Something I’ve been doing just a bit lately which seems to be working surprisingly well so far: If I see a polarizing discussion on EA Facebook, and someone writes a comment in a way which seems needlessly combative/confrontational to me, I add them as a friend and private message them trying to persuade them to rewrite their comment.
My general model here is that private 1-on-1 communication is much higher bandwidth, less ego-driven, and more amenable to the resolution of misunderstandings etc. However it’s not nearly as scalable (in terms of the size of the audience reached) as a forum discussion is. But private 1-on-1 communication where you try to persuade someone to change their forum writing gets you the best of both worlds.
Another model is that combativeness tends to beget combativeness, so it’s high-leverage to try & change the tone of the conversation as early as possible.
Something I’ve been doing just a bit lately which seems to be working surprisingly well so far: If I see a polarizing discussion on EA Facebook, and someone writes a comment in a way which seems needlessly combative/confrontational to me, I add them as a friend and private message them trying to persuade them to rewrite their comment.
My general model here is that private 1-on-1 communication is much higher bandwidth, less ego-driven, and more amenable to the resolution of misunderstandings etc. However it’s not nearly as scalable (in terms of the size of the audience reached) as a forum discussion is. But private 1-on-1 communication where you try to persuade someone to change their forum writing gets you the best of both worlds.
Another model is that combativeness tends to beget combativeness, so it’s high-leverage to try & change the tone of the conversation as early as possible.
Here’s Raymond Arnold on this strategy:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LxrpCKQPbdpSsitBy/short-circuiting-demon-threads-working-example