[Qworg]

If you enjoy the podcast or the newsletters, I do recommend the Discord (https://discord.gg/oddlots) - the folks there are generally very smart and it is a great place to discuss everything from the economy to climate to transportation to defense.

[globular-toast]

Is there a way to use Discord without using the awful childish interface?

[askl]

https://github.com/DiscordMessenger/dm

[armitron]

Very smart people on discord sounds like an oxymoron: why would anyone very smart contribute to the siloization of knowledge and support grow a corporate entity possessing highly questionable incentives? Discord is not a great place to discuss anything of substance.

If that's not clear to some now, it will be once monetization kicks in and the inevitable blowup and loss of accumulated knowledge follows.

[oliyoung]

You're using Discord to describe the same thing that could easily be applied to any social network.

Yes, it's borne of teenagers and gaming, but for all it's dark corners it's just the modern IRC. There are good servers, there are bad servers, there are servers full of idiots and there are servers full of very smart people.

(and we're way past monetisation kicking in, the first paid options launched almost 10 years ago)

[episteme]

I suppose smart people can’t optimize for pure discussion? One of the most popular and easy to use messaging platforms seems like a reasonable choice.

[joenot443]

> why would anyone very smart contribute to the siloization of knowledge and support grow a corporate entity possessing highly questionable incentives

Some smart people aren't as concerned with knowledge siloization as other smart people. I'm sure if you went to their Discord and suggested an alternative platform with the same popularity and feature set they'd at least hear you out.