Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

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AxelHeyst
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Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AxelHeyst »

The dark net is just private areas of the internet, like slack, Signal, and Discord. The clearnet is any part of the internet anyone can find, like this forum. The danger of people splintering off into ERE darknets is that they neglect the hub, the forum, and it's possible the forum could suffer and even go dormant if enough people ghost into the darknet.
jacob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:49 am
Yes, the network effect is real. As more and more people and conversations disappear into discord and slack, the main forum gets chopped up and its activity decreases exponentially. Perhaps this [dark forest of the internet] is the way of the future. However, once the attrition on the "main forum" becomes too large, it's going to be hard to form new MMGs, because there will be no one around.

Individual groups setting up dark subforums was an unintended side-effect of the MMG strategy. The idea was that zoom meetings would connect people better than "words on a screen". This would lead to more conversation and thus more activity on the main forum leading to even more MMGs. Instead things went the other way---with the same people being members of multiple MMGs. The problem with the dark conversations is that very few bother to replicate a parallel conversation on the main forum ... and so even if someone bothers to write a summary (also rare), the rest of the population doesn't benefit from the conversation.

As the guy running the main forum, this is a me-problem, but it will eventually become an us-problem, when the "effective group size" of the main forum also drops under 6-10.
The most I've done about the problem to date is acknowledge it, and communicate some reminders to not neglect posting on the forum. But I don't even follow my own hand-wavey reminders very well. I bet we can design some ways of running MMGs that reverse the darknet effect, and in fact boost/improve the function of the home forum.

The (well, my) vision is that MMGs function as spaces where small cohorts/crews can come together and forge tighter bonds than are possible on the home forum. These tight-bonded crews both improve the function of the individuals (via the mechanism of social proof, encouragement, accountability, etc), but the unit of the crew becomes a thing (holon) that has certain attributes. Currently, all members of MMGs interact with the forum as individuals. Can we design practices that allow the MMG holon to interact with the main forum? Can the main forum spawn crews that take some time to spin up crew/unit coherence that can then feed back into the forum?

I had some specific ideas for ways my MMG can design increased engagement with the forum into our MMG practice.

1. Bias midweek checkins to journals.
Every Wednesday I send out a reminder on our Signal group to check in on how we're doing with our projects and ERE journey. Most of our updates are perfectly appropriate to post to our journals. The new practice can be: write up your mid-week checkin in your journal, post the link to the MMG Signal channel, and then add any private/darknet stuff.

2. MMG 'sponsored' threads.
We've now done two book club rounds, Mark Boyle and Surviving the Future. We made a signal channel to discuss the books. I don't see why it wouldn't be just as good to run a thread instead of a dark channel for that. Anyone on the forum can contribute, but the idea of a 'sponsored' thread is the sponsoring MMG chose the topic privately, and has some level of ownership over running and maintaining the thread.

A sponsored thread could be on a book, a general topic, anything the group decides. We just finished our last topic, maybe we'll give this a go for our next topic.

3. MMG swarms/Flashmob
This could be an informal ability MMGs have. If someone in the crew sees a thread where something interesting is going on, or that could use a boost, the group could call a swarm on it: the intent by members of the group to all check out that thread and contribute any way they can. (This is sort of like a schwerpunkt maneuver, find a place to concentrate the full intensity and unit coherence of the MMG holon to inject a boost into that thread).

----

MMGs should be complementary to the forum. Reproducing a very text-heavy space is a lot of overlap/redundancy to the forum. Some of it is good: making lighter and more social-focused posts on our dark channels is valuable, and so is a place to be able to discuss sensitive/private issues that we only trust our cohorts with (or rather, don't feel comfortable airing on the clearnet).

Any other ideas/thoughts on this?

jacob
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

The network effect explains why "duplicating" space is so destructive. A simple primer for the network effect is best given by example. Imagine a group of 5 people who each have an unsolved question. There is a potential of up to 4 people who can answer it and develop a thread around it. This means that in a group of 5, there are 5*4/2 = 10 potential threads to be had. In reality there are less because not everybody has an answer. Lets say the multiplier is 20%, that is, one in five will bother to answer/engage. This reduces it to 2 potential threads.

Likewise in a group of 3, there are 3*2/2 = 3 potential threads which reduce to 0.6 threads.. And this is why a group can become too small to be viable.

