In an era where online discourse often falls into echo chambers, r/ChangeMyView (CMV) offers a refreshing, if somewhat abrasive, alternative. This subreddit invites users to post strong opinions and encourages others to challenge them, ideally with respect, tact, and with the goal of growth. The result is a model of civil disagreement that promotes critical thinking and builds knowledge through dialogue.
While traditional hive minds tend to promote consensus, CMV is designed for disagreement. It leverages collective intelligence to sharpen and refine ideas through disagreement as opposed to reinforcing shared beliefs. In this model, learning doesn't come from conformity. Instead, it is born from the collaborative process of questioning and rethinking.
I believe that higher education can borrow from this structure to improve online and in-person classroom discussions, which sadly often fail to spark meaningful engagement. Rather than asking students to simply share opinions, educators can design prompts that ask students to take a position and explicitly invite challenges. Peer responses would be guided by civility and, above all, evidence-based reasoning. By adopting this approach, educators can turn passive discussion boards into spaces for active, collaborative learning. The class can leverage their disagreements and build new knowledge and opinions from it, compelling students to think deeper and engage with more complexity than they otherwise would.
Hi Adam,
ReplyDeleteI'll have to check out r/changemyview posts in the future. I actually came acrosss the subreddit recently because of a controversial AI experiment that researchers at the University of Zurich conducted without informed consent. https://www.science.org/content/article/unethical-ai-research-reddit-under-fire
The researchers were using AI to see how effective it was at engaging users and changing opinions. They made 34 fake accounts and 1500+ AI-generated posts. The preliminary results seemed to indicate that users perceived AI-generated posts to be more effective and were better-received by posters. At the same time, this research was unethical. "People have a reasonable expectation to not be in scientific experiments without their consent,” says Casey Fiesler, an expert on internet research ethics.
I wonder how the community will react and what rules they will add to try to discourage this kind of research. It's unfortunate that such an amazing tool would be sabotaged for AI experiments.
I really appreciate your focus on how r/ChangeMyView flips the script on typical online echo chambers. You're right, most online spaces default to consensus or conflict without much middle ground, but CMV encourages disagreement with purpose, which is such a valuable model.
ReplyDeleteYour idea to bring that into higher education feels both practical and timely. I especially like your suggestion that prompts should invite challenges, not just responses. That subtle shift in framing could encourage students to not only defend their ideas, but also see disagreement as an opportunity for growth, rather than a threat.
One potential challenge I see is that not all students are immediately comfortable with disagreement, especially in graded settings. I wonder how instructors could scaffold this kind of dialogue early on, maybe through anonymous response options, low-stakes practice rounds, or modeling what respectful, evidence-based disagreement looks like?
Overall, I think your point, that disagreement can be a catalyst for learning, not a barrier, is a powerful reminder of what educational spaces should be aiming for.