> But considering the state of discussion on the internet,

Yeah it is a tough problem. I specifically gave the advice of how to be anonymous in case someone was worried about that. That way at least they wouldn't be concerned with defacing their profile or other type of image. But I suspect that would bias it towards people who feel morally uncertain or are questioning their own actions.

And I fully agree. We need to stop being reactionary. It doesn't solve problems, it creates them. We all got egos here and to address this I typically go after the ego (including to myself). If we're so smart and rational then we can promote smart and rational discussions right?

I don't think many realize that they are often being used as pawns in a game of informational warfare. That our emotions play into the hands of others. Because they are quite easy to exploit, especially when we believe we are difficult to exploit (there's that ego again :) But I am trying to push for this type of behavior. Given your concern, I'd encourage you to take an active approach in this as well. I downvote any lazy comment I see (even if I agree with it, or even if it makes me laugh) in an effort to actively push up more meaningful comments. I also will try to openly question the interpretation of someone's comment as a means to quench any flames (an example is here[0] but clearly ineffective. Can be hit or miss). On the other hand, I will often upvote comments I disagree with if they are promoting discussions or if the replies to them are valuable. What I often see is a reply be great and highly informative but then because people agree with the reply they downvote the parent but this then pushes down the entire conversation. I'm not sure how to address this mechanism but this feels like the best I can do given the tools at hand.

I do fully believe we need to have these types of questions. Liberal or conservative, enabling these discussions is perfectly in line with your political beliefs, and in fact I would say is critical to it. We shouldn't be afraid of asking questions and we should be able to ask things in good faith (which that part is key). I think you're right about the environment and so this is why I'm trying to be the environment I want to see and try to encourage others to do the same. One thing I personally find hard is that it is easy to react to someone who reacts in bad faith to you. But I try to apologize when I recognize it. I think this is an important habit to build. The other is to be explicit about gratitude because I think part of the issue is that we let things that are good or that we're grateful for go unsaid. It makes sense, but clearly puts a bias on our perception. It also puts bias on incentives for people doing the right thing. Like when a company that has been doing bad things in the past does something good for once you can totally say "This is great! I don't condone x,y,z but I hope they continue to push towards being not evil" or whatever. There needs to be positive reinforcement signals too.

If I've learned anything in my own little domain that I'm an expert in it is that there's rabbit holes everywhere and nuances rule the domain. So I try to keep that in mind when thinking about other domains. I don't always succeed, but my process is set up to have multiple chances to correct course (but I'm still an idiot emotional human lol)

And of course, I'm open for suggestions about how to better cultivate an environment where we can have better discussions. If you have any advice I'd love to hear it.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39644752