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Comment by Jedd | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

The idea of iteration through (a) thought I think has been explained to me before, but I must have suppressed it. I can see why it's necessary within the context and medium of twitter ... however I'm unconvinced (duh :) that it's a useful constraint to apply to a communication medium. I don't expect I'm unique in voicing this opinion.

The idea of developing a thought with another party, or as you also describe it, 'collective thinking', is genuinely anathema to me. I'm happy to have a discussion that involves me adjusting my thinking, and, of course, a discussion that results in the other party(/ies) adjusting their thinking. Actually, I expect that essence of conciliation and compromise is what you're describing. However, the idea of avoiding 'long term debate' really does unnerve me.

Perhaps I've been debating for too many years with people that I really wouldn't want to share a collective thought with.

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I would agree that iteration through thought is not necessarily a useful constraint on a medium by itself. In the case of twitter, however, it is merely a product of the 140-character limit for each message. If, during a stand-up debate, your opponent was allowed to interject after every sentence, you would get much the same. That sounds incredibly annoying and counter-productive at first, but the form of the debate would adapt over time.

The advantage of developing a thought in tandem with somebody is that the compromise happens more naturally. You rarely need to 'concede' a point or prove somebody wrong, since you can influence the way the point is made in the first place, pointing out flaws in their reasoning or facts as they happen. Conversely, the other can do that for your reasoning. The result is that, rather than adjust your thinking in a few big steps, you adjust it in minor ways with every sentence. It takes time and practice to get used to this, but it can be very productive and enlightening.

On the other hand, I would never avoid long-form debate either. Both have advantages and disadvantages, just as both have mediums where they work and mediums where they don't. Twitter isn't conducive to classical debate, just as hackernews isn't conducive to the iterative thought development style.

Hrm, what you are suggesting sounds like some kind of conversation back and forth between 2 people. Like a chat system or something. Issue is, you are talking in an environment where everyone can interject, and everyone has a strongly felt opinion. Just look at any news show "interview" between 2 sides of an argument. They tend to devolve into shouting matches of who can drown out the other side without getting smacked down by the host.

It is much like a conversation in a chat system, but the etiquette on twitter means your conversation partner usually won't wait for you to finish a string of messages.

It's true that it's easy for people to interject and annoy, and it happens more and more the bigger your celebrity status. However, unlike the interview example, it's also easy to ignore them. Twitter's reply helped a lot for that. Replying to anybody is optional, you don't even have to read their tweets if you don't want to. It's not perfect by any means, I don't think any platform will ever be. But it isn't bad.

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