Is this kind of submission really a good idea? I have real concern that polling like this only succeeds at falsely distorting and amplifying the small[0] diffe

Is this kind of submission really a good idea? I have real concern that polling like this only succeeds at falsely distorting and amplifying the small[0] differences between people within a community. It draws battle lines and suggests that people ought to take a position now and sort themselves into buckets. It does not ask us to think beyond a straight line from yes to no, black or white, right or wrong. It does not encourage us to remember our innumerable other shared interests and values. An observer glancing at any of the submissions about Parler’s fate in the last week will clearly see that opinion is divided. Quantifying that division, as this poll does, might satisfy some curiosity for hard numbers, but what is the cost to our sense of belonging to a community to do so? What is the cost to our ability to put our differences aside in pursuit of larger goals? The question of what to do about the influence of social media and conglomeration of power among big tech companies is clearly a defining one for our age, but I don’t know how we’re going to get closer to a thoughtful answer with polls like these which—intentionally or not—seem to me almost purpose-built to drive ideological wedges between people and nudge them toward taking hard-line positions. In a time where the lack of nuance itself is driving so many negative outcomes, this feels dangerous. [0] I don’t mean that this is somehow a minor or unimportant issue, but rather that people on HN are more similar, even in disagreement, than two random people on the street.