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This is a great post, expressing thoughts that have been brewing in my mind much better than I could. I couldn't agree more with the fundamental thesis that 280

This is a great post, expressing thoughts that have been brewing in my mind much better than I could. I couldn't agree more with the fundamental thesis that 280 characters cannot lead to meaningful discourse as your exposure to different communities grows. In their own words, > To run a high-follower account on twitter is to be constantly exposed to entire communities whose members will treat you as an enemy to be defeated or a buffoon to be humiliated the minute they become aware of you. To me, though, this post begs the question: if having a large number of followers is so toxic, why do it? This post clearly misses the tight-knit blog communities of yesterday, yet they still insist on maintaining a public, high-follower profile. If you are writing something worth reading, and only (mostly) care to interact with people who also write things worth reading, it doesn't seem prudent to open yourself up to the Internet at large. Private profiles can't be retweeted, and you get to moderate your reader list. Obviously, you reach a smaller audience, but if you are interested in "open and honest exchanges," finding people that are "intellectually interested," and getting away from the "bare-knuckle brawl," then isn't that a far, far better way to reach that goal? > Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.

spectaclepiece 6y ago
I was going to cite that exact first quote because it reflects my recent experience on Twitter. Yesterday I deactivated my account. Did I have a large following? I think I had 1 follower, I used it to follow mostly artists and programmers. So why did I deactivate my account? A couple of weeks ago I started following the debate around free speech because classical liberal values are close to my heart and it was like walking in on a car crash happening in slow motion. I just couldn’t take my eyes of it. In an attempt to regain my sanity and creative thinking I’m going back to reading books and having private conversations with people, preferably in-person. Edit: HN discussions it should be mentioned are still a bastion of thoughtful conversation which I would like to maintain. In respect to that please don’t make this thread political, my reference to liberal values was only to give an example of a topic largely infected with a negative discussion climate. Original article was more about the dynamics of conversation, not the topics themselves.
- mackrevinack 6y ago
  not that it's much use to you now, but you don't need a twitter account to keep up with someone... just use something like nitter that will let you add them to your rss reader
coffeefirst 6y ago
> why do it? A lot of writers and the like that I used to follow reached this conclusion and quit. But a few who aren’t as well established have told me they feel like they can’t, that it’s impossible to be a journalist or author in modern times without is. Is that true? I can’t say, but it’s unfortunate either way.

spectaclepiece 6y ago

I was going to cite that exact first quote because it reflects my recent experience on Twitter. Yesterday I deactivated my account. Did I have a large following? I think I had 1 follower, I used it to follow mostly artists and programmers. So why did I deactivate my account? A couple of weeks ago I started following the debate around free speech because classical liberal values are close to my heart and it was like walking in on a car crash happening in slow motion. I just couldn’t take my eyes of it. In an attempt to regain my sanity and creative thinking I’m going back to reading books and having private conversations with people, preferably in-person. Edit: HN discussions it should be mentioned are still a bastion of thoughtful conversation which I would like to maintain. In respect to that please don’t make this thread political, my reference to liberal values was only to give an example of a topic largely infected with a negative discussion climate. Original article was more about the dynamics of conversation, not the topics themselves.

mackrevinack 6y ago
not that it's much use to you now, but you don't need a twitter account to keep up with someone... just use something like nitter that will let you add them to your rss reader

coffeefirst 6y ago

> why do it? A lot of writers and the like that I used to follow reached this conclusion and quit. But a few who aren’t as well established have told me they feel like they can’t, that it’s impossible to be a journalist or author in modern times without is. Is that true? I can’t say, but it’s unfortunate either way.