X is the only online social media that has healthy(and unhealthy) political discussions; with both sides available for discussion. Reddit, bluesky, mastodon, etc banned conservatives off the site. Gab, truth social, etc banned liberals. You cant have political discussions if you are an echo chamber of only 1 viewpoint.
> It's more like shouting and slander as opposed to respect and understanding. Thoughts?
That's something newer to politics in general. I call it the jon stewart consequence.
He was aiming for a laugh; he's not engaged in healthy political discussions but his popularity spilled into political discussions; he'd take a video out of context, make a jab, make funny face, force the audience to laugh, and then bring on a guest that agrees with him to confirm everything he thinks.
Now liberals are essentially mimicking him. It's about dunking on the dumbest conservatives. Those who arent dumb, they are nazis.
But then conservatives do it as well; we're all humans and sometimes we say or think dumb things.
Moreover, this forum is fundamentally political because capital is political and this site is maintained as a heater in an incubator used by venture capital. This can't be a controversial observation; it's a simple reading of the masthead.
Correspondingly, there's a high degree of censorship exercised on these forums, ostensibly in the service of a purity of a generally non-existent engineering orientation.
So trying to pretend that plain nerding out is engineering, while priding and promoting censorship of your own politics in deference to "jobs" offered by venture capitalists is servile. And trying to avoid the contradiction is juvenile.
But then look at the leadership of the industry: Cultists and demagogs, some fairer, many fouler, all political, because that's the nature of capital.
Of course last thing house slaves are permitted is talk about their situation, and the best know to censor themselves.
So yes, where else can one go to discuss one's own interests? Certainly not on the plantation.
- with similar respect and tolerance
This is just my pessimistic view but I have never seen a site able to do those two things simultaneously. Human psychology gets in the way every time. In my opinion there would have to be an in depth entrance exam administered in person to screen out people unable to have truly unbiased discussions that did not have ulterior motives, uncontrolled emotions and agendas and even then the site admin would have to be ready to fling the ban hammer without hesitation. Short of that, every site that attempts to allow discussing politics devolves into the negative aspects of Tweeter, Reddit, 4chan, 8chan, etc... Or perhaps such a site exists and I did not pass the exam.
chistev•6mo ago
Or if you want something exactly like HN but for politics, you could build it and promote it. But good luck getting it active with users.
I already have a clone of HN ready.