In general, I think it’s much better to first attempt to have a community conflict internally before I have it externally. This doesn’t really apply to criminal behaviour or sexual abuse. I am centrally talking about disagreements, eg the Bostrom stuff, fallout around the FTX stuff, Nonlinear stuff, now this manifest stuff.
Why do I think this?
If I want to credibly signal I will listen and obey norms, it seems better to start with a small discourse escalation rather than a large one. Starting a community discussion on twitter is like jumping straight to a shooting war.
Many external locations (eg twitter, the press) have very skewed norms/incentives to the forum and so many parties can feel like they are the victim. I find when multiple parties feel they are weaker and victimised that is likely to cause escalation.
Many spaces have less affordance for editing comments, seeing who agrees with who, having a respected mutual party say “woah hold up there”
It is hard to say “I will abide by the community sentiment” if I have already started the discussion elsewhere in order to shame people. And if I don’t intend to abide by the community sentiment, why am I trying to manage a community conflict in the first place. I might as well just jump straight to shaming.
It is hard to say “I am open to changing my mind” if I have set up the conflict in a way that leads to shaming if the other person doesn’t change theirs. It’s like holding a gun to someone’s head and saying that this is just a friendly discussion.
I desire reconciliation. I have hurt people in this community and been hurt by them. In both case to the point of tears and sleepless night. But still I would prefer reconciliation and growth over a escalating conflict
Conflict is often negative sum, so lets try and have it be the least negative sum as possible.
Probably a good chunk of it is church norms, centred around 1 Corinthians 6[2]. I don’t really endorse this, but I think it’s good to be clear why I think thinks.
Personal examples:
Last year I didn’t like that Hanania was a main speaker at manifest (iirc) so I went to their discord and said so. I then made some votes. The median user agreed with me and so Hanania didn’t speak. I doubt you heard about this, because I did it on the manifold discord. I hardly tweeted about it or anything. This and the fact I said I wouldn’t created a safe space to have the discussion and I largely got what I wanted.
You might think this is a comment is directed at a specific person, but I bet you are wrong. I dislike this behaviour when it is done by at least 3 different parties that I can think of.
If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
I agree with the caveat that certain kinds of more reasonable discussion can’t happen on the forum because the forum is where people are fighting.
For instance, because of the controversy I’ve been thinking a lot recently about antiracism recently—like what would effective antiracism look like; what lessons can we take from civil rights and what do we have to contribute (cool ideas on how to leapfrog past or fix education gaps? discourse norms that can facilitate hard but productive discussions about racism? advocating for literal reparations?) I have deleted a shortform I was writing on this because I think ppl would not engage with it positively. and I suspect I am missing the point somehow. I suspect people actually just want to fight, and the point is to be angry.
On the meta level, I have been pretty frustrated (with both sides though not equally) on the manner in which some people are arguing, and the types of arguments they use, and the motivations they. I think in some ways it is better to complain about that off the forum. It’s worse for feedback, but that’s also a good thing because the cycle of righteous rage does not continue on the forum. And you get different perspectives
(i wonder if a crux here is that you have a lot of twitter followers and I don’t. If you tweet you are speaking to an audience; if I tweet I am speaking to weird internet friends)
So I sort of agree, though depending on the topic I think it could quickly get a lot of eyes on it. I would prefer to discuss most things that are controversial/personal, not on twitter.
Have your EA conflicts on… THE FORUM!
In general, I think it’s much better to first attempt to have a community conflict internally before I have it externally. This doesn’t really apply to criminal behaviour or sexual abuse. I am centrally talking about disagreements, eg the Bostrom stuff, fallout around the FTX stuff, Nonlinear stuff, now this manifest stuff.
Why do I think this?
If I want to credibly signal I will listen and obey norms, it seems better to start with a small discourse escalation rather than a large one. Starting a community discussion on twitter is like jumping straight to a shooting war.
Many external locations (eg twitter, the press) have very skewed norms/incentives to the forum and so many parties can feel like they are the victim. I find when multiple parties feel they are weaker and victimised that is likely to cause escalation.
Many spaces have less affordance for editing comments, seeing who agrees with who, having a respected mutual party say “woah hold up there”
It is hard to say “I will abide by the community sentiment” if I have already started the discussion elsewhere in order to shame people. And if I don’t intend to abide by the community sentiment, why am I trying to manage a community conflict in the first place. I might as well just jump straight to shaming.
It is hard to say “I am open to changing my mind” if I have set up the conflict in a way that leads to shaming if the other person doesn’t change theirs. It’s like holding a gun to someone’s head and saying that this is just a friendly discussion.
I desire reconciliation. I have hurt people in this community and been hurt by them. In both case to the point of tears and sleepless night. But still I would prefer reconciliation and growth over a escalating conflict
Conflict is often negative sum, so lets try and have it be the least negative sum as possible.
Probably a good chunk of it is church norms, centred around 1 Corinthians 6[2]. I don’t really endorse this, but I think it’s good to be clear why I think thinks.
Personal examples:
Last year I didn’t like that Hanania was a main speaker at manifest (iirc) so I went to their discord and said so. I then made some votes. The median user agreed with me and so Hanania didn’t speak. I doubt you heard about this, because I did it on the manifold discord. I hardly tweeted about it or anything. This and the fact I said I wouldn’t created a safe space to have the discussion and I largely got what I wanted.
You might think this is a comment is directed at a specific person, but I bet you are wrong. I dislike this behaviour when it is done by at least 3 different parties that I can think of.
If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!
7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
This is also a argument for the forum’s existence generally, if many of the arguments would otherwise be had on Twitter.
For sure when it comes to any internet based discussion, to promote quality discourse slowish long form >>>> rapid short form.
I agree with the caveat that certain kinds of more reasonable discussion can’t happen on the forum because the forum is where people are fighting.
For instance, because of the controversy I’ve been thinking a lot recently about antiracism recently—like what would effective antiracism look like; what lessons can we take from civil rights and what do we have to contribute (cool ideas on how to leapfrog past or fix education gaps? discourse norms that can facilitate hard but productive discussions about racism? advocating for literal reparations?) I have deleted a shortform I was writing on this because I think ppl would not engage with it positively. and I suspect I am missing the point somehow. I suspect people actually just want to fight, and the point is to be angry.
On the meta level, I have been pretty frustrated (with both sides though not equally) on the manner in which some people are arguing, and the types of arguments they use, and the motivations they. I think in some ways it is better to complain about that off the forum. It’s worse for feedback, but that’s also a good thing because the cycle of righteous rage does not continue on the forum. And you get different perspectives
(i wonder if a crux here is that you have a lot of twitter followers and I don’t. If you tweet you are speaking to an audience; if I tweet I am speaking to weird internet friends)
So I sort of agree, though depending on the topic I think it could quickly get a lot of eyes on it. I would prefer to discuss most things that are controversial/personal, not on twitter.