Two days on the Making Sense Community and I owe it an apology for my initial skepticism
When Sam announced the community I rolled my eyes and thought "great, another layer of paywalling", another step of him isolating into his own bubble. Almost didn't sign up.
Boy was I was wrong. Two days in and I've had more genuinely interesting, good-faith conversations than in the last months of Reddit use. The difference is really hard to overstate.
Last night I got into a debate with a guy about whether we should "respect" religions - to my surprise, my opponent actually tried to steelman my position before pushing back. Not strawmanning and trying to find a gotcha like I'm used to. Just two people actually trying to get at something true. Can't remember the last time that happened on here to a similar degree.
Yes, the belief demographics are fairly uniform (a survey over there confirmed that) meaning mostly non-believers, very science leaning etc.
Also, the caliber of people was genuinely surprising to me. Most members actually fill out their profiles/bios and when you click through, you find many PhDs, founders, execs, therapists so people with actual skin in the game of the ideas being discussed.
The only thing missing is a mobile app. The day they ship one, I might genuinely have found my Reddit replacement for the most part. Until then, I'm checking it on mobile browser like a caveman.
If you've been on the fence, just try it. I went from skeptic to convert in about 48 hours.