# How to Promote More Productive Dialogue Outside of LessWrong

I’m relatively new to lesswrong.com, but it seems to be a site where there’s a strong tendency for people to actually be respectful to each other in the comments, even when they disagree. How do we promote more of that in the world in general, where people seem less committed to rationality? I have a couple of thoughts on where to start.

### The Dignity Index

[The Dignity Index](https://www.dignityindex.us/index), started by Tim Shriver (Chairman of Special Olympics), is a way of rating communication with scores from 1 to 8, with 1 on the level of “let’s kill them all,” and 8 basically being “I hate no one and value everyone.” Students who learned how to rate communication using this scale [reportedly](https://gardner.utah.edu/the-dignity-index/) became more conscious of how they themselves were communicating, and this led some to change their behaviors. What might happen if it were standard practice to teach all students how to rate our interactions this way (and that "policing" interactions this way scores low on The Dignity Index itself)? 

Also, one could envision The Dignity Index rating applied, through machine learning, to social media posts, with users being able to filter for posts and comments above some minimum Dignity Index level that they choose. I don’t know how much actual impact this could have on social media civility, but it seems like an interesting thing to try. 

The key thing I think needs to happen for The Dignity Index to catch on is for more people to become aware of it (hence, this post).

### Anger Trigger Elimination Course for the Masses

Removing anger from “below the surface” of conversations could have a huge effect on making dialogue generally more productive, I believe. And techniques do exist to help people “remove” their anger triggers. I’m not talking about classic “anger management” (breathing, etc.) - I’m referring to actual removal of impulses to get angry when specific things (“triggers”) happen. The best online course I’ve found for this thus far is "[Anger - Complete freedom from anger forever](https://www.udemy.com/course/set-yourself-free-from-anger)” by Angela Hardy on [udemy.com](http://udemy.com). How do we get massive numbers of people to take such a course and use the tools from it to continue to remove their anger triggers over time? 

Beyond making an anger course part of standard education in school, defensive driving courses may point to a path forward. Insurance companies in many states offer a discount (typically 10%) on auto insurance for people who take a Defensive Driving Course every few years, and more than a million people per year in the U.S. [take such a course](https://www.nsc.org/safety-training/defensive-driving/become-a-ddc-instructor/ddc-awards#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20more%20than%2042%2C000,mission%20of%20eliminating%20preventable%20deaths). Could something similar be done with an anger trigger elimination course? It would likely require a study to see if taking a facilitated version of an online course, plus a few ongoing sessions to work on specific anger triggers could be shown to reduce automobile, health, and/or life insurance costs. If this were the case, insurance companies may be willing to offer discounts on the associated premiums for people who took the course, which could incentivize significant numbers of people to do so.

### Other Thoughts?

An overhaul of the educational system to better promote emotional regulation, critical thinking, responsibility, love of learning, etc. seems like it would be incredibly helpful if it could actually be implemented, although our current shortcomings in productive dialogue seem like they'd make getting agreement on this quite difficult. Perhaps change could be made during a switch to AI-aided education? Anyone have other thoughts on how we could bring about educational reform on a massive scale and/or additional specific ideas for how to promote more productive dialogue in the world in general?