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0 pointsthr0wawayf003y ago0 comments

> At the same time, I have seen firsthand how ridiculous such internal discussions have become at Twitter, and they silently take away so much of my work time and put me on the path of depression

To be frank, this is Twitter in a nutshell to an outsider like me: a major personal time-waster that typically ends in anger and depression.

I guess it's not surprising that internal conversations for the platform that owns a significant share of the public discourse can't figure out how to discuss topics like this, but that sure makes me sad. Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all? If Twitter can't figure out how to do it, then who can?

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Syonyk3y ago

> Is it even possible to have effective conversations about these topics online at all?

Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Prioritizing longer form, in depth content, and discouraging "rapid reaction hot takes" helps a lot. The social media companies could optimize for this, and you see it on HN with the "Sorry, this particular thread is getting short, snippy, and too rapid, you can't reply to it for a while" mechanism.

But short, snippy, and angry is good for engagement. So it remains.

thr0wawayf00OP3y ago

This makes sense. Unfortunately, the cynic in me thinks that even if this is technically feasible (i.e. the software could be designed to facilitate healthier discourse), the reality is that the money would never allow it to happen as you rightly point out. So given that, is it actually possible? I don't think so.

tbrownaw3y ago

I have a ton of blogs in my rss feeds. Occasionally one will have a response to something a different one published a couple days or weeks previously, and sometimes they'll even go back and forth a few times.

Sometimes some of the ones with guest writers will host a similar kind of exchange all in one place.

Tomte3y ago

> Yes. Just not at scale, and not in a way that prioritizes ad revenue via "engagement" at all cost.

Only if there is some prior trust, if only by virtue of getting along for some time.

If you generally like the other person, and they come up with some incredibly stupid take you're more inclined to listen and ask for clarification than if the other person is unknown to you and says something that seems mildly wrong.

Political discussion is possible if there is a pre-existing and lasting relationship.

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