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That Twitter, as it's currently designed, is an excellent platform for sharing cool links (science/ML twitter is fantastic), but it is downright deleterious for

by Fede_V 9y ago

That Twitter, as it's currently designed, is an excellent platform for sharing cool links (science/ML twitter is fantastic), but it is downright deleterious for any subject where nuance is called for. I think Twitter had a net negative effect on political discussion not because of free speech, but because it rewards bombastic language, point scoring, cheerleading and makes substantial arguments impossible.

broodbucket 9y ago
Twitter is definitely terrible for discussion not just because of the character limit but also because of the echo chambers it creates. I follow a lot of people on both "sides" and they love to make fun of the other through the most low hanging fruit possible. Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side. I don't think there's many popular forms of social media that actually have nuanced, reasonable political discussions though. EDIT: the only one I really know of is /r/neutralpolitics.
- lloeki 9y ago
  > Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side. More often than not the argument basically boils on to this [0], and even when it's not, the tweetstorm necessary for a constructive answer gets lost in a sea of raging tweets. [0]: http://www.extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/ http://www.extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/
- croon 9y ago
  I definitely agree on the first part, and would enjoy healthy bipartisan discussions, but I also think that "neutral( )politics" is an oxymoron. What I mean is that I think the problem currently is as simple (but complex to fix) as people disagreeing over reality. When I have coherent political discussions with friends of other leanings, we always see the others standpoint, but it ALWAYS boils down to simple disagreement on cost/values. Let's take wealth inequality: I don't see the utility in the 0.X% population holding YY% of the wealth (instead of YY/2), and think it hurts the economy by stagnating monetary rotation on the market. My more conservative capitalist friend also doesn't see a particular added utility by it, but disagrees about it having the cost I describe, and distributing wealth that way would then be invasive. We won't get further than that barring a real world experiment, but whether it's healthcare, schooling, infrastructure, etc, it always after 5 minutes or 2 hours boils down to a disagreement on a premise, core values or simply something unprovable (reasonably). The problem I see publicly (social media etc) is people ignoring reality/facts/common sense in favor of tribalism. At that point there can be no discussion. I venture into r/neutralpolitics at times too, but I've never once read something fruitful there. It's either entirely noncommittal, or legitimizes both standpoints on an issue that shouldn't reasonably have two sides (whether that's liberal or conservative).
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Science also needs lots of nuance though. I mean you can only post a headline on Twitter, e.g. "X out of Y people support Trump" - but you can't put the information there backing up that claim, e.g. what people, the research method, and all the nuances. I mean I'll believe those posts will have a link to the full text, but still - twitter is just the headlines.

by Fede_V 9y ago

broodbucket 9y ago

Twitter is definitely terrible for discussion not just because of the character limit but also because of the echo chambers it creates. I follow a lot of people on both "sides" and they love to make fun of the other through the most low hanging fruit possible. Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side. I don't think there's many popular forms of social media that actually have nuanced, reasonable political discussions though. EDIT: the only one I really know of is /r/neutralpolitics.

lloeki 9y ago
> Both sides attack people for liking (or not being totally opposed to) some ideas of the other side. More often than not the argument basically boils on to this [0], and even when it's not, the tweetstorm necessary for a constructive answer gets lost in a sea of raging tweets. [0]: http://www.extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/ http://www.extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/
croon 9y ago
I definitely agree on the first part, and would enjoy healthy bipartisan discussions, but I also think that "neutral( )politics" is an oxymoron. What I mean is that I think the problem currently is as simple (but complex to fix) as people disagreeing over reality. When I have coherent political discussions with friends of other leanings, we always see the others standpoint, but it ALWAYS boils down to simple disagreement on cost/values. Let's take wealth inequality: I don't see the utility in the 0.X% population holding YY% of the wealth (instead of YY/2), and think it hurts the economy by stagnating monetary rotation on the market. My more conservative capitalist friend also doesn't see a particular added utility by it, but disagrees about it having the cost I describe, and distributing wealth that way would then be invasive. We won't get further than that barring a real world experiment, but whether it's healthcare, schooling, infrastructure, etc, it always after 5 minutes or 2 hours boils down to a disagreement on a premise, core values or simply something unprovable (reasonably). The problem I see publicly (social media etc) is people ignoring reality/facts/common sense in favor of tribalism. At that point there can be no discussion. I venture into r/neutralpolitics at times too, but I've never once read something fruitful there. It's either entirely noncommittal, or legitimizes both standpoints on an issue that shouldn't reasonably have two sides (whether that's liberal or conservative).

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

Science also needs lots of nuance though. I mean you can only post a headline on Twitter, e.g. "X out of Y people support Trump" - but you can't put the information there backing up that claim, e.g. what people, the research method, and all the nuances. I mean I'll believe those posts will have a link to the full text, but still - twitter is just the headlines.