🫂🤝

I’ve found that the majority of discussion I have here is respectful — even when disagreeing with the other party, it doesn’t tend to downgrade into ad hominems and other nonsense you normally would see online.

Part of it, I’m sure, is that the incentives are different. On Twitter, jerks are rewarded with engagement and reach. Here, they (usually) find themselves politely ignored, while watching the other users who engage in good faith get to enjoy thoughtful/civil discourse and zaps!

As for the echo chamber, I’m starting to think that nostr isn’t actually one. Yes, there’s a lot of discussion of specific topics, but I think that’s more a result of the interests of the particular group of people who showed up early and make up a lot of the user base. But you can find plenty of other unrelated content if you look.

I’d think of an echo chamber as the self-reinforcing ideological loop, often algorithmically-driven or enhanced, that suppressed or crowds out any dissenting voices. Bitcoin Twitter is an example of that, whereas “Bitcoin nostr” to me feels much more like a bunch of bitcoiners who’ve found a space to communicate and hang out so the each other, built on tech that is already aligned with many of our philosophical views, but where diverse viewpoints and discussion have as much “posting power” as the prevailing view, due to the absence of the toxic algos.

I’m still chewing on this and may reformulate it, but hey - thinking “out loud” (ish).

Pleasure conversing with you!