[nostrademons]

You couldn't engineer one such social system, you'd have to arrange for multiple social systems, all with their own rules. Communities where people are nice to each other tend to be a.) small, so that you can't just find someone else to piss off b.) have lots of repeated interactions, so you're invested in maintaining good relations and c.) have freedom of exit, so when someone's values don't mesh with the community they leave rather than get perpetually shamed by the other community members.

Many parts of the Internet actually do meet these conditions, but they tend to be small niche hobby sites that are either overlooked or private, not the massive media/FB/Reddit/4chan/Twitterverse where shame storms propagate.

Failing that, the best alternative is sharp boundaries between you and the public sphere of discourse. This is how cities work - you have dense groups of people with diverse opinions and many casual interactions, but most people learn to mind their own business, so it really functions as a group of small interlocking communities rather than one mass of people. It's also how to stay mentally healthy on the Internet - when everybody hates you, unplug.

[tsumnia]

The more I hear of these new social rules I have to follow [retroactively, mind you] to ensure I'm not "shamed", the more lower income rougher occupations sound grand.

No one probably gives a damn about the sexist wielder or the extreme right/leftist garbage collector because no one wants those jobs and are just happy someone is willing to do it.

[dejawu]

Reddit's robin [0] experiment did this - the communities grew until they decided not to anymore. The stakes were a bit higher, you had to vote quickly or fall apart, but I think this could've made for a really novel way of organically growing healthy communities, and I wish they'd explored the idea more. Someday I'll revisit it and maybe implement my own, and see how it does.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/joinrobin/comments/6398yp/what_was_...