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My guide to using twitter: 1. Follow people with high signal to noise ratio. These are people whose full time job is creation, and no marketing. Eg. Scientists

My guide to using twitter: 1. Follow people with high signal to noise ratio. These are people whose full time job is creation, and no marketing. Eg. Scientists and engineers and certain types of artists. Politicians not so much. 2. Use the mute feature liberally. Go into settings and mute the name of every major politician in your country, or politicians that are popular world over. On every part of the political landscape. Go to their accounts and block them too. Politics is a mind-killer. 3. Some people tweet good stuff, but retweet crap. You can go to their page and mute their retweets. 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. 5. Create lists of people for stuff you are interested in, but don't want to pollute your main timeline with. There you can tolerate a bit lower SNR.

pjc50 6y ago
> 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. > 2. Use the mute feature liberally No point in following them if I've muted everything they say. Seriously, there are very few people remaining I've seen on the right who are prepared to make arguments that aren't immediately infuriating, based on something clearly wrong, or in support of people and policies who are harmful to my friends.
iamwpj 6y ago
Echo chambers develop when you are only reading things you already know, not things you agree with. It's about learning new things vs. keeping your worldview narrow. Like if you have an opinion on climate change, reading arguments from deniers doesn't expand your worldview. Reading about how climate change affects different social classes can expand your worldview -- and all be from people you already agree with.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  That's not what I mean. Climate-change denial is a very specific issue, and empirical in nature. When I say ideological difference, I mean people who have different fundamental values. Say socialism vs capitalism. People from both those camps can disagree with each other, but still respect the arguments others make and learn from those arguments. Obviously, when I say arguments I mean academia level arguments, not party-rally-slogan level arguments.

pjc50 6y ago

> 4. Follow people you disagree with ideologically. Don't get trapped in echo-chambers. > 2. Use the mute feature liberally No point in following them if I've muted everything they say. Seriously, there are very few people remaining I've seen on the right who are prepared to make arguments that aren't immediately infuriating, based on something clearly wrong, or in support of people and policies who are harmful to my friends.

iamwpj 6y ago

Echo chambers develop when you are only reading things you already know, not things you agree with. It's about learning new things vs. keeping your worldview narrow. Like if you have an opinion on climate change, reading arguments from deniers doesn't expand your worldview. Reading about how climate change affects different social classes can expand your worldview -- and all be from people you already agree with.

abdullahkhalids 6y ago
That's not what I mean. Climate-change denial is a very specific issue, and empirical in nature. When I say ideological difference, I mean people who have different fundamental values. Say socialism vs capitalism. People from both those camps can disagree with each other, but still respect the arguments others make and learn from those arguments. Obviously, when I say arguments I mean academia level arguments, not party-rally-slogan level arguments.