When I started blogging, early on, I had a different system for discourse.

Here's how it worked:

1. First each post would go out via email to a group of eleven people. I was cc'd.

2. The group was randomly chosen each time, so you might not know anyone in your group, or you might know two or three. Each time it's a different group.

3. You could reply to my post by just replying to the email. You can do a reply-all so that everyone in the group sees your comment. I would see all of them.

4. Sometimes a really interesting discussion would start that lasted days. But I can't say that anyone got married because of the groups-of-eleven. ;-)

5. If I saw a message that had a new idea or perspective, I could add it to a mail page.

6. Being quoted in this system is a reward, not an obligation. Important distinction. If people wanted to be heard they had to say something interesting, somewhat original and respectful. But the hope is people don't just contribute to get more attention for themselves, they do it because they really have an idea or information to share that amounted to working together.

Anyway that's the story I wanted to tell in the podcast. I also explain how this will apply to today's internet, your reply will have to be public in addition to me seeing it, everyone who reads your blog will have a chance to read it too. And it will be indexed by search engines. I think people feel a little more respectful when their words clearly have their name on it and some lasting value.

I ramble a lot as in all my podcasts, sorry about that -- but if you listen to this 15-minute story at the end you will understand what I propose to build, and I think you'll be excited by the potential. And most important, I want us all to get out of the loop where we assume that the way we do discourse now is the only way to do it. Let's try out new ideas until we hit on something different that works better than what we've always used. I have a feeling there's a pony in there, or at least a milk shake.

There is a transcript, generated by Google, and bullet points generated by ChatGPT.