Reading annual thing made me realize why I had an instinctive aversion to letter dot wiki. The mannered faux-genteel 18th-century republic-of-letters vibe is too jarring for me. The Well is 35 years old but feels fresher (both form/content) than this “Dear Joe” larping.
Conversation
It also drives home the point that the most interesting long-running conversations do NOT have “debate”, let alone “civil debate” as the thing being solved for. Makes me suspect modern conservatives are cargo cutting an Enlightenment discourse model that never was. Booorring.
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It’s partly being good at conversations as a medium of course. Sterling has been doing this for a long time and has a talent for keeping it “live”. Still, deliberately mimicking old media is asking for an acting dead vibe. I don’t know why products go that route.
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I feel bad about randomly criticizing a product, but I guess it fits within my broader anti-waldenponding polemic (if it can be called that). While I’m all for living in escapist fantasy realities, something about this particular contemporary subgenre irks me.
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If you’re highly conscious of the need to be civil, the presumption is that you have potential reason to be uncivil, but are being noble and stoic in service of a Higher Truth. I think this is bs. Good conversations are civil as a side effect of genuine mutual interest.
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Worthwhile conversations are a barbell. Either the two parties share enough common ground and mutual curiosity that no explicit commitment to civility is necessary OR are openly hostile enough you need something like a courtroom due process for adversarial debate. Middle is dumb.
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One sign: when I’m actually in conversations where I have no worries about being uncivil, I feel free enough to troll, jeer, joke, bluntly and roughly disagree, use mild insults, get a bit mad, etc. It’s not ceremonial pageantry with polite forms masking shallow engagement.
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I’m kind of an idiot and would prefer an explicit agreement to be uncivil. Is that too much to ask? Like a friendly untruce
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Me too, though I’d probably exit rather than open,y fight. But when I fight I fight.

