A very big problem I see, even in "good" communities, is a pattern of well-intentioned people commonly mistaking popular opinions for facts. Of course this is inevitable to some degree when emotional beings are involved, but the part that I think is worrying is that more and more genuinely intelligent people are starting to become undisciplined and let their integrity with respect to the truth slide, because it feels good to stick it to someone who may be an asshole, or you know to hold other beliefs with which you disagree. This behavior isn't illogical either - as they say, perception is reality, and sometimes the ends
do justify the means. But in the big picture, the world would be a better place if there was
one social site emotion was
acceptable, but objective truth trumped
everything, and that belief was upheld by admins, who
themselves would have to be extremely aware of their own bias.
I will give a hopefully not too controversial example: tax policy.
I'd feel comfortable asserting (while standing in front of God at the entrance to the spirit world, so I must be honest) that well over 50% of people believe that is(!) the "best way" to run a society, for and . The reality though is, it is a matter of opinion, not of fact. And even if it was "objectively provable", that proof only holds under certain circumstances. The optimum policy varies based on the input parameters, which vary over time, but it also assumes we are all optimizing for the same thing!
Or in other words, the correct answer is very often: "it depends". You can see all sorts of people happily agreeing with this principle in their daily lives. How many people would get really, really angry if I said Vanilla is "the best ice cream flavor", or that "saving 25% of your net income is a wise strategy, if you can manage it". But wander into topics such as gender, sexuality, politics, etc and most of these very same people will become very emotional and illogical very, very fast.
If there was a site whose administrators were absolutely hardcore about not violating that principle (asserting that grey is white or black is not allowed, period, with penalty of a temporary or permanent ban), I think it could not only work, but if all the pieces fell together in the right way (with intelligent help and cooperation from admins/mods/users, and maybe even input from a broad spectrum of serious professional psychologists/sociologists/etc), it could change the world. I truly believe that.
EDIT: I'm kind of on the fence about whether this strict rule should be site-wide, or only in certain subforums, I could make an argument either way. I think it's fun to think about.
Also: I fully acknowledge I am one of the assholes I mention above. I'm an "asshole" because I actually believe ridiculously strongly about the importance of truth and logic (but also emotion), and that it matters more than almost anything. Literally millions of people die on a fairly regular basis because humanity can't get it's sh*t together on a handful of problems, most of which (but not all!) really aren't that complicated.