Now, if we take something the size of the ERE forum where there were about 20 different active people, it would result in 20*19/2*0.2=38 active threads. These numbers are reasonable so that used to be the number of active daily threads in 2018.

However, now lets say some go dark and the number of active public participants is reduced to 10, while two 8 person MMGs are formed which also have 8 each because some lurkers came out of the woodworks.

There are more people: 10+8+8 = 26.

However, the thread number, that is the actual information exchange is now: 10*9/2*0.2 + 2*8*7/2*0.2 = 20.2 threads.

That is, it's cut in half.

No matter how you play around with the engagement factor (the 20%), splitting up and retreating into smaller groups reduces the total conversation, because the network effect crushes every other parameter.

It could argued that people are more willing to share/talk, when conversations are dark. However, it can also be argued that people are less willing to respond when conversations are dark because what's the point if the likelihood of a response is that much lower due to the reduced group size. (For example, if you ask me a complicated question via email or PM, I'm unlikely to dedicate very many brain cycles to the response compared to asking in a venue where more people could benefit.)

What I do know is that people are unlikely to duplicate the same conversation simultaneously in two different spaces. Thus, the more potential spaces to do the same thing (like write replies), the less likely the conversation is to go anywhere. This is the divide&conquer death of the whole due to the desire to split it into small groups.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

Insofar the darknet side of ERE becomes so dominant that conversation on the main ERE forum dies out, the darknet side will eventually die as well.

The clearnet side of the ERE forum basically survives on "panta rei". People come and learn and eventually leave again. What makes people come is the ongoing conversation of those who are currently around and leave a trail. (This is also why the account deletion debacle was highly destructive to the next generation of EREmites and why it sucked so much.)

Currently the darknet side can capitalize on the information and goodwill of the clearnet side. These are good people. I know them. I'm willing to go on a zoom meeting with them. Because I know them from the clearnet conversations. Come join my MMG!

However, when and if the public conversation eventually goes dormant, this potential will end, and it will no longer be possible to form new MMGs because there will no longer be a group of potential people to ask to join MMGs. (Try repeating this exercise on craigslist and see where you end up ;-P )

This is my main concern. It's conceivable that the eventual death of the ERE forum is a good thing. Afterall, it could be that the ERE forums were but a transition method to the next thing. For my part, it'll require me to find something else to do and that might be good too. I'll entertain the thought that the world needs to transition back away from public social conversation. I'm not completely convinced about either though. What I do know is that the increasing popularity of going dark is hurting the ability to have interesting threads on the forum. It's already happening and I can see where it is converging.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

All this doesn't really affect the current generation of forumites; at least not those who have already made good connections or developed their online goodwill. We'll survive. It's hugely important to the next generation though.

I think the thing to consider is (and this is something I consider and something I would like to ask the forum about)... how and to what degree would it be problem if the ERE forum went permanently offline tomorrow or next year?

What would you all do if I said the ERE forum would end---most likely it would be frozen in place/achieved---on 20231231?

(I should note that I actually don't know the answer to all these questions. I'm putting out feelers. I'm trying to get a sense of where this is going. I'm willing to try different things going forward. I suspect humanity is moving towards new social constructs. But I'm not sure about which way, who, and how.)

WFJ
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by WFJ »

Random thoughts... It appears forums fall victim to an "echo chamber effect", where individuals only seek out information they believe, beliefs are reinforced, find more information they believe, repeat. Not sure if this is what you are worried about, but a quite complex problem that spans human existence (Scientific method was supposed to contradict this...). Forums appear to devolve into "Dallas Cowboys Fans" or "Pittsburgh Steelers Fans".

I assume other forums just post fake questions/experiences as a way to guide the conversations and generate conversations/web views/ad sales/etc. One in particular would almost weekly post "I'm new to FIRE, am I on the right track?" yet had budgets more detailed than I've ever generated as one example. I suspect some "How do I beat the market?" or "Should I buy/I can't spend all the money I've made buying NFTs/cryptos/etc...?" have similar goals.

One of my favorite fake account stories, almost anyone is capable of this.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/21/77187328 ... zing-trump

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

My personal experience with MMGs is that I use them to say things I wouldn't say on the forum. Those are things that are either too personal or that I don't think would be well received on the forum. Maybe I need to be more open about bringing up subjects here that might be seen as "weird." I do see how this is a legitimate problem, however, because there are discussions happening in these groups that are useful on the forum. Like some of the Plotkin stuff, which I've tried to bring back but it's not as in-depth because the bulk of the discussion happened elsewhere.

