[calinet6]

You're right. The way we design our social platforms has a gigantic impact on how people see each other, and talk to each other, and the impact that has on us.

Perhaps the problem isn't the self-reinforcement, but rather the platforms being designed more on instantaneous engagement and addiction rather than talking and human-level discussion.

We've devolved internet discourse into very simplistic, unintelligent, instant gratification that's friendly to advertising and monetization.

That makes a lot more sense, and why I think it's so important to think of this problem as a much bigger systemic ecosystem. The design of a platform or a system impacts how people behave; the ones we have now have just the right mix of characteristics to cause this sort of insular tribalism.

We can choose to design different ones.

[sneak]

We have, and the users, for the most part, chose the screamy, thirsty, censored, algorithmic ones.

[stickyricky]

I think this is both true and untrue.

Screamy and thirsty seem to be innate to most (important) human discussions. So we can throw those out. They're irrelevant to the platform problem if the platform didn't create them (amplification is not relevant either in my mind).

So then, did users "choose" censored, algorithmic ones. Technically... but I think the nature of the censoring and the algorithms changed. It went from pulling spam and porn to pulling "harmful" content. The algorithm went from "WHERE user_id IN ..." to "curation".

I don't think those things are necessarily bad or evil. But these things started as open platforms to connect everyone. Now they're reverting to "communities" and people are adapting. People are forming "communities" on different "platforms".

The whole social media marketplace is so muddled and ripe for disruption. Network effects are bogus. Its just an excuse incumbents and academics use to rationalize their dominance post hoc. Twitter, Facebook, Parler, the rest will fail and fail fast with the right alternative.

[calinet6]

The worst argument for designing an experience is that users want it.

We can do far better.

But I get your point. Realistically this has to be a societal change that demands better social media platforms, not something just thrown into the market with no demand.

[motohagiography]

> The worst argument for designing an experience is that users want it.

This statement may be the crux of disagreement in the culture wars as well. To me this is an alien and hostile idea against all that can be good. I'm sure you have some reasoning based on an experience behind it, but it's very likely one of those irreconcilable differences of interests that we have conventions and civilization to navigate and negotiate around. I don't think we persuade each other, but rather, negotiate boundaries. Those boundaries are what we understand as tolerance.

[calinet6]

I doubt we think as differently as you believe.

I am just a user experience designer. There is a wide, wide rift between what users desire and what will actually solve their problems. I'm paid to reconcile that difference.

I do not intend to design society. But then, people are, as we speak. I don't know what's better--letting them design for what people want regardless of what it does to society, or designing for a society that's better regardless of what individuals desire.

We're primitive creatures. All of us, myself included. We're mostly run by our lizard brains, going after what spurts the happy chemicals into our brains.

I don't think society should be shaped to battle against human nature; but I certainly don't think uncontrolled human nature should shape society. As in all things, a balance.

That is what design is, always.