#cohost #common-carriers #diplomacy #social-dynamics #cohost-repost
2023-02-21 On the conflict between Professionalism and Readability

folks, if the cohost project is going to succeed, or any social media platform for that matter, you've gotta opt out of everything the other platforms get you to do.

(imo. I cannot speak for staff)

you're going to have to get in the habit of thinking why someone might have written part of their post, in context with the rest of their post and other writings if you aren't sure.

people write for who they know, with established context. if you're coming in from a random share, or you newly followed someone, you are a guest. stop using it as an excuse to Make Up A Guy and then spar with them in replies as if the OP was coming from there.

you've gotta get in the habit. exercising that small subset of theory of mind, thinking why someone might have written the thing they wrote, and know that no one sets out to fail, and few people say things for the sake of it.

even if they're wrong, coming in and putting the opposite meaning to their words because you assume they're not involved and haven't checked is like... coming up with completely original things requires effort, I just write what I know and so do most people.

Why would I make up meaning for a concept just to rant at it? People's credulity metrics are really broken lately. Twitter isn't a representative sample of the world and neither is only what you can see.

people are more receptive to discussion than counterpoints that clearly misunderstand them. at least if you're mostly right they don't have to counter you.

but even then? people don't need to be experts to talk, sorry. if you want us to be, I'll gladly go back to writing spirited polemic instead of just talking about things to surface thoughts I'm having. But I'd prefer this.

This isn't "good vibes only" this is "let's act like people aren't setting out to be wrong from the start". We have had good faith spirited debate on plenty of topics, I promise it's not impossible. As a bonus, it's more effective at getting people to change

sure, people doing bad things exist here too and I'm not saying they're exempt. I'm saying that you really need to be sure if you're going that route. It should be hard, not reflexive, for a reason. But outside of that? there's no "winning" when it comes to discussion.

You're a guest, not a tabloid reporter. We've got work to do and such precious little time to do it, at the scale things are. Evolve or get out of the way.

Put down the gun, it won't help you in these parts.
The only reason you have it is people kept aiming theirs at you.

[as this breaks out of my circles it feels important to emphasize that not every criticism is an attack, especially not ones that are engaging with you in good faith, and acting as if they're attacking you is... similarly unwarrrantedly putting words in their mouth. Otherwise acting like they are hostile by default for broaching it will just... have those people not want to be around. In ways that tend towards insularity of social circle, as the only ones who stay are ones who are okay with that cycle. That's not always the risk, but, watch for it, yeah? Part of everyone putting down the metaphorical guns is that, well, sometimes we do things in ways that aren't actually great, and we need to learn from that, not blackhole it because they phrased it too harshly, or we lack the perspective to see how it affects others just yet. But right now so many people don't see how it affects others, and instead judge 'right' by how they think others should act/react. ]