You know how it goes: you believe A, an antagonist believes B. You lock horns on some shouty digital platform or other and it quickly turns hostile. You speak across each other, neither giving an inch, opinions becoming more and more entrenched.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Social media may be destroying the art of argument, but social scientists in the US are doing experiments to see how it might be rescued. Amanda Ripley found out more.
In fact, this week’s Upside series is full of stories about Americans making the best of a bad situation.
In a week in which the supreme court whittled back still further the power and scope of organised labour, we found that, undeterred, more and more millennials are voting with their feet and joining unions.
And, at a time when there are more American amputees than ever before (two million and rising), Richard Sprenger investigated some remarkable new prosthetics technology that is redefining human capability.
Coming up on the Upside: can the moon provide our future energy needs? And a glorious look at how we support(ed) our teams in the World Cup. Bookmark the Upside page for your regular infusion of the good things going on in the world.
What we liked
Hats off to Buzzfeed and a cluster of partners for their initiative to try to crowdsource vital information about the children being held in US immigration detention facilities and shelters.
And good luck to the Zinc social business incubator, whose next mission seeks out entrepreneurs with ideas to revive places hard hit by globalisation and automation.
What we heard
Hilarious (or tragic?) that an article about trying to communicate reasonably is followed by so many comments justifying intransigence. Each camp thinks it’s got a monopoly on Truth - it’s incredible to read here how utterly sure so many are that they are ‘right’ and others are ‘wrong’. Enough to make you despair.
Commenter twerp writing below the line about polarised political conversation in the US.
Where was the Upside?
In north London, where a teacher, Andria Zafirakou, devoted a $1m global teaching prize to setting up a new charity to get more artists and arts organisations into British schools.
