Nobody is obligated to engage in rational thought and reason, and this is an important premise to understand when trying to analyze the prevailing culture of online debate. We think that because of advancements in science and technology, people have a universal appreciation of science, but the truth is what people really value is results. They enjoy things that have the sticker label of "science" or "truth" slapped on it without really knowing what it means. I see this all the time at my university. Credentials triumph reason and shutdown meaningful discussion. Although many people fight viciously to end this supposed dark age of internet information, it is actually an interesting moment to learn from that may never come back again. We are a part of the apparatus of a globalized social experiment: What happens when we remove the requirement for people to think rationally? Well, it turns out that most people will just do what is profitable or appeals to their emotions the best. The important thing to know is critical thinking is not the natural state of human psychology. We just lived through an era where critical thinking fell out of fashion, not by volition, but by force. Popular truth-speakers would be removed off the internet, and because these opinions were no longer in the face of many people, they stopped thinking critically because they realized they could attack the platform and not the message. What makes NOSTR unique is everyone is entitled to the right to captivate an audience, irrespective of their opinion. These people can't do that anymore. They have to silence bad ideas with better ones, and even worse it backfired. Decentralized platforms would have never gained popularity if there weren't a necessity for them to be built. By the ideas of the free-market, it would have made sense that many social media platforms enforce free speech as it invites all sorts of audiences and businesses. However economic incentives are a more unstable system than those engineered by cryptographic guarantees and mathematical principles. My prediction? In a couple years, this censorship tirade will fail catastrophically. The free internet will not only be accelerated because of its attempt, but now become popularized. People with various opinions will once again be able to establish audiences and platforms, and now that those opinions that have once been suppressed gain popularity again, everyone will have no choice but to address their message rather than silence them. Debate and critical thinking will return to the internet, and people will once again be forced to face reality and rationality rather than hide under their unchallenged ideas.

And one of the worst things about it? You know the meritocracy is a sham, but others will always grade you by that standard, even if it is meaningless and arbitrary.

This was a privilege and pleasure I was afforded once during COVID, and not once since then. It has been my mission to reach this position in life yet again.

When you have the ability to deplatform, censor, or shadowban someone in any way shape or form, you don't actually have to engage in the discussion. You're bigger than them: you can just shut them up and save yourself the headache. Will you win in the short term? Of course, because the idea is still there all you did was sweep it under the rug. When you don't have any of these tools at your disposal, all of those ideas come out of the rug and your only choice is to engage in discussion and speak rhetorically. You are forced to learn to be persuasive, forced to learn to make a logical argument, and forced to understand the other person's perspective in order to refute it. This dichotomy is a causal link. If you're in a part of the internet and no real discussion is happening, it's because someone has power over the other.

Poorly educated population votes in poorly educated politicians that subsequently make poorly informed policy choices. Those poor policy choices reinforce for information control which only makes for a stupider population and the feedback loop continues.

We were never meant to have forms of "irrefutable evidence". Now that

I think it is actually even more to the story than this... The way people speak and how they choose to present their ideas reveals much more information about them than what they explicitly say. I know this sounds like a regurgitated platitude, but I'll explain how this is relevant to the cultural atmosphere of social media today. Today I was watching a podcast on a popular social topic and I noticed something: The person who was making his point decided to start with his strongest points of evidence first, then move on to more loose points of evidence in order to make his claim. This is actually atypical in a debate/discussion. Generally, people want to make their weakest points first and then conclude with their strongest points. This is because they want their strongest point to be the last thing they say so it is fresh in the minds of their audience. The reason he was starting with his strongest points first is because he wanted to establish a level of irrefutable authority to his claim before making it. He choose to use statistical evidence or arguments in peer-reviewed papers. People do this all the time nowadays, and the reason why is actually because of a subconscious level of fear and this is what I'm seeing. Most people aren't afraid of having their ideas challenged. They are afraid that they will look like a fool and thus invite attacks subsequent attacks on their character. This is a natural fear, and is why most people don't speak out against injustice or wrongdoings. Subsequently, people talk past each other. Instead of making substantial arguments, they reiterate safe positions or attempt to frame their argument as a safe position. They don't stray from peer-reviewed opinions or forms of irrefutable evidence. Nothing of value is accomplished in those discussions. And from my experience, arguments that are considered culturally "safe" are not determined by the people, they are determined by those with power. People are too atomized and free willed to come to a consensus on even trivial matters, so how are we all able to collectively agree that X topic is morally right or wrong? It isn't because we agree, its because those that disagree are too afraid to speak out, because to do so would go against the monopoly on violence. Around all social media platforms, there is this subconscious fear that we could say something and someone will be able to target us for it. Likewise, the endless anger we see on places like X are actually reflections of fear. That fear isn't here on NOSTR. You can say whatever you want, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it because that opinion is going to stay. So if you want it to look bad your only choices are to debate it because deplatforming it isn't going to work anymore. Once people start shedding that fear, I think the internet will be able to fulfill its original vision which is to allow people to educate each other rather than serve as a pawn in some politician's chess match.

We should bring hate and polarization here as well that way people from X feel right at home (jk).

Not on Primal, they might be on the other clients.

White, since they are in check. Unless they are 0laying blitz, in which case black has won.

Dislikes should be normalized on NOSTR. Hear me out. Removing dislikes from forms of content first happened at around the same time YouTube started removing them. Since then, people have been less and less able to communicate their dissatisfaction and this has led to more polarization. The idea behind removing dislikes is because we are a polite society and we don't want toxicity. The issues with this is now you have the opposite which is toxicity but in forms of virtue signaling. Toxicity is necessary and often times the litmus test for a free and open platform. We may not like it, but we have to recognize its place in general communication and subsequently social media.

Yes, do you think it will change? Lots of people on NOSTR think BTC and cryptography will make the system outdated and eventually it will disappear. Do you agree? I want to know what your perspective is since you've actually seen firsthand what limitations an individual has against the entire bureaucracy.