9 ms·

It would be amazing if a council with diverse viewpoints could even sit together without killing each other in this day and age. Does this exist anywhere?

rootusrootus 4y ago
In the real world, sure. The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent. We need to stop letting the 1% of people who bother to post online drive our national dialog. We have put the crazies in charge of the asylum.
- jstummbillig 4y ago
  > In the real world, sure. Can you point at one? A council with "widely diverse viewpoints" that is actually an effective, tie-braking decision maker?
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    Supreme Court justices, despite their huge partisan differences and passionate disagreements on many individual cases, often talk about how they personally enjoy working with each other. My impression is that this is true of many Congressional committees as well, although it's less legible there because most congressmembers find it politically advantageous to talk about how mad they are at the other party.
    - UncleOxidant 4y ago
      There's a huge amount of history there, though. It didn't just get formed this week. It's got some members who have been on the court since the early 90s. Some since the late 90s and others in the aughts. The SCOTUS has long-lived institutional memory and norms of behavior. It's members also tend to become somewhat isolated from what's going on in the culture outside.
      - jjk166 4y ago
        Every institution was new at some point.
  - selwynii 4y ago
    Sure. The Oversight Board. Facebook did exactly this years ago. oversightboard.com/decisions
    - jstummbillig 4y ago
      Interesting! Glancing at the board, there is a clear makeup of highly educated, decorated, democratic, liberal-ish people. I would be hard pressed to call this setup one that focuses on "wildly diverse viewpoints".
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    Judge panels (like SCOTUS), county boards, city councils, school boards, non-profit boards and councils, corporate boards.
    - least 4y ago
      I actually don't think this is the case. Almost all of these in the US are largely bipartisan, not nonpartisan. In some cases they also tend to self select for people that favor certain viewpoints. NIMBYism is prevalent in local government, for example. They're optimized to serve the interests of the two prevailing parties in the US, which aren't the only two legitimate viewpoints.
      - 1123581321 4y ago
        I’ve had better experiences and I also find that issues that aren’t neatly D or R weigh more heavily on them in smaller or more local jurisdictions. I think there is a good case to be made for a similar dynamic on a social media’s board, where the mechanics of good moderation and guidance, combined with cordial operating principles, should be too front-and-center to ignore.
    - jstummbillig 4y ago
      I am not super familiar with US judicial bodies and what their mandate actually entails, but, in general, what judges do fundamentally revolves around interpreting laws and/or constitutions. Twitter does, of course, also have to comply with law. In regards to this council we are however specifically focusing on an area, that is not already decided by law. Coming up with a decision in a "wildly diverse group" without the need to argue along law (because that is not what your mandate asks for), is a very, very different setup. I feel the other examples are problematic for other reasons, i.e. "city councils": In the EU people get elected into these positions and no one mechanism will be placed for them to have "wildly different viewpoints". They get elected to get something done, which will then revolve around making compromises, or just not being involved in the process.
      - 1123581321 4y ago
- PaulsWallet 4y ago
  > The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent. The person who could arguably be considered the third most powerful politician in the US just had their own broken into and their spouse assaulted in a suspected act of domestic terrorism. I wouldn't say "imminent" but if you don't think the possibility is at least somewhere on the table I would consider that being naive.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    And you've got MAGA "prophets" out there "prophesying" about the "Angel of Death" visiting their political opponents before the end of 2022.
    - norwalkbear 4y ago
      Wtf, pls go on
      - UncleOxidant 4y ago
        https://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-rally-warns-lindsey-graham-top-dems-face-death-years-end-1754069 https://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-rally-warns-lindsey-graha...
