It was chaotic human weather. There’d be a nice morning and then suddenly a storm would roll in.
– Jaron Lanier, describing computer message boards in the 1970s (source, p. 42)
Are you tired of the “discourse” and drama in Mastodon and the fediverse? When it happens, do you wish it would just go away?
Here’s one simple trick to stop discourse dead in its tracks:
Don’t talk about it.
Now, this may sound too glib and oversimplified, so to put it in other words:
When discourse is happening, just don’t talk about it.
That’s it. That’s the way you solve discourse. It’s really as easy as that.
Discourse is a reflection of the innate human desire to not only look at a car crash, but to slow down and gawk at it, causing traffic to grind to a halt so that everyone else says, “Well, I may as well see what the fuss is about.” The more you talk about it, the more you feed it.
So just don’t. Don’t write hot takes on it, don’t make jokes about it, don’t comment on how you’re tired of it, don’t try to calm everybody down, don’t write a big thread about how discourse is ruining the fediverse and won’t it please stop. Just don’t. Pretend like it’s not even there.
There’s a scene in a Simpsons Halloween episode where a bunch of billboard ads have come to life and are running amuck, destroying Springfield. Eventually though, Lisa realizes that the only power ads have is the power we give them, and if you “just don’t look” then they’ll keel over and die.
The “discourse” is exactly the same. Every time you talk about it, even just to mention it offhand or make a joke about it, it encourages more people to say to themselves, “Ooh, a fight! I gotta check this out.” Then they scroll back in their timeline to try to figure out the context, and the cycle begins anew. It’s like a disease that spreads by people complaining about it.
This is why whenever discourse is happening, I just talk about something else. I might also block or mute anyone who is talking about it, because I find the endless drama boring.
Like a car crash, it’s never really interesting. It’s never something that’s going to change your life by finding out about it. It’s always the same petty squabbling you’ve seen a hundred times online.
Once the storm has passed, though, it’s safe to talk about it. You may even write a longwinded blog post about it. But while it’s happening, remember: “just don’t look, just don’t look.”
Read the Tea Leaves 