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Communities are not fungible

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: Communities are not fungible

#61

Post by piffey »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #57

After reading this I wonder if ifMud has survived 29 years because we use a modified perlMud that has an IRC-like channel communication system. We’re not beholden to any commercial service and the mud is self-hosted by the community (generally the IFTF - IF Technology Foundation). No one could disrupt our community the way Discord or Reddit might.

First time hearing about ifMud despite being someone who spent a lot of time on MUDs and MUSHs in the past, hacking on various ones. Seems like a neat community and would love to hear more about it.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#62

Post by kijin »

glroyal wrote: post #42

Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. Because humans are mobile, the community changes as people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries come and go over time. Even if a substantial fraction of the population never leaves the geographic boundaries that contain the community they were born in, their web of relationships constantly changes as old neighbors leave and new neighbors arrive,…

An unchanging community is a dead community, period.

Attempts to "preserve" a community, both online and offline, tend to end up preserving unhealthy power dynamics within the community as well, which would have been slowly replaced with something else if you had just let the community evolve (or disappear) naturally.

Often, members of the community who benefit from the status quo are the ones who cry the loudest for such preservation.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#63

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

kijin wrote: post #62
glroyal wrote: post #42

Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. Because humans are mobile, the community changes as people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries come and go over time. Even if a substantial fraction of the population never leaves the geographic boundaries that contain the community they were born in, their web of relationships constantly changes as old neighbors leave and new neighbors arrive,…

An unchanging community is a dead community, period. Attempts to "preserve" a community, both online and offline, tend to end up preserving unhealthy power dynamics within the community as well, which would have been slowly replaced with something else if you had just let the community evolve (or disappear) naturally. Often, members of the community who benefit from the status quo are the ones who cry the loudest for…

NIMBYs

Re: Communities are not fungible

#64

Post by esafak »

talkingtab wrote: post #56

When we think about communities we need an effective model of what they are and how they operate. What then is an effective model for a community? In "Twitter And Teargas", Zeynep Tufecki argued that the community afforded by Twitter was unable to effect long term, substantial change and therefore Arab Spring is now a footnote. Twitter affords flash mobs. That concept - affordance - provides a hint for a model of com…

Twitter is organized around tags, which are all right, I suppose. It's greatest weakness that it is rooted in short messages -- sound bites -- which are not conducive to reasoned debate. Though they removed that technical limitation, the culture was solidified at that point.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#65

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

talkingtab wrote: post #56

When we think about communities we need an effective model of what they are and how they operate. What then is an effective model for a community? In "Twitter And Teargas", Zeynep Tufecki argued that the community afforded by Twitter was unable to effect long term, substantial change and therefore Arab Spring is now a footnote. Twitter affords flash mobs. That concept - affordance - provides a hint for a model of com…

> What is the most effective way to get rid of ants? To destroy their ability to use a pheromone trail. Perhaps we could just put advertising in it?

I'm taking this analogy for myself :)

> what kind of social system would afford long term substantial change?

In my experience over the last year, these things are true...

First, in-person interaction is strictly better than digital. You can meet lots of people digitally and talk to them in bed, but _interacting_ with a given person face-to-face means you can do any digital interaction, plus have very high-bandwidth communication, and also share papers. (I love paper. It's not obsolete if you know what a Pareto frontier is.) This is something that many people understand intuitively but it took me a while to quantify it.

Second, digital (text) communication affords bickering. In the best case, if I'm DMing a friend and we disagree about some political point, it will make the conversation awkward. If I'm in a big group chat, it can drag people into a dogpile. It's an emotional drain and nobody really likes it. And it doesn't happen nearly as much in person. Even with the exact same people. Even I am nicer and more patient in person. And being able to physically leave and see someone later is a nice option that digital spaces (even Signal) don't afford. They only understand permanent blocks and not just "Tell me your dumb take another time."

Third, you can just say "I'm trying to build community and make friends, can I introduce you to some people you might like?" and in the right context and framing, it can sort of work. I am still learning this skill.

Fourth, and I almost forgot - A _huge_ amount of nonverbal communication comes down to trust and respect, especially respecting other people's time. Did you call a 50-person meeting where 1 person is yammering about some bikeshed bullshit? Everyone hates that. Are you talking to someone one-on-one but they still won't give you a turn or ask you anything about yourself? They might be a good person but they're gonna be hard to get along with if they keep that up. Did you send someone a blog post that takes 5 minutes to read? And they didn't ask for it? They aren't gonna read it. I wouldn't read it. You would have more luck reading it out loud to them in person because it shows that you are both respecting each other's time. Otherwise you are assigning homework and asking their attention without paying your attention to them. I can't name a person who likes that.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#67

Post by jmcgough »

glroyal wrote: post #42

Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. Because humans are mobile, the community changes as people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries come and go over time. Even if a substantial fraction of the population never leaves the geographic boundaries that contain the community they were born in, their web of relationships constantly changes as old neighbors leave and new neighbors arrive,…

Nowhere in the article does it say that communities can't change. Communities are living, breathing organisms.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#68

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

talkingtab wrote: post #56

When we think about communities we need an effective model of what they are and how they operate. What then is an effective model for a community? In "Twitter And Teargas", Zeynep Tufecki argued that the community afforded by Twitter was unable to effect long term, substantial change and therefore Arab Spring is now a footnote. Twitter affords flash mobs. That concept - affordance - provides a hint for a model of com…

> Another insight (corollary?) for Sapir-Whorf is that your language prevents you from thinking some things

Last time I looked, Sapir-Whorf is almost universally discredited among linguists and cognitive scientists.

The wikipedia summary:

"The hypothesis is in dispute, with many different variations throughout its history. The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and restrict cognitive categories. This was a claim by some earlier linguists pre-World War II since then it has fallen out of acceptance by contemporary linguists. Nevertheless, research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting a weaker version of linguistic relativity that a language's structures influence a speaker's perceptions, without strictly limiting or obstructing them. "

Re: Communities are not fungible

#69

Post by supern0va »

glroyal wrote: post #42

Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent. Because humans are mobile, the community changes as people, institutions, infrastructure, and industries come and go over time. Even if a substantial fraction of the population never leaves the geographic boundaries that contain the community they were born in, their web of relationships constantly changes as old neighbors leave and new neighbors arrive,…

>Communities are not fungible, but they are also not permanent.

The same is true of individual humans. And yet, that is not a great argument for killing them.

Re: Communities are not fungible

#70

Post by talkingtab »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #68
talkingtab wrote: post #56

When we think about communities we need an effective model of what they are and how they operate. What then is an effective model for a community? In "Twitter And Teargas", Zeynep Tufecki argued that the community afforded by Twitter was unable to effect long term, substantial change and therefore Arab Spring is now a footnote. Twitter affords flash mobs. That concept - affordance - provides a hint for a model of com…

> Another insight (corollary?) for Sapir-Whorf is that your language prevents you from thinking some things Last time I looked, Sapir-Whorf is almost universally discredited among linguists and cognitive scientists. The wikipedia summary: "The hypothesis is in dispute, with many different variations throughout its history. The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is t…

It does not matter if a hypothesis is discredited if it helps you build an effective model that works. If you use a discredited hypothesis to make bread and make a great tasting and edible bread, then the hypothesis has value. Even if it is "wrong". Because it works.

Here are some question for you: can you think of any things you cannot think of in your language? Hints. Beethoven, Van Gogh, 7. Can a democracy evolve from FaceBook? What kind of political system can evolve from FaceBook? Is there a language for Democracies? The important thing is not the answer, but the thinking.

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