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Ask HN: How to escape extremist discourse?

5 points by throwme122 ↗ HN
When discussing sensible matters (global warming, globalization, choice of JS framework, etc) the discussion is often monopolized by extremist participants' ideas. Usually because they are so out of touch with reality that more reasonable participants think they ought to counter those arguments.

This creates a situation where the original ideas from reasonable participants are not the focus, the extremist dominates the train of thought.

It's likely that reasonable participants will have ideas that need refinement. However, they are robbed of the opportunity to do that because there simply isn't space to focus on it. Again, the extremist ideas dominate.

Pseudo real world example: Party A in a certain country is in favor of immigration and wants to discuss a plain to accept refugees. Their ideas are good for at most 10k refugees but could be refine to support receiving 100k. Because anti-immigration extremists will dominate the discourse, these ideas won't get the exposure and refinement they need. Then, there is an actual need to receive 500k refugees and nobody is prepared because time was waste refusing extremist bombs, which in turn plays to extremists advantage because now 500k refugees will arrive and it will be a huge mess, validating their claims that immigration is bad.

How to escape this cycle?

10 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 40.5 ms ] thread
jjawssd
Nobody reading HN will ever have any effect on these sorts of policies. It's best to stay out of it all and do something more productive with your life.
throwme122
My example was a bad one. These discussion happen at all levels and dominate the discourse. Even if counter arguments are provided, in the end everybody loses.

Sometimes ignoring works, but not always if the extremist is a more able talker.

rhapsodic
What do you mean by "extremist" ideas? What makes someone who thinks their country's immigration policies should be crafted in such a way as to provide maximum benefit to their country's own citizens an extremist?
throwme122
I believe what I'm getting at is how to avoid that unproductive ideas dominate the discussion. But not only unproductive, specially harmful ideas that freak everyone out and play into people's fears, robbing them from the opportunity to have a rational discussion.
Rottweiler
In your "pseudo real world example" who is to say that allowing tens of thousands of "immigrants" into the country is not the "extremist" position?

Maybe, just maybe, the one who says "that's a bad idea" is actually the "reasonable participant".

throwme122
That was a bad example. Discussing immigration is not my point.

Have you ever been in a discussion where someone is clearly the outlier and it's accepted beyond reasonable doubt that his ideas are extreme?

Another example, imagine you're discussing religion acceptance and a extremist say whoever doesn't follow his religion should die since their are infidels. How do you avoid that completely stupid idea from dominating everything?

DrScump
Outliers are always wrong, and groupthink is always right?
throwme122
I wasn't expecting this thread to be a troll magnet but now it seems obvious.

Perhaps I shouldn't have given any examples, as it seems I have only drawn the attention of those who care about the examples and not my underlying point.

Rottweiler
You're about fourteen years old, am I right?
andreasgonewild
Acceptance?

A conversation will be dominated by whatever it needs to be dominated by to go where it needs to go. Assuming you know best and labeling what runs contrary to your ideas as extreme suggests you're looking for validation, not conversation.