If you want Twitter to have better epistemics, we need to have more forgiving blocking practices

​If you want Twitter to have better epistemics, we need to have more forgiving blocking practices

Trigger-happy blocking leads to echo chambers.

Yes, even blocking people who seem to have “bad epistemics”.

Because remember two facts:

• You might be wrong

This is a fundamental practice of good epistemics.

What seems like “bad epistemics” might actually be correct.

Or you might have misunderstood what the person was saying. This happens all. The. Time.

Don’t block yourself from updating.

• Blocking means you can’t help people with bad epistemics

How are people going to come to better conclusions if all the people with said good conclusions won’t let them even see the better conclusions?

• Trigger happy blocking leads to a culture of fear, leading to less intellectual exploration and sharing

Whenever I hear about somebody being blocked for something that seems small, I become more scared to post online.

What if that happens to me?

Lots of other people are thinking this too.

This leads to less intellectual exploration and sharing, leading to an intellectual scene that is decidedly suboptimal.

Of course, sometimes blocking is the correct thing to do. I’m not saying to never block people.

Just be cautious with blocking.

Only resort to blocking after:

• Trying to understand the other side
• Civilly disagreeing
• Warning them that you’ll block them if they aren’t more civil
• Ignoring them
• Muting them (then they won’t bother you but you can still influence their epistemics)

​If I receive a particularly aggressive or unhinged comment, I usually quickly check their profile and look at their other comments and posts. If they’re all aggressive and/or unhinged, I’ll block them upon a second offense (I try to practice a generous tit for tat strategy, allowing for room for misunderstandings and people having bad days, etc).

But if they were just aggressive towards me, I’ll follow the steps above.

Because I want to be the change I want to see in the world.

I want to practice blocking practices that prevent echo chambers and promote civil disagreement.

Polarization requires people to participate for it to work. And you can decide to not participate.

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