both the work you're putting in to gather up these examples and package this in such an easily consumable way, but also the depth of insight and the larger commitment that you obviously have, which this post is in service of. clap hands emoji x3
I don't think I will get tired of hearing what parts of my work resonates most and feels most useful to people!!!! 🙏
(I'm trying to lean more fully now into "internet argument discourse" as my thing because it feels easy/fun/effortless. I almost didn't write the one with apple & bee because it seemed too obvious to me, but it wasn't to a few people I asked. This is also why I kind of want to develop little quiz games to sort of gauge how good people are at predicting what types of replies fail and which succeeds, and getting better at internet discourse becomes a big game!)
Interesting take! I agree that intra-tribal criticism can be incredibly effective for growth and trust-building within a group, especially when it’s constructive and aimed at genuine improvement. Groups that can critique themselves thoughtfully often avoid blind spots and prevent echo chambers from taking root. And I agree—constructive internal feedback can make a group stronger, sharper, and more credible.
But I wonder if this approach always works as smoothly as you suggest. There are times when internal criticism, even well-intentioned, can backfire. For one, public intra-group critique might weaken a group’s cohesion or cause divisions if not handled carefully. In some contexts, it risks eroding trust among allies, as members feel scrutinized or under pressure to conform to particular criticisms.
Moreover, while internal critique can build strength, it can also create vulnerabilities. Opponents might exploit visible internal disagreements to portray the group as fractured or lacking in unity, undermining its public credibility. This happens frequently in politics, where intra-party critique sometimes plays directly into the hands of opponents.
Lastly, not all intra-tribal critiques are created equal. Some criticisms might focus too much on surface issues or personal grievances, which could distract from more urgent priorities. It seems like there’s a fine line between productive critique and undermining, and figuring out where that line is might require a lot of nuance and care.
In short, I think intra-tribal criticism is one that should be used with intention and awareness of its potential downsides. What do you think? Are there cases where internal criticism might do more harm than good?
> intra-tribal criticism is one that should be used with intention and awareness of its potential downsides
Yes, thank you Lane! You've inspired me to add a section to this article for cases where it DOES backfire.
I do agree that often it's better in private. The problem is that sometimes it is not possible to do in private. Kind of like how, if I work at Facebook and I have a problem, but no one is listening internally, I can whistleblow and talk to the media, _then_ it gets fixed. I think tribes have the same dynamic. Ideally there should be good internal mechanisms, and failing that, it might need to eject.
(I think there's a general principle here, if you're selling something, if you can include in what cases it does NOT work I trust it more. I want to do this with open source. I think open sourcing your code is generally a good idea, and if I can outline in what cases it might hurt you, I think I'll be able to spread my message further/convince more business people that it makes sense)
i think a great method of productive discussion would be to first ask what "camp" (on any issue) someone sees themselves as part of, how strongly they identify with it and perhaps what steers them away from the opposing camp... and then to follow up with "so what are your biggest criticisms of/disagreements with other people on your own side here?"
this weeds out any bad/unserious actors who answer "nothing! i agree with everything!", and for those who have a real answer (which is ANYONE who's ever seriously engaged with the broader conversation and variety of perspectives within their own side), it turns the conversation from often useless tribalism towards a more nuanced and informed account of the issues
the idea of asking what camp they're in is very big!!!! In practice this is difficult because people often want to say "I'm in the correct camp, the good guys". Their biggest criticism of the other side is "they are bad people. that's why I'm in the good camp"
these are the people who are least informed, so they are actually much easier to convince/nudge them towards learning something new. The trick for that is to first signal "I am on your side", even if you are not literally in their camp, but you DO share their base values (making the world a better place, wanting things to be more fair etc). This is the root of how they identify with their camp. They'll go with whatever policy their camp says is best, their affiliation is based on something deeper.
to put together some graphic representations of "dialogue trees" like this that you can use to encourage useful discussions on complex topics
we could test them out in the real world and come back and iterate/add unexpected responses to get a pretty comprehensive map of typical discussions !!
and this could be done wrt specific issues, OR in with a broader template that can be applied more generally!
yes!! we're very close to getting the infrastructure for that possible. Between copying tweets/exporting tweets, writing open source books, "discourse mapping" tools. We can totally do this KJ!! ground floor for something truly big here
I agree with you, but there is an element of social media that is performative, and often I feel people say things online not because they believe the message, but rather to spread the narrative. Criticizing your own side is good, but is best done in private. After all, even just spreading the knowledge that "your side" is "fractured", isn't the best advertisement, it spreads doubt to bystanders.
This makes it hard for it to be normalized. Even in the examples you shared, I wonder how much of that is simply to spread the narrative that "our side" has "reasonable" people.
> Criticizing your own side is good, but is best done in private
yes, I agree. This is what led me to tweet "maybe there should be a social media app that's private to US citizens" (everyone hated that 😅)
> just spreading the knowledge that "your side" is "fractured", isn't the best advertisement
yes, this is very important. I sort of try to hint at that with the fiction of OpenAI discussing the criticism internally, privately. I think the problem is that subcultures don't really have private places to discuss things, which I think is part of the problem. Any mention of your tribe's flaws can be weaponized. Best we have right now is layers of legibility, when you tweet something in Arabic, or in language that isn't very legible to outsiders.
