Comment by dangom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dangom | Hacker News Reader

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> Refuting bad ideas often takes longer than 240 characters.

Not necessarily true.

> Showing bad ideas to be bad is very important in civil discourse, not being able to point out bad ideas by "retweeting" them with commentary will likely make this social network an echo chamber devoid of intellectual curiosity

Theoretically yes, but the problem with Twitter is not "properly" refuting ideas, because there is no such thing as absolute truth when it comes to human interactions. People will tend to believe whatever they want, independent of facts. Furthermore, people may interpret the same fact in completely diverging ways, depending on their prior conceptions.

Not allowing awfulness to spread could be more efficient than helplessly trying to refute it.

> Not allowing awfulness to spread could be more efficient than helplessly trying to refute it.

Didn't you just basically say that what is "awful" is subjective? You're basically saying "maybe echo chambers are better".

I generally agree with "people will tend to believe whatever they want", but many people do change their minds, especially as they age. Pushing people into the underground just makes them more extreme.

Also, don't underestimate the power of public mockery. What makes Nazism most unattractive isn't the fact that it's abhorrent from some moral perspective (that not everybody shares), it's the fact that most actual Nazis are total losers by every measure.

> Didn't you just basically say that what is "awful" is subjective? You're basically saying "maybe echo chambers are better".

Yes, I did. Instead of retweeting, you let the awfulness die out instead of getting more attention, i.e., don't let opinions escalate. Awfulness here doesn't have to be what I consider to be awful. And I don't see what this has to do with "maybe echo chambers are better".

Now, I don't know whether that would be more efficient or not - it could, right?. Neither of us know, so perhaps the Mastodon experiment may teach us something.

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