Your Life is Driven by Network Effects

[theanimal]

Recommended- https://www.nfx.com/post/your-life-network-effects

The author details how 6 different networks determine the course of most of your life.
-Family
-High School
-College
-Marriage
-First Job
-Where you live

The most lasting and effective way to change your life is to change who you’re surrounded by. Since networks so powerfully shape who we are and what we do, the best way to change ourselves is to change our networks.

This is a big limitation at the way we look at self-development and self-transformation. We think we can just roll out of bed one day, make a few new year’s resolutions, and become a new person. But this approach ignores the biggest part in the equation of who you are and what defines your life — the network force.

[daylen]

Only if those networks define what a life is. Such a definition is implicit in modern society. Kegan3 follows this definition; Kegan4 redefines it with respect to a particular sub-culture or ideology; Kegan5 translates between redefinitions.

In other words, your life is whatever you want it to be after passing through four filters:

4. Can it co-exist with an abstract system? (based on norms in an environment as perceived by the self)
3. Can it co-exist with socially implied norms? (in an environment as perceived by the self)
2. Can it co-exist with the environment? (as perceived by the self)
1. Can it co-exist with the self?

[HalfCent]

x

[theanimal]

Yes, but the obvious isn't always acknowledged. Given how few people in the world think of their life as a system, I'd say thinking in this manner is useful. At least for me, it hasn't become apparent until recently. I lived in an extremely remote setting and suffered mentally from lack of community. It took me quite a while to disengage from the identity that I had created in my mind and address the real network problem. And in my current locale, I am choosing to live in a place with very poor dating prospects valuing other parts of the network. I've found this thinking useful in allowing me where I can properly place my attention when addressing gaps in my life.

@daylen- I disagree with your premise. I think that your networks shape how you come to those questions and how you answer them.

[daylen]

@daylen- I disagree with your premise. I think that your networks shape how you come to those questions and how you answer them.

I do not disagree with that in principle. Appears you are disagreeing with the degree implied by my post as opposed to the model. This is similar to how innate personality at K1 and the environment at K2 influence how you signal norms at K3 or generate a grammar at K4.

My point is that if that is all you see then of course that is all you see yourself and others as. This does not necessarily need to be case. Just as your personality or environment does not need to be all you are. I have talked extensively in the past about how I think personality or innate self at K1 heavily constrains the life of an agent (same concept in this model at a different level). The model itself would not make sense if the lower levels did not constrain higher levels. So without the higher levels, there are less degrees of freedom and this completely determines the probability space from which samples are drawn to validate questions of degree.

[daylen]

In Plato's cave, an observer remembers that everyone always has a single shadow (except an agent that left for good and claimed to have several), therefore the observer concludes that people with multiple shadows are an improbability (if a Bayesian) or an impossibility (if a Frequentist) until the observer leaves the cave too.

[Ego]

I'd say thinking in this manner is useful. At least for me, it hasn't become apparent until recently. I lived in an extremely remote setting and suffered mentally from lack of community. It took me quite a while to disengage from the identity that I had created in my mind and address the real network problem.

I agree. Staying then going for long stretches makes me acutely aware of the influence my current network has on me.

Hat tip to Kevin Kelly for the idea that they are not only influential on who we are, they provide the structure of the self, the outlines of the emergent properties resulting from all the influences that have shaped us over the course of our lives.

I Am a Strange Loop https://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop- ... 0465030793
Short Video: You are a Strange Loop: https://youtu.be/hQsnHkfs3sA

[7Wannabe5]

I would suggest that the level of the article must be 4 looking back at 3, because the author is making the argument that once you get to the point of maturity where you are choosing your own social networks, you may gain the perspective to recognize their very important role in your self-authoring task.

That said, I would also note that the 6 different networks listed are all likely to be formed by the time a human has achieved the age of 30. So, by the time you are on your first grandchild, second divorce, 3rd career, 4th midlife crisis, fifth house... MMV.

I am reading "The Way Home" by Mark Boyle and he writes:

My life is my life, and it's prone to the same contradiction, complexity, compromise, confusion and conflict as the next person's. My ideals are often one step ahead of my ability to fully embody them, and that is no bad thing; in fact, as we will see later on, I wonder if hypocrisy might be the highest ideal of all.

