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Yes, everybody has always been like this, but tech has changed the social nature of interaction. It's not just Facebook. Any online community (including HN) has

Yes, everybody has always been like this, but tech has changed the social nature of interaction. It's not just Facebook. Any online community (including HN) has a desire to limit conflict -- you want people enjoying themselves and contributing. That means "Don't show me stuff that I disagree with" There's a natural conflict of interest. In the real world, we are forced to live with and confront those of widely varying opinions. Many times this is a huge pain in the ass. But it's good for the species overall. Over time, initially unpopular and ugly opinions get vetted: about one in a 100/1000 turn out to be a critical evolution in the way all of us think about ourselves. In the virtual world, no such limits exist. We cannot afford to have the 1% folks who destroy discourse, so we just magically make them not exist. People share and promote emotional things which the vast majority can agree on. Instead of the outliers driving change, we begin to norm down those farther and farther out on the bell curve. So people turn inward to their phones and tribes. We physically live next to each other, but we don't actually live with each other. Instead of a diverse and accomplished species, we are slowly becoming one large, comfortable mob.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Call me biased, but pretty much every on-line community I've seen in the past 15 years had no desire to limit disagreements. All they wanted is to get rid of assholes. It's the same on HN and on your Facebook feed, as it was on the old topical boards and mailing lists. You can argue for any controversial position you like as long as you do this in a civil and substantial way. What ends up happening is people getting split into two camps - those who can discuss things in a detached way and learn from them, and assholes who just want to call people names. Or, in terms of pg's hierarchy of disagreement[0], groups tend to split somewhere around DH3-DH4 level. Which is totally fine, IMO. Unfortunately most Internet denizens seem to be in the "DH3 and below" group. What we need to figure out is how to make them abandon their ways and join the civilized world. [0] - http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- spydum 11y ago
  While I agree with you, this did have me giggling a bit: > and assholes who just want to call people names.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I guess I need to work on my writing skills a bit more; I still tend to quantum-tunnel into DH0 sometimes. :).

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Call me biased, but pretty much every on-line community I've seen in the past 15 years had no desire to limit disagreements. All they wanted is to get rid of assholes. It's the same on HN and on your Facebook feed, as it was on the old topical boards and mailing lists. You can argue for any controversial position you like as long as you do this in a civil and substantial way. What ends up happening is people getting split into two camps - those who can discuss things in a detached way and learn from them, and assholes who just want to call people names. Or, in terms of pg's hierarchy of disagreement[0], groups tend to split somewhere around DH3-DH4 level. Which is totally fine, IMO. Unfortunately most Internet denizens seem to be in the "DH3 and below" group. What we need to figure out is how to make them abandon their ways and join the civilized world. [0] - http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html

spydum 11y ago
While I agree with you, this did have me giggling a bit: > and assholes who just want to call people names.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I guess I need to work on my writing skills a bit more; I still tend to quantum-tunnel into DH0 sometimes. :).