4 ms·

I don't think shutting down discourse is a positive thing.

• Smaug123 6y ago
  This is the problem, though. That discourse is not productive, when held here - witness the dumpster fire of downvotes all over the place. If the topic needs discussion, it needs long and nuanced discussion where each party is trying hard to understand the other - not rapid-fire three-line comments on a news site.
  • zozbot234 6y ago
    Do you know of any other place for this discussion that would be better-suited to nuance and genuine intellectual curiosity ("each party ... trying hard to understand the other")? Downvites are quite common here, in any discussion.
    • Smaug123 6y ago
      This is kind of why people are meant to have blogs. A network of blogs where people can maintain historical records of their thinking, for example. Scott Alexander is a great example of this: every so often we get a "contra PERSON on SUBJECT", a long well-thought-out discussion with nuance and a good-faith attempt to understand the argument under criticism. And people reply with their own long-form blogs in a similar vein.