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Even without the Algorithm, Twitter would be awful. Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours?

Even without the Algorithm, Twitter would be awful. Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours? Never, because such a thing simply requires more than 280 characters, and multiple cited sources. 280 chars with a single source is enough for a "look how bad my enemies are" hot take, however. It's a shame, because getting off social media fully is hard now - so much actual research and professional interaction requires it as well. But eurgh.

cypress66 3y ago
Maybe don't use Twitter for politics? I use Twitter to follow many AI researchers and it's great to keep up with the latest papers and so on. Also Twitter supports long tweets now, and people have always created threads anyway.
- iamflimflam1 3y ago
  Exactly this. About a year ago I purged all the political accounts I was following. All it was doing was making me feel angry and helpless. Now I just follow fellow makers and tech people. Twitter is fun again.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Having used Twitter threads and a Mastodon instance with a limit of 8000 characters, I have to say that the latter actually makes me less verbose. Due to the per-message character limit and the widespread use of quote-retweeting I felt like I had to make sure every tweet was defensible in isolation so tweet threads just turn into the most mundane one-liners so there's still enough room in each to provide context. Twitter's threading UI also only supports standalone tweet threads and does nothing to help with composing multi-tweet replies so those often go out of order eventually and people will reply to individual tweets rather than the end of each sub-thread.
lapcat 3y ago
> Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours? Why would you want to use a social network for this purpose? If you want an intelligent argument that opposes yours, then read a book. This is a serious suggestion, not sarcasm: books are wonderful!
engineer_22 3y ago
-> Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours? Never, Strange premise. As a Christian I don't head to mosque or synagogue. Similarly, I don't use Twitter in that way
archagon 3y ago
I get the sense it’s not really possible to win an argument on public social media. Even if the other person has no rebuttal, they’ll at best slink away and someone else will just take their place. Ad infinitum.

cypress66 3y ago

Maybe don't use Twitter for politics? I use Twitter to follow many AI researchers and it's great to keep up with the latest papers and so on. Also Twitter supports long tweets now, and people have always created threads anyway.

iamflimflam1 3y ago
Exactly this. About a year ago I purged all the political accounts I was following. All it was doing was making me feel angry and helpless. Now I just follow fellow makers and tech people. Twitter is fun again.
hnbad 3y ago
Having used Twitter threads and a Mastodon instance with a limit of 8000 characters, I have to say that the latter actually makes me less verbose. Due to the per-message character limit and the widespread use of quote-retweeting I felt like I had to make sure every tweet was defensible in isolation so tweet threads just turn into the most mundane one-liners so there's still enough room in each to provide context. Twitter's threading UI also only supports standalone tweet threads and does nothing to help with composing multi-tweet replies so those often go out of order eventually and people will reply to individual tweets rather than the end of each sub-thread.

lapcat 3y ago

> Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours? Why would you want to use a social network for this purpose? If you want an intelligent argument that opposes yours, then read a book. This is a serious suggestion, not sarcasm: books are wonderful!

engineer_22 3y ago

-> Quite simply: when was the last time you went in Twitter to see an intelligent argument that opposes yours? Never, Strange premise. As a Christian I don't head to mosque or synagogue. Similarly, I don't use Twitter in that way

archagon 3y ago

I get the sense it’s not really possible to win an argument on public social media. Even if the other person has no rebuttal, they’ll at best slink away and someone else will just take their place. Ad infinitum.