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The Fake Social Binary

brennenputh.me

20 pointsbagatelle7 comments

Clay Shirky: A group is it's own worst enemy

https://gwern.net/doc/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisitsownw...

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely be following this rabbit hole a little bit, I did some previous research but didn't find this whole section of the internet.

That was a good read and it resonated with me from personal experience. Often the groups I was in were fragmented or I'd be suddenly invited into a second group with someone else removed. Glad it wasn't me, would have been too hard on me to realize I'm suddenly alone in a ghost group.

I wonder what the cut-offs are for "group is too small" and "group is too large", but that certainly depends on the subject the group is about. A philosophy book reading group probably doesn't work well with the bestselling crime novel audience.

I've thought a good bit about the "too large" side (author here under a different name). The magic rule for me has been to consider whether each member actually has a function within the community, in the sense that they contribute something unique to the group which is not contributed by anyone else, and for which the community would be hurt if they aren't there. The idea was originally put into my head by C.S. Lewis, in his work on Membership: "If you subtract any one member, you have not simply reduced the family in number; you have inflicted an injury on its structure. Its unity is a unity of unlikes, almost of incommensurables." E.g. if you were to remove a random poster from HN, it wouldn't affect anything much at all, because they end up a number. However, if you were to remove dang, their presence would be missed because they contribute to the uniqueness of HN's community in some way. IMO, if the group doesn't pass this test, you haven't actually found the real community yet.

Of course, all of this is quickly-written thoughts for a HN post. Maybe at some point I'll edit them down and post them properly, but I need to discuss it with more people so I'm sure my thoughts actually strike reality.

Hey thanks for noticing and replying! I approve of your point to curate the members, this is exactly what a friend told me after linking him your post. Fittingly he posted an image of Machiavelli under his reply and I told him I don't see it in such a controlling way.

Thinking more about it, you see this both in forums and IRL: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths (Minus the trolling aspect as in groups there is no anonymity as in a forum.)

Often rich people associate only with people of equal wealth in cigar lounges or country and golf clubs. It's to be expected many hidden filters apply to online and messaging culture as well. Your C.S. Lewis quote and idea of how this applies even to HN is very positive. Indeed I only could reply because I saw your article at the right time in my feed and happened to be online and browsing entries.

In the past I liked to read a lot of Scott Alexander Siskind, SSC/ACX and LessWrong, even if often disagreeing with some points. Don't be afraid to be wrong when blogging. It is an iterative process and to be honest, I would like a blogger who does a review of his old posts after a year and write where their opinions changed. Not in full, but selecting a few opinions that got refined over time. And don't fear your audience being small. Often I vote up content because it is different or prompted me to self-reflect.

Thanks for the kind words - I appreciate it!

This is by far the most pretentious thing I’ve read all week.

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