Ask HN: How do we stop the polarization/toxicicity filling the web?

"The problem". What problem are we talking about again here? Is the problem that people are believing wrong things, or the spread of polarization and toxicity?

I don't care if people believe "wrong things". How's that old song go? "All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest"? People will always believe whatever they want to, regardless of "evidence", regardless of history, regardless of persuasion. "Post-truth" society is such a ludicrous term. There was never a "truth society" to begin with. Never. If someone doesn't want to change their mind, you're tilting at windmills. Doubly so if this person is an anonymous account.

What I care about is stopping the spread of toxic and divisive stereotypes.

Look at the front page of Reddit. Every other post is a screenshot of an outrageous anonymous tweet, or a picture of a receipt with a nasty note on it, or a text message conversation. Look at how the public receives this: "Who cares if it's real or fake? The point is that it reinforces my stereotype of 'them'. We know 'they' exist, and we must do something about 'them'."

That's what's driving polarization and toxicity. The urge to respond with outrage to anonymous trolls. This is a problem we can fix by down voting and moving on.

The desire to compel others to conform to one’s ideal of correctness is the fundamental impulse of authoritarianism.

...but also libertarianism, for a particular aspect of correctness.

A strong immune system is the best defense. If it rolls off your back, is it really toxic?

(1) Normie-fication of internet. Regular people who aren't necessarily enthusiats have a tendency to want or expect the internet to mirror their daily life; they're not escaping into something better, they're just using internet as extension of their normal life.

(2) An obsession with the self. Everything on social platforms today is self-promotion. "Showing off," to put it simply. Naturally, when the bulk of your internet activity is focused on self-promotion rather than pursuing an intellectual interest, you are naturally exposed to criticism. Some of that criticism will be harsh or inconsiderate, but frankly, that is just to be expected and it's always been this way.

In terms of practical, "what can we do," there's only one thing I can think of: getting rid of identities. The identity-obsessed, self-promotional social platforms will always be doomed. There is no way to "make people be nice." There is only a means to control the extent to which identity is exposed.

I don't think that's true. The tone of American political news nowadays doesn't seem that different than British newspapers in the 1990s. "It's the Sun wot won it" was an explicit boast about The Sun's polarizing influence... in 1992.

Of course both The Sun and Fox News in the US are part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. But if anything this style of news seems like it arrived in the UK ten or twenty years before it was manifest in the US.