alt Hacker NewsSure, but there's nothing worse than when you want to have a serious conversation with someone, and all they can make are jokes.
There are a lot of serious conversations we need to have as a society right now. And collectively, all we can do is make jokes.
Replies
markus_zhang • today at 1:14 PM
Social media is probably not the best place to make such communications anyway. It is good for propaganda but not good for serious discussion. Serious, scientific discussion asks for a lot more than just communication itself.
Throughout history, real social conversations and movements have happened around thought leaders that dedicate their lives to painstakingly understanding and expressing a certain point of view on a set of issues. Be it in written form or through oratory, it then acts as an anchor to frame and facilitate conversations between people one-on-one.
Real progress requires that hard work of crafting and spreading a vision, something to point at that helps people express what they struggle to express themselves. It also then needs that protected intimacy of long conversations between individuals to digest it.
The architecture of social media centered around short-form public communication is not appropriate for this.
This of course applies to both constructive and destructive movements, but it’s the only way to get big real things done. I suppose that’s why we have this emergent class of powerful independent (podcast) intellectuals after a long time of the concept not being a thing. Again, for better or worse, plenty of both.