Strass/Howell independently arrived at the same conclusion to describe the macro society we find ourselves in right now: a hypersensitised environment, focused on the individual and emotions at the expense of the group and reason. As our forum operates in such a macro environment, it is not surprising we see the micro effects here.

So returning to the thread topic of "is it harsh in here" and following up with "what do we do" my personal take is YES, it is harsh in here, but a qualified yes.

The harshness is a byproduct of the current cultural climate we are in, not necessarily a result inherent to FT / a.net / whatever public venue. What one should endeavor to do is be mindful of their emotional state (hint: if you're hacked off, don't post. Give yourself some time to cool down) and when responding to an argument, consider Graham's Hierarchy and aim for the top of the pyramid, not the bottom.

rufflesinc

There has been effort at cleanup posts that presumably go over the line. But when a post is deleted in its entirely, nobody knows that there was a post that violated some rule. It would be quite helpful to rather than delete posts, instead delete the contents of the post and replace with [deleted because blah blah] , similar to how posts are merely edited and a comment is inserted [edited to remove blah blah]

4am does not count as "morning" in my book

jrpallante

" FWIW I blame social media for the lack of social skills on display."

Touche! The younger generations have lost the art of communication.

rufflesinc

I don't think it's the younger generation as the demographics of FT don't trend that way

laxmillenial

Yeah it's not us. lol.
I joined Flyertalk to learn and to help others by answering questions and providing advice. If I bash you, call me out!

Honestly I think it's the younger generation who doesn't care about 99% of the things that we talk about on this thread. We just want to go from point A->point B. In a timely manner. On a cheap fare. Does it matter we don't get water on a 200 mile flight? Does it matter that I'm asked to close an overhead bin? Does it matter that I'm made to 'check' my bag at the gate or on a BE fare? Does it matter that I'm just a sardine in the can with a bunch of other sardines?

No. As long as you keep on flying me to Europe on those 400-500 round trip fares, you can do all of that and more. Life is about experiences. Let's not get caught up in the details.

pushmyredbutton

I've noticed what the OP has described increasingly over the past few years. Personally, I've just added a handful of people to my block list and I've had a much more pleasant time since

seat38a

Actually, I like this site because of the blunt to the point.

blueman2

This is basically the rules of the FT forum, but I really like the way this is presented in a diagram. This could be put as a sticky at the top of every forum!

physioprof

That really is a thread of beauty. The best is the parenthetical discussion of whether risotto can be a side dish.

JayhawkCO

This. All this. When I joined FT, I had been out of the country once and had about 2,000 miles sitting in a Northwest account. I didn't know a thing about frequent flyer programs or how to best attack trying to get a big fancy ticket (which once upon a time for me was a RTW Y fare). I spent a whole lot of time reading through the various stickies, came onto United as the program that seemed like it would be best for me with routes, E+ (I'm 6'4"), and earn rates. I wasn't (and am still not) as affluent as most on this forum, and I buy all my tickets out of pocket, so I learned the tricks of the trade of mileage runs, fuel dumps, all the things that were "hacking the system" a little bit so that this guy who was waiting tables at the time could afford to travel. I learned a lot from the posters in this forum, and like to think I was as generous with my advice, award booking guidance, etc. to pay it forward as I could be.

Fast forward to a couple of years ago. I'm up to 50 countries visited, over 300k miles on United, having been 1P or Gold for I think 7 years running, Then United devalues the program and makes it basically revenue based. That pretty much makes holding status impossible for anyone that doesn't make six digits or have their employer pay for all (or most) of their travel. So, I saw the writing on the wall and quickly gave up on trying to gain status, but I still had a decent stash of UA miles and so I came to this board to still seek out info and pass it along as I found necessary. But, the tone had changed. Now it was more about people being called 1K-Lite, or talking about how if someone wasn't spending my equivalent of two paychecks on every flight in paid C, then UA didn't need to be loyal to them at all. Now the tone towards those posters who didn't know the rules or didn't spend as much as others got a lot harsher. We all know FT's search function isn't the most useful thing in the world, but yet some still denounce people for not looking hard enough instead of just providing them a link to pertinent information. Even the corporate culture of UA changed, calling things "entitlements" when back in the day, if something went wrong on your flight, it was very common to get a voucher or some mileage dumped into your account. Now, if something goes wrong, it's a cursory apology at best as opposed to real customer service and ownership of mistakes.

It's definitely sad and I miss the heydays of the late 00's when I earned a bunch, burned a bunch, and was 100% loyal to UA and *A when booking (other than 3rd world routes that they didn't fly). And I'll also miss the feeling of "Hey, their program is kind of confusing, but we're all in it together to help each other out. See you at the RCC. Let me know if you need me to guest you in." But, like I said earlier, I saw the writing on the wall and went full Kayak as soon as I realized what was happening and can't ever see it returning to what it once was.

Chris

worldwidedreamer

After over a decade here, I still love the FT community. Things changed a bunch after the Internet Brands take-over, but I really think that more of the change has been driven by how the social internet pivoted everything. As travel hacking has become more of a bulge bracket sport, my sense is that a bunch of the best travel hackers connect via secret FB groups and share secrets directly.

Also, I'm continually fascinated that this board does not have a concept of "karma" and how many of the best loved members of the community now write blog posts on the affiliated websites versus here. Not casting judgement at all, and would probably do the same if running the business. Just curious to think whether they have run the numbers about how that affects our social community.

DCP2016

To be fair, you aren't going to get much love for the airline that beats people up and kills dogs.

Now if you are talking about REAL airlines like AA, DL, NK, WN, B6, AS, then I can agree with you.

SFOdelayed

Case in point

ExplorerWannabe

Not sure I agree. From what I've seen, many young people DO care about comfort, they just don't want to pay dues to get it. They want to live like their empty nester parents, get paid as if they'd been working for 20+ years, and get it all now ... preferably free. I've flown enough transpacific or translatlantic miles in middle coach seats that it doesn't bug me, unless I actually paid for more. If I get an upgrade, that's great but otherwise, I'm generally in the seat I (or my company) paid for.

ExplorerWannabe

That reminds me of the scene with Sam Elliott in "We Were Soldiers"..