I think reasonwell does not understand why Github and Stack Overflow work so well. The reasons do not apply to politics.
1) They are relatively value neutral.
2) You can usually get immediate objective feedback about either the repository or the answer. You can try it out yourself, without affecting anybody else and see what happens. If you try a github repository and it always crashes, you know that this is something that is not good.
The reason they work so well is for the above reasons, not because "nerds" are so logic bound. If you don't believe me, imagine what a StackOverflow question of "Is vi or emacs better?" look like". If "nerds" can't decide that question, when either answer will have not affect on them personally - both programs are free and the person is free to use whatever software they want, how will people decide about issues that are at least as complicated but will also affect them personally. They use the example of a carbon tax. If you are for it, then you believe that opposing it will destroy the world. If you are against it, you believe it is government forcibly taking money away from you.
I think that the best way for people to really consider the issue is to have broad friendships in the real world. When debating something over the internet, it frequently devolves into one-upmanship or worse rather than people really learning. If however, you and your buddy and talking about something over a beer while hanging out, even if you have different views, you will likely learn something. More importantly, you will not have fallen into the trap of viewing everyone with a different view as your enemy.
The reason they work so well is for the above reasons, not because "nerds" are so logic bound. If you don't believe me, imagine what a StackOverflow question of "Is vi or emacs better?" look like". If "nerds" can't decide that question, when either answer will have not affect on them personally - both programs are free and the person is free to use whatever software they want, how will people decide about issues that are at least as complicated but will also affect them personally. They use the example of a carbon tax. If you are for it, then you believe that opposing it will destroy the world. If you are against it, you believe it is government forcibly taking money away from you.
I think that the best way for people to really consider the issue is to have broad friendships in the real world. When debating something over the internet, it frequently devolves into one-upmanship or worse rather than people really learning. If however, you and your buddy and talking about something over a beer while hanging out, even if you have different views, you will likely learn something. More importantly, you will not have fallen into the trap of viewing everyone with a different view as your enemy.