I have a long-term vision for Hubski. That vision is centered upon the conviction that thoughtful interaction is something valuable for a significant amount of people, and that facilitating that interaction results in interesting things.

Thoughtful interaction means book exchange?

Honestly, the system of the site, as it is right now, doesn't encourage much "thought" at all. People naturally lean towards ideas of their own, and the way the following system works, the fact that it is incredibly easy, not only to not see what someone else says, but to ensure they cannot comment on your post, censoring them from the larger audience, encourages everyone to rabidly ensure that they say nothing at all which could result in being muted.

The submissions are nearly all shitty link posts, and the only real comments that get discussion are ones where the topics are "pubski' or similar, clearly showing that this site is more a "hangout" for a select group of people who like each other than a site on which ideas can appear, and be truly discussed in full.

Maybe if "thoughtful" means "friendly" I can see your goal, but as it is, this site is little improved over something like facebook in it's early days. A gathering place for well-educated, tech-oriented people. Nothing baked into hubski encourages thoughtful discussion.

Thoughtful discussion requires a much more complex system that allows users to have open and honest discussion, it requires a system where mob-groups or users with a ton of followers do not have disproportional control over what is seen by the site. This site is not that.