The Dead Planet Theory
arealsociety.substack.com
The Dead Planet Theory
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Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#2One of my strongest recommendations to people on social networks is to engage down-thread. Talk to other people, not just the top post. Get beyond your glancing para-social relationship, and expand your Metcalfe-factor by commenting and liking other people's engagement.
Especially for new or young networks, a lot of people are truly starved for engagement & don't see the pattern of being engaged with. Engagement has to be bootstrapped, by people individually deciding to look through & find & engage with others who are putting themselves out there.
The opposite of the curve shown here is the "who is engaged with" curve. And it's like 0.3% of people (made up number) getting 99% of the engagement. It's a tyranny of popularity, and it legitimizes everyone elses dead quiet, their non-activity. We ought engage more robustly. Not just with the popular magnets.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#3> If I were to write a fictional story, and set this many characters of such magnitude in the same city at the same time, people would think the premise was absurd.
Heh, I chuckle because understanding the mechanics of what is happening in that anecdote one is one of the high-payoff learning curves the the article was talking about up to that point.
The dynamics of how a group makes decisions is not particularly intuitive and favours small knots of high-performing decision makers in a small geographical area. An interesting follow up observation is democracy actually leverages that really well in practice, but most people who notice get annoyed because they have a naive view that all the voters in a democratic polity are meant to have equal sway and impact in practice. The reality is the democratic process picks which tribe of decision makers gets control of the army and boots tribes when they descend into groupthink.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#4I loved this article!
It really is true that to reach the top in many fields requires surprisingly little effort. I don't consider myself particularly special, but there are two niche fields where I'm certain I'd rank among the top 1-5% in. All it really takes is consistent effort.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#5If you post a comment on hackernews, you're already in the top 5% of people who visit hackernews. If you attain enough karma to actually downvote other people, you will probably be in the top 1%.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#6Great article, really hits a little too close to home. Definitely gives me the little extra boost in the form of a reminder that acting is always better than not acting.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#7What a horrible way of looking at the world. Not everything needs to be a competition.
Sure, do what you get paid for or care about intentionally, but framing it as being in the "top x%" is just so off-putting. I don't want to constantly compare myself to others. I'd rather compare myself today to myself yesterday. Or, you know, just do things I enjoy because I enjoy them.
As for wanting influence, I can't relate at all. I just want sovereignty over my own life.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#8What a horrible way of looking at the world. Not everything needs to be a competition. Sure, do what you get paid for or care about intentionally, but framing it as being in the "top x%" is just so off-putting. I don't want to constantly compare myself to others. I'd rather compare myself today to myself yesterday. Or, you know, just do things I enjoy because I enjoy them. As for wanting influence, I can't relate at…
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Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#9If you post a comment on hackernews, you're already in the top 5% of people who visit hackernews. If you attain enough karma to actually downvote other people, you will probably be in the top 1%.
I comment a lot, mostly to acknowledge the lofty brilliance of some people. ( Like you ), but I do not know what my karma is or how to downvote, but no matter.
I have no idea what percentile I am in... I am absolutely sure someone is tracking/ranking it, because if I were actually training and AI, I would absolutely start at this large collection of bainiacs - but first I would ask permission, which I would guess would be politely declined.
The article itself is fairly mind blowing.
Re: The Dead Planet Theory
#10What a horrible way of looking at the world. Not everything needs to be a competition. Sure, do what you get paid for or care about intentionally, but framing it as being in the "top x%" is just so off-putting. I don't want to constantly compare myself to others. I'd rather compare myself today to myself yesterday. Or, you know, just do things I enjoy because I enjoy them. As for wanting influence, I can't relate at…
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of course it is, it is the premise of the article. The author compares and ranks the people who perform activities.