I believe this might be a Level 4 towards Level 5 sort of thought. As applied to social networks, it might be described as the ability to hold the perspective that your self-authored choice of social network does not preclude the existence/value of other social networks. For instance, in Boyle's case, his ability to simultaneously hold the ideology of veganism/animal rights which he subscribed to in his late 20s with his current rural, low technology reality in which he finds himself feeling vital while drinking fresh animal blood.

[Stahlmann]

-Family
-High School
-College
-First Job
-Where you live

rich people (here: author of the article) is simply understanding his privilege.... smart guy indeed :-DDDDD

[theanimal]

My point is that if that is all you see then of course that is all you see yourself and others as. This does not necessarily need to be case. Just as your personality or environment does not need to be all you are. I have talked extensively in the past about how I think personality or innate self at K1 heavily constrains the life of an agent (same concept in this model at a different level). The model itself would not make sense if the lower levels did not constrain higher levels. So without the higher levels, there are less degrees of freedom and this completely determines the probability space from which samples are drawn to validate questions of degree.

I don't think I disagree with what you're saying. I'm not saying that networks define explicitly who you are, only that they have a strong influence on who you are and who you can be. Some of the networks have stronger effects earlier in life and some have effects throughout. Take location for example. Imagine you were living in a low populated area outside the US without internet access and still had the same interests. You would not be able to pursue what you research or communicate to those who have the same level of interest in those ideas as you do now. You'd be a different version of yourself.

[Campitor]

I think the list of external pressures (Family, High School, etc.) obviously has an effect but only to the degree that the person within the "Matrix" remains unaware and incurious. And perhaps IQ has some bearing here as well. An educated/curious person intent on self actualization will see or feel that something is wrong within the Matrix and choose the red pill. At a certain point education, logic, wisdom, and self reflection allow you to see reality as it is as opposed to what group-think believes it to be. The crux of the issue is the effort people put into gaining knowledge and wisdom as opposed to being satisfied with what's taught to them regardless of the obvious flaws in logic.

I remember challenging a college professor when he said humans are incapable of abstraction and therefore need to be taught how to think abstractly - this was in reference to Native Americans who were less advanced in mathematics than Europeans (I guess he never heard of Mayan mathematics and their concept of zero) . I asked him how did the 1st person learn to think about abstract concepts? Certainly someone had to give genesis to the concept of zero otherwise you're left with the classic chicken/egg scenario. The professor's response was pretty hostile. He never answered my question either. The Matrix is all around us and it's certainly true that it's other humans that are trying to keep us in the Matrix. But that doesn't mean the Matrix has to control you.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle.

[7Wannabe5]

@Campitor:

I think part of what you are suggesting is due to the fact that for many "nerds" the first network they are free to create while still children is their independent choice of books and similar materials. Humans who don't read and those who only read the assigned texts and/or best-sellers and those who get stuck on "one book" do not benefit or feel as influenced by this alternative network. Because I am still sometimes guilty of Level 2 anti-social behavior, the words "Why don't you actually read a book first and then get back to me on that?!" have on occasion slipped from my lips when engaged in debate with garden variety grouchy old man. Cruel, but effective.

[jennypenny]

@theanimal -- Did you ever read Success and Luck? That book also touched on the subject. (did I mail that one to you? I can't remember)

I feel like this subject is another form of the 'capital' aspect of ERE. I'd include intelligence, network effects, luck/serendipity, and hard work in the model in a 'the less you have of some, the more you rely on the others' kind of way.

[theanimal]

@JP- I can't remember either. I don't see it on my bookshelf but perhaps I have it elsewhere. I think I've read at least some of it. I'll take a look at it again.

[fiby41]

Birds of a feather flock together is when people intentionally create such networks. This flies in the face of the presumption that a moat is required to succeed in bussiness. Examples are streets lined with shops in the same niche/industry. Perhaps you may have seen restaurants, I've seen granite and marble flooring shops, there is no way all of them can survive long enough to form such a cluster without undercutting each other unless they have formed a pact/syndicate. The benefit must be they can increase the variety on offer, so when someone wants their bathroom walls laminated they equivocally come to this street.
https://youtu.be/50vRNNGqlp4

[Toska2]

This is saying nurture after nature. Nice to tie it together but kinda intuitive. The counter debate would be Outliers.

I would be interested in some psychology behind personality types and the strength of network bonds.

My networks seem to be like a spider on lsd, spoked with few links between. Which is diametrically opposed to my family.