After frequenting other places on the internet that pride themselves on not being echo chambers, I've seen a trend that seems to make the "echo chambers limit honest discussion" thing I've been hearing for a year or so now seem like a lie.
Generally, places that aren't "echo chambers" seem to indeed have a broader variety of opinions in discussions.
The problem that I see, is that people just eventually bunch up into like minded clusters or cliques and then end up fighting a forum war where discussing topics become less important and simply "winning" against the other clique in any petty, trolling, biased, whataboutery way possible becomes the biggest goal.
It's like trying to say that debate club where people pick any random topic and automatically decide to disagree is fostering honest discussion, when really nobody is there to "learn a damn thing from anyone. It's just a competition.
At least in an echo chamber, you have less people arguing in all different manners of "bad faith" simply to win against some "other side". People who at least agree on a base level are more likely to share ideas and find some kind of middle ground between them than people who talk about each other like they are the root cause of all the bad things in life.
It's much easier to find rational and nuanced discussions amongst people who start on the same or at least similar page. You can get deeper into a topic with different views on that one topic.
With "honest discussion chambers" it seems like you just get the most extreme of every side shouting at each other the loudest about whether the subject of a topic even exists in real life, let alone anything deeper about that topic.
For me, it seems that a true neutral who wants to hear "honest discussion" would likely learn a lot more by just reading a bunch of different echo chambers and making their decision, rather than reading post after post and thread after thread of intra forum wars that can barely get past the first phase of discussion.
In conclusion, I think echo chambers (including those you dont agree with) are okay, if used responsibly and not used as a sole source of ideas and information.
/tired, random, slightly intoxicated rambling.
Generally, places that aren't "echo chambers" seem to indeed have a broader variety of opinions in discussions.
The problem that I see, is that people just eventually bunch up into like minded clusters or cliques and then end up fighting a forum war where discussing topics become less important and simply "winning" against the other clique in any petty, trolling, biased, whataboutery way possible becomes the biggest goal.
It's like trying to say that debate club where people pick any random topic and automatically decide to disagree is fostering honest discussion, when really nobody is there to "learn a damn thing from anyone. It's just a competition.
At least in an echo chamber, you have less people arguing in all different manners of "bad faith" simply to win against some "other side". People who at least agree on a base level are more likely to share ideas and find some kind of middle ground between them than people who talk about each other like they are the root cause of all the bad things in life.
It's much easier to find rational and nuanced discussions amongst people who start on the same or at least similar page. You can get deeper into a topic with different views on that one topic.
With "honest discussion chambers" it seems like you just get the most extreme of every side shouting at each other the loudest about whether the subject of a topic even exists in real life, let alone anything deeper about that topic.
For me, it seems that a true neutral who wants to hear "honest discussion" would likely learn a lot more by just reading a bunch of different echo chambers and making their decision, rather than reading post after post and thread after thread of intra forum wars that can barely get past the first phase of discussion.
In conclusion, I think echo chambers (including those you dont agree with) are okay, if used responsibly and not used as a sole source of ideas and information.
/tired, random, slightly intoxicated rambling.
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