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Comment by night815 | Hacker News Reader

Civilized discussion on hard topics -- There seems to be a large amount of shouting matches going on right now. We need to be able to discuss things in a calm and respectful manner even when we strongly disagree with the other side. There are a lot of buzz words that get thrown out that to me have lost meaning (racist, sexist, etc.). These words do have meaning and there are absolutely people doing these things that need to stop. However, lets stop name calling and start sharing our stories with the intend to do just that, share. When the only goal is to get everyone to believe what you believe, it likely won't be a productive conversation.

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Agreed. Though I will also say, how to achieve this is exactly what is taught in Crucial Conversations.

Crucial conversations are moments when (1) opinions vary, (2) stakes are high, and (3) emotions run strong. How to have them, how to recognize when stakes start ramping up and people go into fight-or-flight, how to shift out of that, are all covered.

It starts with oneself and then the important relationships in our lives. Most of us have difficulty with crucial conversations with people we care about and our close relations. If we cannot even share meaning with people close to us, then we have no hope of sharing meaning with strangers.

This is what I have been working on myself. It has been challenging. And though I have not fully mastered it, I see a lot of results and relief.

Yes, these discussions need to start happening on a personal, 1-on-1 level. Having these conversations on twitter or on some tv/radio talk show is too intense.

What would be interesting is reading a discussion by two thought leaders that could happen over email (read: slow medium of communication) and edited to bring out the best of each side. Heat of the moment discussions don't help anyone.

Going to take a look at Crucial Conversations. Thanks!

This, but I also think we can't just do this in a pure "freedom of speech" way. In order to have a space where we can talk about things calmly and respectfully we will need to shut-out "bad faith" actors, supremacists and ideologues. Otherwise they will pervert the dialogue in order to win some political battle and we risk the wrong outcomes.

We have to come at this very directly from the perspective of the outcomes we wish to achieve and those that we wish to avoid ("consequentialism") rather than through some mindless repetition of an ideal that we believe to be sacred ("free-speech is so important"). Free-speech might be important but maintaining peace and achieving good outcomes for all involved should probably be held in higher regard [0] than some abstract principle, particularly when that abstract principle is a shibboleth of the people on one side of an issue but not the other.

[0] I'm talking about people that want to argue about racism and sexism while incidentally subjecting those they're arguing with to the most extreme and potentially toxic people in their group in the name of 'free speech'.

Is that not just saying discount everyone who doesn't agree with what WE want to talk about, and then lets talk about it?

No, what I'm saying is that you can't have a discussion between two groups of people and then through the back-door one side tries to get the other to subconsciously accept their principle of 'absolute free-speech'. You both have to be capable of determining whether a belief is sacred or a shibboleth to you and be able to meet half-way.

If you don't do this, you'll be starting on the wrong foot.

Also, in order to have a moderate discussion with less shouting, it's not a good idea to have it be a free-for-all where anybody can speak. You need people that are willing to negotiate their beliefs with each other.

No. Not everyone contributes to the discussion. Some people have malicious intent. Others are just ignorant. You cannot deal in absolutes. I work in the sciences. If we were to consider every crackpot's solution to the hardest problems in math/physics, we would waste our lives in folly and never get anything done.

Going by what I am learning in Crucial Conversations: safety is achieved when you know the other person genuinely cares for you. In that space, people can talk about anything, no matter how controversial or intense.

This space is not an external space nor is it acheived through policy or code of conduct. This space is an internal space that is created when two or more people genuinely cares about each other despite having differences in opinion.

It follows that, the best way to create safe spaces is to first practice this with people you already have a relationship with, particularly those you have severe disagreements with.

I genuinely agree with this notion, almost holistically, and I feel comfortable asserting that if we unreservedly followed this line of thinking the world would be a better place. However, in the intent to further improve on the notion, while I do believe it is important to have to make difficult choices about "who" gets to have a voice in order to achieve more civilized discussion, I don't think that "shutting-out" should be limited to the "bad faith actors" or the extremist ideologues. I think a stronger adherence to a sense of dialectics could benefit by further reducing the voices allowed. There are plenty of soft, gentle and respectful "voices" that detract from getting to the core of important discussions by bringing forward very irrelevant, tangential or otherwise "missing the point" (factually incorrect) ideas. Just because they presented their opinion respectfully, does not mean it needs to be "allowed" into the debate. This becomes especially problematic or can have a serious negative impact when it comes from an exogenous source with a disproportionate amount of credibility. In short I believe some aspect of the "scientific method" for wont of a better expression deserves a role in "regulating" the process of public debate.

Would up vote this a thousand times if I could. Most of the other problems listed in other threads would be easier to solve if we could just have the tough conversations and find better ways to meet in the middle.

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