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      And you have Bernie supporters shooting up GOP softball games, democrats setting fire to court houses, and radical groups running over Christmas parades attendees because they were white. Still not as bad or unstable as the 1960s.
      - jsterSC 4y ago
        You have GOP party members actively supporting a coup. And intend to do so again. Worse than the 1960s.
      - acdha 4y ago
        There’s a key difference: Darrell Brooks didn’t launch his attack for Democratic goals and no Democrat supports his actions. The protesters in Portland did not have the support of Democratic leaders and tended to criticize them almost as heavily they do Republicans. James Hodgkinson was definitely a leftist but his actions got immediate and complete rejection from Democratic leaders, including Bernie Sanders unequivocal condemnation. Contrast this with the way Republican politicians and media are hesitant to condemn the January 6th attack or cross Trump on almost any topic, and calls for political violence have been the subject of jokes and outright support from leaders & candidates for years. Those topics poll favorably with far too many Republicans to consider them fringe issues. That’s scary for anyone who believes in fair elections or the rule of law because, as we’ve seen, those people feel emboldened and are expanding. There are a large number of election deniers running for office this year and they’re all members of one party, with almost no internal pushback.
wslack 4y ago
Yes, and it's been written up. It doesn't have a moderating effect, at least on its own: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-526-voters-represent-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-... (It was covered by the Times but paid for by a non-partisan group, with researchers participating)
- saurik 4y ago
  The article you linked seems to show that it did, in fact, have a moderating effect? > NORC surveyed the group before the conference, and again on the same questions at the end; the results were compared with a similar panel of voters who did not get an intense dose of deliberative democracy in the interim. Voters at the event on both the left and the right appeared to edge toward the center. Democratic support receded for a $15 federal minimum wage and for “Medicare for all”; Republican support grew for rejoining the Paris climate agreement and for protecting from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children.
- dereg 4y ago
  526 people is not what I’d consider a “council”. That’s the size of a large high school graduating class.
h2odragon 4y ago
Surprisingly enough, the need for such things has been perceived and addressed before. A recent method that's widely used for organizing such things is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order
mjr00 4y ago
Yes, this is how social interaction in the real world, or even smaller online communities, has worked for ages. It's only on pseudonymous mega-sites like Twitter, Reddit and HN where jumping down people's throats for having an opposing viewpoint is even a thing.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Facebook seems to be the most politically divisive to me and it's not pseudonymous.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  the hypothesis that attaching real names to posts improves civility is over ten years out of date
  - mjr00 4y ago
    "With real names" is not the same as "in the real world." There is a massive difference between me seeing a stranger's real name next to a Facebook post about how abortion is evil, and me having a conversation with a good friend of 10 years, or my mom, and it comes up that they're pro-life. We might have a long debate, but in the end, they're still my friend or family.
- HelloMcFly 4y ago
  Boy oh boy, I should take you to some Board of Education meetings.
  - PragmaticPulp 4y ago
    These are actually fine in most places. You only see videos of the out of control ones because they're the weird ones. If you only view the world through the snippets that are noteworthy enough to make headlines or get a lot of votes on Reddit, you end up with a very skewed view of what the world is like.
    - 4y ago
pjkundert 4y ago
In the real world, sane people have diverse opinions and are civil all the time. It's the politicians and similar race-baiters who benefit from convincing citizens that they should hate eachother.
themagician 4y ago
Maybe that's part of the plan. They can livestream the council meetings on Twitter's new streaming service. That's their first show. Every season starts in the boardroom but ends on Twitter Island. It's a real life hybrid of The Hunger Games and Squid Game. The future of entertainment is a modern twist on old school gladiators. Elon Musk is our Augustus.
mikkergp 4y ago
Diverse is pretty vague, maybe it’s just Elon and not Elon.

