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Where is "polite public discourse between ideological opposites" happening in practice, though? If it's not happening on a particular platform, then preventing
by sfink 6y ago
Where is "polite public discourse between ideological opposites" happening in practice, though?
If it's not happening on a particular platform, then preventing the possibility of it happening isn't going to outweigh even modest benefits.
The need for productive conversation between people of differing opinions will still exist and it is still critically important that it be solved, but if you're looking for diamonds, don't start digging in a dung heap.
- strken 6y agoIt's happening all the time all over every social media platform, concurrently with the harassment, and largely ignored. Check out any controversial twitter post and you'll see genuine replies as well as bullshit. The perception of the general public's social media output as a dungheap is tantamount to saying their posts are worthless and irredeemable, and that social media only has use as a broadcast platform for famous people. I think it's less like a dungheap and more like a big pile of every student paper from the entire world: mostly useless, but even some of the useless ones are genuine and took a lot of effort, and scattered throughout the pile there's some original and useful content. There's a baby in with the bathwater, is what I'm saying here.