I’ve now mostly figured out the right balance for me to do this in real life. Where I struggle is with conversations online. I think one reason HN has such a high quality of conversations, compared with other forums, is most people here are motivated by finding the truth behind ideas. Twitter, for example, is at the opposite end. It feels like a firehose of conflicting motives coming at me at once. The only solution I’ve found there is to stay logged out most of the time.