| 5 Nov 2021 |
 tomberek | I'm referring to the interpretation of the community's reaction. I doubt the only reason people would not comment is because they did not want to change it. That doubt is leading me to ask if there are other reasons you thought/think about, or would consider. | 02:27:19 |
 Irenes | In my experience with large-scale discussions of important things, negative opinions are always over-represented. | 02:28:05 |
| Irenes | There's always a small set of people who have thought about the topic before and have their own well-formed opinions on it, and a much larger set of people for whom this is the first time they've taken the topic seriously. | 02:28:31 |
| Irenes | One of the horrible things that social media is doing to society is that these days, the people who have never thought about the topic before feel an obligation to form a strong opinion on it, to do so immediately, and to express that opinion in public as a sign of tribal affiliation. I dislike that pattern strongly. | 02:29:39 |
| Irenes | Fortunately, we didn't have a lot of that on the RFC. | 02:29:47 |
| Irenes | I think pretty much everyone who weighed in had pre-existing feelings on the issue, and we can be grateful for that, because it's a lot easier to talk things through and appeal to reason when opinions are actually coming from a place of reason rather than from an urge to participate. | 02:30:21 |
| tomberek | How much do you think the negative opinions are over-represented? How much do you think positive opinions are over-represented? (clearly not looking for exactness, an order of magnitude?) | 02:30:42 |
| Irenes | I think in a discussion like this negativity always crowds out positivity, because it's frightening to people. | 02:31:07 |
| Irenes | Negativity has a strong advantage. | 02:31:16 |
| Irenes | You can see this at a glance by looking at anyone's Twitter timeline. | 02:31:27 |
| tomberek | Okay, what would you think would lead to negative opinions being under-represented? | 02:31:59 |
| Irenes | So like | 02:32:35 |
| Irenes | if a person reads a 500-word piece of negativity and a 500-word piece of positivity | 02:32:47 |
| Irenes | the negativity will stick in their mind far more strongly | 02:32:54 |
| Irenes | because the amygdala records memories more strongly when the emotions are stronger | 02:33:07 |
| Irenes | harsh words lead to stronger emotions | 02:33:13 |
| Irenes | especially on topics where somebody has a personal stake | 02:33:20 |
| Irenes | it's unfair but it's how humans have always worked | 02:33:27 |
| tomberek | I might have gone too abstract. I'm asking about why people would not feel comfortable providing an opposing viewpoint in the RFC. | 02:33:45 |
| Irenes | oh, sorry | 02:33:58 |
| Irenes | you're asking if I can see reasons why people who are opposed to the RFC would not express that? | 02:34:24 |
| tomberek | Yes. | 02:34:34 |
| Irenes | I can. For example, fear of becoming a target, whether justified or not, is very prevalent in the world right now. | 02:34:56 |
| Irenes | but anyway, my point is that negativity dominates these discussions by default | 02:35:44 |
| Irenes | so the fact that so many people took the time to speak out positively | 02:35:55 |
| Irenes | is a very strong signal to me | 02:35:59 |
| Irenes | the bias towards not speaking out to say negative things is far outweighed by the advantage that negative things have, once said | 02:36:26 |
| Irenes | again, just look at the world around us right now, at everybody constantly criticizing everybody else (a state of affairs which I find terrifying) | 02:36:52 |
| Irenes | it transcends partisan lines | 02:37:08 |
| Irenes | when people say critical things about people or ideas, that gets traction in a way that praise doesn't | 02:37:34 |
