>I would say the problem with echo chambers is that only one viewpoint is ever expressed at all. Everyone has biases; it's impossible to have a forum free from

>I would say the problem with echo chambers is that only one viewpoint is ever expressed at all. Everyone has biases; it's impossible to have a forum free from bias. But if people can express different viewpoints, each with their own different biases, at least people get to hear different viewpoints and different biases from their own. I agree. >There is a stronger condition one could make, that to not be an echo chamber, discussions in the forum actually have to change some people's minds during the discussion, at least some of the time. That's an interesting take on. I don't necessarily disagree, but perhaps there's a spectrum. Obviously echo chambers are typically considered to be political. However they clearly also exist along non-political lines. Dare touch the Transexual subject for example. >By that criterion, it's true that I can think of very few online discussions I've ever seen that weren't echo chambers. This is a newer thing. I certainly remember back in the day you could discuss issues even if they sometimes become flamewars that needed extinguishing. The ability to push out opposing viewpoints is rather new. >I think that criterion is too strong because it's very hard for people to change their minds at short notice, so I normally don't expect to change people's minds during a particular conversation. If something I post plants a seed in someone's mind that only bears fruit much later, I would still count that as a win--but of course I'll probably never know if that happens, so there's no real way of gathering evidence on such an effect, if it exists. I guess it also comes back down to 'community' vs echo chamber vs groups vs audience vs etc. Community is something a little more special than the others. Whereas echo chambers are a worse than others. >I've run this experiment many times on HN. The results have been mixed. I've had some posts downvoted to oblivion and I've had some actual discussions. I will concede that I don't think any of those discussions have changed anyone's mind. However, I don't think things are any worse in that respect now than in the past; it's always been hard for we humans to change our minds. When I say things are worse today than say 10 years ago. I'm not necessarily focusing on HN. Moreover, echo chambers have existed for a long time. I've been on forums where the moderators had public lynchings in order to vote on banning anyone who disagreed with their viewpoints. Mind you, my personal viewpoint was largely speaking in line with that hivemind so it wasn't a big deal. Until they came for me. In my case it was police brutality issue, I was on the wrong side. There is a very interesting take on it. There's a friendship mecca system. As you get older your friends will want to have some grand meeting each year. At these meetings you almost always sacrifice someone to the altar of the fellowship. The now smaller group will be renewed to be better friends. Perhaps that has some factor in it. That echo chambers are just trying to push other viewpoints out in order to strengthen their friendship with the others. Perhaps echo chambers are mandatory to exist.