Alan Kim complains about the lack of face-to-face conversation. 

We do have a lot of that during election season. Candidates debate each other on all these topics. 

What we do not have is a good system of fact-checking. Many lies and half-truths are circulated during the season and none of it is ever really dealt with in the news media. 

As a result none of this discussion continues during the rest of the time in office because candidates do not want to deal with correcting their opponents attacks in public. 

It's really up to the news media to encourage more discussion by investigating the truth of many issues in public.