Social media in its current state is broken for many reasons. One of these reasons is that these services are great for sharing short messages about oneself, but terrible for long form discussions about important topics. As a result, when people start talking about the things that really matter to us as a society, misunderstandings and bad faith erupt. We have heard that lies travel faster than truth online and that we now live in ideological bubbles.

The problem goes beyond that. We need to think epidemiologically. Social interactions are a chief way that we transmit context about each other. The thoughts and experiences of other people inform our own. Ideally, this is a process that leads to an understanding of the world. But the algorithms of today are optimized for “engagement” rather than examination. This leaves us vulnerable to strains of thinking that are harmful and stunt our development as a species.

There is no easy solution to this problem. We cannot code our way out of it.

However, what if we approached these bad arguments like diseases that can be treated?

badargbin is both a social network and an archive for bad arguments. It aims to track these arguments as they spread throughout the general public. In order to innoculate ourselves and others, we need to collectively examine the microbiology of these arguments and how they work in an online context. This requires some painstaking work of collecting and dissecting, work that is not for everyone. However, just as we have scientific institutions devoted to controlling the spread of disease, we need to bring together scientists and academics of the written and spoken word.

But what if members of badargbin also disagree? What about the disagreements over disagreements? The answer is that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard of debate that is focused on our collective goals. Although there will always exist intrinsic personal incentives to “winning” an argument, our chief motivation is to deconstruct the power of sophistry that underlies what it means to win. This does not mean we all need to converge on the same answer. Rather, it means we should build tools and norms that make it easier to collectively decide on the right path rather than highlighting the personal stakes of a given disagreement.

Obviously, this is all a tall order and we’re not sure we’ll succeed. If you are interested, please sign up and leave a note in your profile on why you would like to join us. We will evaluate your profile and if it is approved, an admin will grant you access to creating entries.