I wish there was more of it, but in my experience most of the interesting, thoughtful, and civil discussion has retreated to private group chats which mostly follow in-person networks. It’s a challenge because you need to find your way into those networks and then keep up interactions across different groups and communication platforms.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Twitter/X has been growing as a place for quality discussion for me. That claim will be unbelievable to many here, because the average quality of posts on that site is extremely low. The killer feature is being able to cultivate your follow list and your block list together. If you can stay away from the ragebait, block the anger engagement farmers who worm their way into every discussion (Theo and similar accounts) and follow people when you see high quality posts of theirs shared, you start moving toward a feed with good signal.

Some people can’t help but get pulled into the vortex of ragebait and clickbait on sites like that. Those people should stay away, of course. If you can’t help but click on today’s drama or you get distracted or outraged easily, the Twitter firehose is not a good place to be.