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Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

mest.io

141–150 of 234 posts

Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with these statements. Debate has become an offensive action many will go to great lengths to avoid.

I don't avoid "debate" because I fear disagreement or attacks. I avoid "debate" because so often when I enter one, the person engaging with me immediately employs ad hominem attacks or strawmen or appeals to emotions or any number of other unconstructive argumentation techniques. I am tired of engaging people who cannot argue using logic or rationality. I avoid it because it will be tedius and draining and there is n…

I know what you mean. Talking to people about things like, say, government surveillance. I have strong opinions on that. Nothing that this crowd wouldn't agree on mostly, but I'm the only IT guy in my life and generally encounter infuriatingly simple minded positions with this topic. Nothing to hide, nothing wrong with ogling your data.

I tried to explain. Edward Snowden said to ask people to give you their phones unlocked for half an hour. I extend the metaphors, I give concrete examples, but emotional bias trumps anything I bring up. I get angry, nobody wins anything.

Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

#146
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think modern transportation and communication have contributed to our increasingly divided society... by extending our interactions over larger areas, those tools allow us to naively fall into our own physical "filter bubbles". Modern transportation contributed towards physical obesity. Technology became so efficient and so cheap that we became isolated from physical reality... we have to work out in order to stay…

While I'm not disagreeing, the historical record suggests that there's nothing new about an increasingly divided society. Or vociferous exchanges of view for that matter. We are not, and have never been, a tame species.

True, as a species we all but glorify conflicts... but I think democracy does require some degree of social cohesion. I see a lot of danger if our continent-spanning superpower starts to crumble due to internal divisions, especially considering we don't have a clear path to secession.

Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A two party system is a large part of this problem. One group validates itself by demonizing the only other player in town. It's toxic and it energizes the most self-serving of us.

The two-party system is a direct consequence of the winner-takes-all, first-past-the-post voting system. If you want more than 2 polarizing parties to emerge, you have to use an alternative voting system which allows ranking, such as IRV, and thus encourages third parties instead of disincentivizing them (due to spoiler effect).

Thank you for mentioning Instant Runoff Voting. I've been trying to get anyone IRL to have any interest in it at all. Even the third party nerds weren't interested even though it'd benefit them.

Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

#149

Hi everyone, Recently, given the results of the election and the divisiveness that's been revealed because of it, it seems like the country isn't talking to one another anymore. We're afraid of one another and the polices the other political party will put in place. A lot of this, I think, has to deal with the lack of communication between actual human beings that lie on both sides of the isle. I made this app, Mest,…

This is stupid. One side is saying "we want to get rid of all the immigrants." My disagreement with that is not a communication problem, it's that that position is a red line. There's no chance of me being convinced that forcibly removing immigrants is a good idea. So why even have the conversation? What good could that possibly do?

> So why even have they conversation? What good could that possibly do?

To see how the came to that conclusion. It's not like they hate brown people that speak funny, they have real issues that rightly or wrongly get blamed on immigration.

Re: Show HN: Mest – Place to talk with those you disagree with

#150

Whipped this up, should be more reliable: https://tesm.sircmpwn.com Code here, feel free to use it for mest: https://gogs.sr.ht/SirCmpwn/tesm

Knew your name looked familiar, thanks for your awesome work on Sway!

No problem, I'm glad you like it!
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