An earlier version of this post went into more details about how to apply the Civility is Never Neutral concept. (That version of the post in general was heavier on “propose solutions”, and I cut a bunch of stuff after realizing I didn’t understand the problem well enough to confidently propose anything concrete. I posted some of it as a top level comment here, which got heavily upvoted but hasn’t had much discussion)
I have some half-finished writing which may either become a comment here, or a followup post, which explores the Civility is Never Neutral issue. Meanwhile I wanted people to know that I at least considered it important background reading.
In short: there’s definitely tension between naive “prevent demon threads” and naive “make sure everyone has the right to be heard.” Ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away though. Demon threads are bad. Chilling effects are bad. In some situations, one is worse than the other, and deciding which is which requires judgment calls.
My top-level-comment-solution here, is aiming for something like “anti-demon-thread measures don’t mean ‘don’t talk about an issue’. Instead, ‘provide avenues to talk about it that don’t involve demon-thread dynamics.’” (i.e. talk privately, then summarize the outcome of the conversation for others)
For that to work, you need a lot of trust, the trust need to be deserved (i.e. no only are people willing to talk in good faith, they need to be actually be willing to put in the time to do so effectively. If the rule is “hash emotionally-fraught things out in private” but then one party doesn’t want to put in the effort, that would indeed result in the same chilling effect.
My current goals are to try to flesh out and operationalize how we can create a world (at least on LW) with as low friction as possible to resolving sensitive issues in a healthy way.
An earlier version of this post went into more details about how to apply the Civility is Never Neutral concept. (That version of the post in general was heavier on “propose solutions”, and I cut a bunch of stuff after realizing I didn’t understand the problem well enough to confidently propose anything concrete. I posted some of it as a top level comment here, which got heavily upvoted but hasn’t had much discussion)
I have some half-finished writing which may either become a comment here, or a followup post, which explores the Civility is Never Neutral issue. Meanwhile I wanted people to know that I at least considered it important background reading.
In short: there’s definitely tension between naive “prevent demon threads” and naive “make sure everyone has the right to be heard.” Ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away though. Demon threads are bad. Chilling effects are bad. In some situations, one is worse than the other, and deciding which is which requires judgment calls.
My top-level-comment-solution here, is aiming for something like “anti-demon-thread measures don’t mean ‘don’t talk about an issue’. Instead, ‘provide avenues to talk about it that don’t involve demon-thread dynamics.’” (i.e. talk privately, then summarize the outcome of the conversation for others)
For that to work, you need a lot of trust, the trust need to be deserved (i.e. no only are people willing to talk in good faith, they need to be actually be willing to put in the time to do so effectively. If the rule is “hash emotionally-fraught things out in private” but then one party doesn’t want to put in the effort, that would indeed result in the same chilling effect.
My current goals are to try to flesh out and operationalize how we can create a world (at least on LW) with as low friction as possible to resolving sensitive issues in a healthy way.