> I wonder how much of that is simply to spread the narrative that "our side" has "reasonable" people
even this I think has value. it's hard to spread the narrative that our side is reasonable and listens to criticism without that having some actual effect on how people think. There's another layer of this where I think people avoid giving feedback to their friends (and instead just stop seeing them), which is not good. I want people to recognize that if we care about growing, if we care about winning, we need to find safe ways to give & receive feedback.
i just love what you're doing. i'm gonna sound like a broken record soon. i'm fine with that.
both the work you're putting in to gather up these examples and package this in such an easily consumable way, but also the depth of insight and the larger commitment that you obviously have, which this post is in service of. clap hands emoji x3
I don't think I will get tired of hearing what parts of my work resonates most and feels most useful to people!!!! 🙏
(I'm trying to lean more fully now into "internet argument discourse" as my thing because it feels easy/fun/effortless. I almost didn't write the one with apple & bee because it seemed too obvious to me, but it wasn't to a few people I asked. This is also why I kind of want to develop little quiz games to sort of gauge how good people are at predicting what types of replies fail and which succeeds, and getting better at internet discourse becomes a big game!)
Interesting take! I agree that intra-tribal criticism can be incredibly effective for growth and trust-building within a group, especially when it’s constructive and aimed at genuine improvement. Groups that can critique themselves thoughtfully often avoid blind spots and prevent echo chambers from taking root. And I agree—constructive internal feedback can make a group stronger, sharper, and more credible.
But I wonder if this approach always works as smoothly as you suggest. There are times when internal criticism, even well-intentioned, can backfire. For one, public intra-group critique might weaken a group’s cohesion or cause divisions if not handled carefully. In some contexts, it risks eroding trust among allies, as members feel scrutinized or under pressure to conform to particular criticisms.
Moreover, while internal critique can build strength, it can also create vulnerabilities. Opponents might exploit visible internal disagreements to portray the group as fractured or lacking in unity, undermining its public credibility. This happens frequently in politics, where intra-party critique sometimes plays directly into the hands of opponents.
Lastly, not all intra-tribal critiques are created equal. Some criticisms might focus too much on surface issues or personal grievances, which could distract from more urgent priorities. It seems like there’s a fine line between productive critique and undermining, and figuring out where that line is might require a lot of nuance and care.
In short, I think intra-tribal criticism is one that should be used with intention and awareness of its potential downsides. What do you think? Are there cases where internal criticism might do more harm than good?
> intra-tribal criticism is one that should be used with intention and awareness of its potential downsides
Yes, thank you Lane! You've inspired me to add a section to this article for cases where it DOES backfire.
I do agree that often it's better in private. The problem is that sometimes it is not possible to do in private. Kind of like how, if I work at Facebook and I have a problem, but no one is listening internally, I can whistleblow and talk to the media, _then_ it gets fixed. I think tribes have the same dynamic. Ideally there should be good internal mechanisms, and failing that, it might need to eject.
(I think there's a general principle here, if you're selling something, if you can include in what cases it does NOT work I trust it more. I want to do this with open source. I think open sourcing your code is generally a good idea, and if I can outline in what cases it might hurt you, I think I'll be able to spread my message further/convince more business people that it makes sense)
yess this is so good defender
i think a great method of productive discussion would be to first ask what "camp" (on any issue) someone sees themselves as part of, how strongly they identify with it and perhaps what steers them away from the opposing camp... and then to follow up with "so what are your biggest criticisms of/disagreements with other people on your own side here?"
this weeds out any bad/unserious actors who answer "nothing! i agree with everything!", and for those who have a real answer (which is ANYONE who's ever seriously engaged with the broader conversation and variety of perspectives within their own side), it turns the conversation from often useless tribalism towards a more nuanced and informed account of the issues
the idea of asking what camp they're in is very big!!!! In practice this is difficult because people often want to say "I'm in the correct camp, the good guys". Their biggest criticism of the other side is "they are bad people. that's why I'm in the good camp"
these are the people who are least informed, so they are actually much easier to convince/nudge them towards learning something new. The trick for that is to first signal "I am on your side", even if you are not literally in their camp, but you DO share their base values (making the world a better place, wanting things to be more fair etc). This is the root of how they identify with their camp. They'll go with whatever policy their camp says is best, their affiliation is based on something deeper.
you know what would be a really cool project?
to put together some graphic representations of "dialogue trees" like this that you can use to encourage useful discussions on complex topics
we could test them out in the real world and come back and iterate/add unexpected responses to get a pretty comprehensive map of typical discussions !!
and this could be done wrt specific issues, OR in with a broader template that can be applied more generally!
yes!! we're very close to getting the infrastructure for that possible. Between copying tweets/exporting tweets, writing open source books, "discourse mapping" tools. We can totally do this KJ!! ground floor for something truly big here
I agree with you, but there is an element of social media that is performative, and often I feel people say things online not because they believe the message, but rather to spread the narrative. Criticizing your own side is good, but is best done in private. After all, even just spreading the knowledge that "your side" is "fractured", isn't the best advertisement, it spreads doubt to bystanders.
This makes it hard for it to be normalized. Even in the examples you shared, I wonder how much of that is simply to spread the narrative that "our side" has "reasonable" people.
> Criticizing your own side is good, but is best done in private
yes, I agree. This is what led me to tweet "maybe there should be a social media app that's private to US citizens" (everyone hated that 😅)
> just spreading the knowledge that "your side" is "fractured", isn't the best advertisement
yes, this is very important. I sort of try to hint at that with the fiction of OpenAI discussing the criticism internally, privately. I think the problem is that subcultures don't really have private places to discuss things, which I think is part of the problem. Any mention of your tribe's flaws can be weaponized. Best we have right now is layers of legibility, when you tweet something in Arabic, or in language that isn't very legible to outsiders.
> I wonder how much of that is simply to spread the narrative that "our side" has "reasonable" people
even this I think has value. it's hard to spread the narrative that our side is reasonable and listens to criticism without that having some actual effect on how people think. There's another layer of this where I think people avoid giving feedback to their friends (and instead just stop seeing them), which is not good. I want people to recognize that if we care about growing, if we care about winning, we need to find safe ways to give & receive feedback.