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Comment by prox | Hacker News Reader

One of the problems with upvote/downvote is that it is binary, while topics of discussion in the social rarely aren’t. In the social space of forming opinions, many things happen in a grey spectrum, and need not be polarized all the time (upvote / downvote)

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Simple up/down voting is probably a relic of the simple concepts and simplified programming needed for early development of social media (web 1.0).

An overhaul of these networks to adapt more to human-like discourse is much-needed and welcome imo.

Kialo for example has a more complex voting system that works better.

Yes, I absolutely agree, I hope to see more resources and work done in that area.

Sam Harris once proposed a “this changed my mind” button as a way to encourage discourse.

Having multiple different reaction buttons would legit be nice:

I agree

I disagree

Thoughtful

Contentless

I learned something

I changed my mind

This way we could eg. express that we disagree with the post, which was thoughtful and a good effort, and didn't change our minds but still learned something.

One huge poison in a lot of modern discourse is that accepting your interlocutor has a point should mean you start to agree with them. Why? Some of the best things I've ever read in my life didn't change my overall stance on a subject, but gave it a lot of new nuance and depth, and appreciation for the person talking.

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