One of the promises of the Internet, and blogging in particular, is that it will lead to stunning intellectual debate and all will walk away from the table with a full belly of wisdom. Others have scoffed and said that there’s a whole lot of crap being discussed at the table. Others, like Cass Sunstein, say that the conversation is very one-sided and simplistic.

Brad deLong asks, "Why are there so few gold-standard high-quality internet
intellectual communities around? And are there others of equally high
and consistent quality of which I am unaware?"

He points to Unfogged and Making Light as two blogs that have high level chats, and pulls out a nice comment from Doug on this blog.

So, where else are the smart people hanging out?