rootusrootus 4y ago

In the real world, sure. The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent. We need to stop letting the 1% of people who bother to post online drive our national dialog. We have put the crazies in charge of the asylum.

jstummbillig 4y ago
> In the real world, sure. Can you point at one? A council with "widely diverse viewpoints" that is actually an effective, tie-braking decision maker?
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  Supreme Court justices, despite their huge partisan differences and passionate disagreements on many individual cases, often talk about how they personally enjoy working with each other. My impression is that this is true of many Congressional committees as well, although it's less legible there because most congressmembers find it politically advantageous to talk about how mad they are at the other party.
  - UncleOxidant 4y ago
    There's a huge amount of history there, though. It didn't just get formed this week. It's got some members who have been on the court since the early 90s. Some since the late 90s and others in the aughts. The SCOTUS has long-lived institutional memory and norms of behavior. It's members also tend to become somewhat isolated from what's going on in the culture outside.
    - jjk166 4y ago
      Every institution was new at some point.
- selwynii 4y ago
  Sure. The Oversight Board. Facebook did exactly this years ago. oversightboard.com/decisions
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    Interesting! Glancing at the board, there is a clear makeup of highly educated, decorated, democratic, liberal-ish people. I would be hard pressed to call this setup one that focuses on "wildly diverse viewpoints".
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Judge panels (like SCOTUS), county boards, city councils, school boards, non-profit boards and councils, corporate boards.
  - least 4y ago
    I actually don't think this is the case. Almost all of these in the US are largely bipartisan, not nonpartisan. In some cases they also tend to self select for people that favor certain viewpoints. NIMBYism is prevalent in local government, for example. They're optimized to serve the interests of the two prevailing parties in the US, which aren't the only two legitimate viewpoints.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
      I’ve had better experiences and I also find that issues that aren’t neatly D or R weigh more heavily on them in smaller or more local jurisdictions. I think there is a good case to be made for a similar dynamic on a social media’s board, where the mechanics of good moderation and guidance, combined with cordial operating principles, should be too front-and-center to ignore.
  - jstummbillig 4y ago
    I am not super familiar with US judicial bodies and what their mandate actually entails, but, in general, what judges do fundamentally revolves around interpreting laws and/or constitutions. Twitter does, of course, also have to comply with law. In regards to this council we are however specifically focusing on an area, that is not already decided by law. Coming up with a decision in a "wildly diverse group" without the need to argue along law (because that is not what your mandate asks for), is a very, very different setup. I feel the other examples are problematic for other reasons, i.e. "city councils": In the EU people get elected into these positions and no one mechanism will be placed for them to have "wildly different viewpoints". They get elected to get something done, which will then revolve around making compromises, or just not being involved in the process.
    - 1123581321 4y ago
PaulsWallet 4y ago
> The Internet would have us believe that civil war is imminent. The person who could arguably be considered the third most powerful politician in the US just had their own broken into and their spouse assaulted in a suspected act of domestic terrorism. I wouldn't say "imminent" but if you don't think the possibility is at least somewhere on the table I would consider that being naive.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  And you've got MAGA "prophets" out there "prophesying" about the "Angel of Death" visiting their political opponents before the end of 2022.
  - norwalkbear 4y ago
    Wtf, pls go on
    - UncleOxidant 4y ago
      https://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-rally-warns-lindsey-graham-top-dems-face-death-years-end-1754069 https://www.newsweek.com/pro-trump-rally-warns-lindsey-graha...
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    And you have Bernie supporters shooting up GOP softball games, democrats setting fire to court houses, and radical groups running over Christmas parades attendees because they were white. Still not as bad or unstable as the 1960s.
    - jsterSC 4y ago
      You have GOP party members actively supporting a coup. And intend to do so again. Worse than the 1960s.
    - acdha 4y ago
      There’s a key difference: Darrell Brooks didn’t launch his attack for Democratic goals and no Democrat supports his actions. The protesters in Portland did not have the support of Democratic leaders and tended to criticize them almost as heavily they do Republicans. James Hodgkinson was definitely a leftist but his actions got immediate and complete rejection from Democratic leaders, including Bernie Sanders unequivocal condemnation. Contrast this with the way Republican politicians and media are hesitant to condemn the January 6th attack or cross Trump on almost any topic, and calls for political violence have been the subject of jokes and outright support from leaders & candidates for years. Those topics poll favorably with far too many Republicans to consider them fringe issues. That’s scary for anyone who believes in fair elections or the rule of law because, as we’ve seen, those people feel emboldened and are expanding. There are a large number of election deniers running for office this year and they’re all members of one party, with almost no internal pushback.

wslack 4y ago

Yes, and it's been written up. It doesn't have a moderating effect, at least on its own: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-526-voters-represent-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/02/upshot/these-... (It was covered by the Times but paid for by a non-partisan group, with researchers participating)

saurik 4y ago
The article you linked seems to show that it did, in fact, have a moderating effect? > NORC surveyed the group before the conference, and again on the same questions at the end; the results were compared with a similar panel of voters who did not get an intense dose of deliberative democracy in the interim. Voters at the event on both the left and the right appeared to edge toward the center. Democratic support receded for a $15 federal minimum wage and for “Medicare for all”; Republican support grew for rejoining the Paris climate agreement and for protecting from deportation immigrants brought to the United States as children.
dereg 4y ago
526 people is not what I’d consider a “council”. That’s the size of a large high school graduating class.

h2odragon 4y ago

Surprisingly enough, the need for such things has been perceived and addressed before. A recent method that's widely used for organizing such things is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert%27s_Rules_of_Order

mjr00 4y ago

Yes, this is how social interaction in the real world, or even smaller online communities, has worked for ages. It's only on pseudonymous mega-sites like Twitter, Reddit and HN where jumping down people's throats for having an opposing viewpoint is even a thing.

colinmhayes 4y ago
Facebook seems to be the most politically divisive to me and it's not pseudonymous.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
the hypothesis that attaching real names to posts improves civility is over ten years out of date
- mjr00 4y ago
  "With real names" is not the same as "in the real world." There is a massive difference between me seeing a stranger's real name next to a Facebook post about how abortion is evil, and me having a conversation with a good friend of 10 years, or my mom, and it comes up that they're pro-life. We might have a long debate, but in the end, they're still my friend or family.
HelloMcFly 4y ago
Boy oh boy, I should take you to some Board of Education meetings.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  These are actually fine in most places. You only see videos of the out of control ones because they're the weird ones. If you only view the world through the snippets that are noteworthy enough to make headlines or get a lot of votes on Reddit, you end up with a very skewed view of what the world is like.
  - 4y ago

pjkundert 4y ago

In the real world, sane people have diverse opinions and are civil all the time. It's the politicians and similar race-baiters who benefit from convincing citizens that they should hate eachother.

themagician 4y ago

Maybe that's part of the plan. They can livestream the council meetings on Twitter's new streaming service. That's their first show. Every season starts in the boardroom but ends on Twitter Island. It's a real life hybrid of The Hunger Games and Squid Game. The future of entertainment is a modern twist on old school gladiators. Elon Musk is our Augustus.

mikkergp 4y ago

Diverse is pretty vague, maybe it’s just Elon and not Elon.