BLOCKED

Several days ago I was blocked on Medium. Just the one word “BLOCKED”. There was a prompt to get more information, which I promptly hit and I could not make heads nor tails from the information provided. I was interested in who blocked me and why. How am I to proceed in Medium if I have no information as to my transgressions? I asked for some help from the suggestion box in the home page but nothing has been received. I am writing this from memory as no evidence of any of the authors stories are available to me anymore and all of the blocking info has also disappeared. Blocking all of the authors past, present and future stories seems a bit petty and harsh. If they want me to not comment on his stories just cut off that avenue. I was interested enough to respond to his story and I would like to read more. I might learn something.

A little background. I read a story in Medium and had an opinion opposite to the one presented. I started by saying I thought the author was misled and I continued to present evidence from my own life which contradicted the hypothesis the author presented. No cursing, no verbal harassment, just my side of the discussion.

I have always believed that progress is achieved when reasonable people can have differing views and discuss there differences. I sincerely believe I posted a reasonable response and I was looking forward to further discussion. Most comment sites are full of crazy stuff and I avoid them when possible. I was a commentator on a middle of the road scientific site containing many scientists well known in the field and the media. It received strong support when it opened, however as the site was living up to its middle of the road approach as scientists went back and forth interest dwindled and the site has gone comatose. This suggests that everything is so polarized that the middle doesn’t hardly exist. There are two sides to every story and most answers end up somewhere in the middle and I hope we are not evolving into total polarization. If everyone is sitting on opposites ends of the see-saw it will break.

If Medium is not interested in reasonable people having spirited discussions I will move on and look for stimulation elsewhere.