As the singularity approaches, wholesale change becomes so abundant that its sometimes hard to notice just how transformative it is. One example of this is: it is now trivially easy to instantly interact with any other human being on the planet. It is hard to overstate what a sea change this is. The scale of change is so drastic that, much like the unfathomable distances of space, our lizard brains can’t comprehend it. Only 66 years elapsed between the first time humans flew a motorized heavier-than-air vehicle and the first moon landing. The telephone was invented in 1876. The first practical telegraph machine came online 32 years prior. Before that, if you wanted to do any form of remote communication, you had to wave flags or beat drums and hope for the best.
This newfound ability comes with pluses and minuses. On the plus side, you can now engage with subject matter experts in every field and, if you do it properly, gain information that used to require luck and privilege. You can swap jokes with the funniest people on the planet. You can gaze in wonder at the latest images from far-reaching space probes. You can learn the nuances of monetary policy and tax-positivity from the world’s top economists. For intellectually curious people, this newfound superpower means there are endless rabbit holes everywhere you look. This is a Good Thing™.
All of these benefits come with a cost, however. The democratization of our communication channels means that everyone has a voice, even the surprisingly large number of toxic interlocuters in our world. This means that every time you venture into the public space of social media, you expose yourself to engagement with these creeps. This is a Bad Thing™, especially for women and minorities who get relentlessly targeted by awful people whose self-loathing has metastasized into full-fledged misanthropy. There are, sadly, people in this world who add nothing of value and are only around to attempt to make everyone else as miserable as they are. They contribute nothing to the discourse, and their factually inaccurate claims are a time-sink thanks to Brandolini’s Law: The amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Your number one goal should be to never become one of these people, and to avoid them at all cost1.
Having been on the internet since before the internet existed, starting with Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) in the early 90s, I feel qualified to offer a guide on interacting with strangers on the internet. Here are some concrete tips here, all with one goal in mind: To make internet discourse a more positive, funny, entertaining, and better place.
Take a moment
When you see something that spurs you to engage, always wait a couple minutes before you do so2. Look at the other replies. Do you have a funny joke to add to someone’s comment? See if someone else already made the same joke. Make sure your comment is additive and not duplicative. The internet is filled with takes. If yours has already been made, just boost the existing one instead of piling on. It makes the conversation easier for other people to navigate. I know the urge is strong to immediately fire off your brilliant riposte, but I promise you this: you will never regret waiting a few beats before sharing your zinger with the world, and you will frequently be glad you waited.
Assume good faith
Until someone demonstrates otherwise, assume they are genuinely trying to convince you with sound reasoning. This can often be a challenge when confronted with some of the most asinine, groundless arguments you will encounter along the way. One important thing to keep in mind when arguing with strangers is: You will never, ever convince anyone in the heat of an argument that you are right and they are wrong. No matter what evidence you present or how clear your argument is, once they have established an adversarial position to yours, the conversation will (almost) never end with “You know, I never thought of it that way. I will have to reconsider my position!”
Your goal is not to convince the person you are arguing with, but the silent observers of your thread. You will never know who they are or what their takeaways will be, but those are the people you should be writing for. The more convincing you can be for them, the more successful your contributions are. The best way to be successful is to accept counter arguments in good faith and factually refute them, even if that act seems so obvious and self-explanatory to you.
You will, however, encounter people who are not arguing in good faith. When you suspect that is happening, it is worthwhile to call that out. You can say “I find it hard to believe that you are arguing in good faith here, when you <demonstrate the ways their logic is failing>.” If they can clean up their arguments and get back on track, great. If not, just say “Ah I guess you are just trolling.” Mock, block, and roll.
Ditch the sarcasm
Other people have pointed out the problems with sarcasm. I will just add two points to this: It is incredibly easy to misconstrue in social media posts, and is difficult for non-native speakers to decipher. The first point is so clear to internet veterans that they invented a signifier (/s after the message) to ensure the sarcasm does not get lost on the readers. If you have to add a decoder key to your prose, you are failing at your job. For the second point, just remember that only 13% of the world speaks English, and only 5% do so natively. Sarcasm (in English) is completely lost on everyone else. It is confusing, lazy, and intellectually dishonest. Lose it.
Flame wars aren’t worth it
Anyone who has spent time in discussions on the internet has been embroiled in heated text exchanges - flame wars. I am not going to spend a lot of time on this one, other than to say that if you find yourself involved in one, run - don’t walk - away from the internet. Nothing good comes from this, and I guarantee you will regret most of the things you say once the juices are flowing. Extricating yourself isn’t hard. Just say “This has gotten far more heated than I ever intended, I am stepping away” then mute the thread, block any necessary conspirators, and try to regain your sanity.
Treat them like coworkers
I think of this as the Golden Rule of internet discourse. Let’s say you stumble across a completely idiotic post. Something so absurdly stupid and offensive to your tastes that it makes your mouth fill with bile. After you take a moment to let that initial revulsion subside (you did follow the first rule, right?) if you still feel compelled to engage, do this thought exercise: Imagine you are working and you saw this message pop up on your internal message board. Would you reply to that message “OMG this is the dumbest thing I have read in a month, were you lobotomized this morning?” I would hope not, for the sake of your continued employment. You should use that sense of office decorum when engaging with people you don’t know. If something is truly harmful, instead of replying consider reporting the post using whatever mechanisms that social media has in place. If you do choose to reply, try to stick to the facts of the situation and avoid editorializing or strawmanning their arguments. Again, remember that you aren’t trying to convince that person, you are trying to convince the silent observers.
Be an example
I am glad that schools are finally starting to understand that social skills don’t end at the keyboard. In my kids’ school, I have seen social engineering posters display etiquette for online behavior in a similar fashion that they have done for in-person behavior for decades. It is vitally important that going forward we are clear in our instructions on how to behave in a civil fashion online, since the online world is set to be far more ubiquitous than the meat-space for the foreseeable future.
Everyone needs to play a part. Call out bad behavior when you see it. Try to do it constructively, so it is clear where it went wrong and how to do it right. Social standards don’t enforce themselves, they get enforced by people actively enforcing them. Since there is no such thing as the internet police, that means its our job to make the internet a safe, smart, and fun place for people to be. I hope we are all up to the task.
One of the best tools to do so on Twitter (I will never ever call it ‘X’) is the block button. Naturally, Elon has decided to degrade the block button, making it functionally a mute button. His argument is that the block button as currently implemented “doesn’t make sense” and to a certain extent he is right. It is relatively trivial to work around a block and still see the content you wish to withhold, but to use that argument as a reason to erode its functionality seems misguided at best.
One feature I would desperately love to see from any social media (and I would join any site that promises this) is cooldown timers between posts. In other words, if someone posts a message, you have to wait 5 minutes from when you see it to when you reply. If you are in a dialog with someone, each progressive response increases the cooldown 5 minutes. Make people sit and think about their reply before dashing things off!
This is such a thoughtful post! Thank you.