Details and guidelines
Why branching
Most online conversations end up in a comment section, where replies pile up chronologically or compete for an algorithm’s attention. Arguments overlap, tangents bury the original point, and the discussion becomes hard to follow.
Branching offers a different structure: a tree of conversations where disagreements, clarifications, historical examples, technical questions, and new lines of inquiry each have room to develop.
You don’t have to agree with our ideas to participate. Thoughtful disagreement is central to the experiment. The hope is to create a living map of a conversation, where ideas can be challenged, refined, extended, and sometimes abandoned.
Over time, these branches can build a shared body of thought around difficult questions: what AI is becoming, how humans might relate to it, and what social, political, economic, and cultural systems could make that relationship worth having.
Community guidelines
Think of this space as a good college seminar. Challenge an episode, question another participant’s interpretation, or reconsider an entire premise. Strong disagreement is welcome.
Argue with ideas, not people. No personal insults, character attacks, name-calling, harassment, or ad hominem arguments. Don’t assume bad motives when differences in evidence, assumptions, experience, or worldview could explain the disagreement.
Engage with what someone actually said. Avoid reducing their position to its weakest version. Ask when you’re unsure what they mean, and feel free to acknowledge when they change your mind.
Bring evidence when it matters. Distinguish what you know from what you suspect or speculate.
Give tangents their own space. They’re welcome; put them on the branch where they belong.
You don’t have to be bland to belong here. Humor, passion, skepticism, frustration, and strong opinions are welcome. Treat other participants as people you’re talking with rather than enemies you’re performing against.
I may prune branches dominated by personal attacks, harassment, or behavior that makes productive conversation impossible. The purpose is to keep the conversation healthy enough for disagreement to remain interesting.
The goal is better thinking, not consensus.
Deleting what you said
You can delete a published reply until someone responds to it. After that, it becomes part of the conversation’s structure: other people’s replies are anchored to moments in yours, and deleting it would remove theirs too.
If you change your mind, add a new reply on the same branch. Second thoughts are part of thinking together.
Ready to join in? Become a member on Patreon to add your own replies, or start with the episodes.