It’s this mainly. It’s not cringe because it’s stupid, it’s cringe to me because i think it’s naive. Baking in the playful aspect makes me imagine that the person creating this has this vision in his head that people are friendly and that playfully challenging each others perspectives will result in anything. People are invested in their perspectives and they aren’t going to change them — not in light of facts, logic, threats or playfulness. This guy thinks that playfully challenging perspectives is going to scale to more than a handful of people? It’s naive. Maybe I’m reading it wrong but that’s how I read it.

Also, the achievements angle is also cringe for me because achievements are a buzzword fad that makes me think the person behind this thing is not a very deep thinker, doesn’t appreciate the fact that it will look bad to advertise the achievements, and maybe is a person who has trouble thinking for himself and gets swept up into actually believing fads.

If I were going to write a description it would be something like this: a platform where people are given the opportunity to refine their opinions based on civil discussion with the assistance of a tasteful incentive scheme.

It seems to bring down to earth a bit. Reading criticism that is so personal can be upsetting. I genuinely hope that I have in no way upset this person. We all learn these hard lessons from time to time. I know I’ve had more than I can count.