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You admit your comment is non-responsive to my point, which is that dang ideologically censors posts. Do you believe a non-sequitur ad hominem was a constructi

You admit your comment is non-responsive to my point, which is that dang ideologically censors posts. Do you believe a non-sequitur ad hominem was a constructive comment? I’d prefer not to learn that style of social skill. Your comment is also factually wrong: the reason that censorship for civility developed as a strategy is that it’s maximally effective suppressing ideological conversion for the amount of speech it suppresses. Your comment then becomes nothing more than “working under adverse conditions teaches resiliency”, which is true — but not a reason to stop questioning the censorship policy. People do not rationally switch positions — they switch positions during an emotional cascade after a sufficient number of rational reasons have accumulated. That “avalanche” where an emotional spark triggers the awareness of a substantial shift in your beliefs. These criticality events necessarily require an emotional trigger such a failing to be able to substantively reply to provocatively phrased arguments or the inability to factually correct mocking humor. Civility suppresses precisely that: the emotional barbs in arguments and the mockery which might provoke a person to change their stance, in a substantive manner. Rationality alone is all powder, no spark.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago
I'm assuming that we all want roughly the same thing: we each want to believe all true facts, disbelieve all false facts, and hopefully help others achieve that as well. I think your point about cascades is interesting, and it seems to jive with my experience. And I can see how censoring for civility would, as a result, be an impediment to changing minds. I also believe @dang's point that not stifling incivility leads to unproductive flame wars. Which, I'm guessing, also results in conversations that fail to change minds. So where does that leave us regarding HN discussions? Can you think of an approach that addresses both your and @dang's points? Are we stuck with having HN admins try to find the optimal censorship policy that somehow balances the issues you and @dang have raised? Please also consider the possibility that you may have a greater appetite for (hopefully productive) acrimony than the majority of HN's target community. In terms of your theory of changing minds, the HN owners may wish for this site to be where people can discuss the logical / empirical aspects of issue in a calm and pleasant manner, and leave the mind-chaning, emotional stages of the discussions for other forums.

DoofusOfDeath 7y ago

I'm assuming that we all want roughly the same thing: we each want to believe all true facts, disbelieve all false facts, and hopefully help others achieve that as well. I think your point about cascades is interesting, and it seems to jive with my experience. And I can see how censoring for civility would, as a result, be an impediment to changing minds. I also believe @dang's point that not stifling incivility leads to unproductive flame wars. Which, I'm guessing, also results in conversations that fail to change minds. So where does that leave us regarding HN discussions? Can you think of an approach that addresses both your and @dang's points? Are we stuck with having HN admins try to find the optimal censorship policy that somehow balances the issues you and @dang have raised? Please also consider the possibility that you may have a greater appetite for (hopefully productive) acrimony than the majority of HN's target community. In terms of your theory of changing minds, the HN owners may wish for this site to be where people can discuss the logical / empirical aspects of issue in a calm and pleasant manner, and leave the mind-chaning, emotional stages of the discussions for other forums.