M
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by M »

jacob wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 5:52 pm
All this doesn't really affect the current generation of forumites; at least not those who have already made good connections or developed their online goodwill. We'll survive. It's hugely important to the next generation though.

I think the thing to consider is (and this is something I consider and something I would like to ask the forum about)... how and to what degree would it be problem if the ERE forum went permanently offline tomorrow or next year?

What would you all do if I said the ERE forum would end---most likely it would be frozen in place/achieved---on 20231231?

(I should note that I actually don't know the answer to all these questions. I'm putting out feelers. I'm trying to get a sense of where this is going. I'm willing to try different things going forward. I suspect humanity is moving towards new social constructs. But I'm not sure about which way, who, and how.)
Well ...

I have been coming to these forums for 12 years now. I suppose everything that has a beginning has an end though.

I will point out that it's possible for forums to limp along for a long time and some people may still derive value, even if there are only four active posters. The Geo Metro Forum is still online, and the newest metro is 22 years old now. They have a new post every couple days but it's such a niche car that some people go there for specific technical or mechanical advice and receive a lot of value in return because some members there have been driving metros for 25+ years and know the cars mechanical weaknesses inside and out.

This forum is like a niche financial / lifestyle product in some way. There may not be a lot of traffic but some people may derive a lot of value from the collective knowledge of the forums.

Instead of closing it down when the time comes I would just hand primary moderation responsibilities over to someone else and step into a 'board of directors' position and check back every quarter or so. Or whenever you feel like it.

Just my .02 cents.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by M »

AnalyticalEngine wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:54 pm
My personal experience with MMGs is that I use them to say things I wouldn't say on the forum. Those are things that are either too personal or that I don't think would be well received on the forum. Maybe I need to be more open about bringing up subjects here that might be seen as "weird." I do see how this is a legitimate problem, however, because there are discussions happening in these groups that are useful on the forum. Like some of the Plotkin stuff, which I've tried to bring back but it's not as in-depth because the bulk of the discussion happened elsewhere.
I never understood this philosophy much. The whole ERE lifestyle is already 'weird' by societal standards, and the forum is anonymous anyway. I have discussed a lot of very weird and very personal stuff here.

Of course I would discuss same weird stuff in real life under the right circumstances. :lol:

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by Crusader »

Well, I've been guilty of not going to the forums once AxelHeyst's MMG became active. I don't think that's a good thing because there is wisdom at the forums. For what it's worth, I am trying to get back into posting more on the forums. I'll use my diary as a way to post progress that I make, which might involve some duplication, but I don't see any other way.

Why? Because it's more fun to make connections with people on a more personal level. But also because we have biweekly checkpoints, so I can't fall off the wagon for too long.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by Seppia »

M wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:54 pm

Instead of closing it down when the time comes I would just hand primary moderation responsibilities over to someone else and step into a 'board of directors' position and check back every quarter or so. Or whenever you feel like it.

Just my .02 cents.
The issue is: if Jacob leaves - the forum dies.
He is the ultimate power user

I would add a +1 to the view that this forum can remain super relevant and useful even with fewer updates.
The value here is in the archive/history (which is why I was so vocal against users carpet-bombing their history) and the views are so unique that, as long as it stays up, someone will always find his/her way here.

Jacob being a “quality over quantity” kind of guy, I suspect he’d be happier to see one human a month getting a ton of value from the forum and changing his/her life as a result VS 1.000.000 users per month posting cat memes.

Last and unrelated: it feels like this forum is moving from forum to collection of journals, which is in some sense halfway between a “normal” forum and a group in signal.
Am I completely mistaken?

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

Seppia wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 7:32 am
Last and unrelated: it feels like this forum is moving from forum to collection of journals, which is in some sense halfway between a “normal” forum and a group in signal.
Am I completely mistaken?
I think you're right. I think this is a consequence of me killing off politics which attracted a lot of ERE OGs who considered all the pf stuff to be a solved problem. The ERE2 forum doesn't hold as much interest as the politics forum did.

In weaker moments, I consider bringing back politics. However, I don't think the problems that usually caused a few to self-cancel, whether destructively or not, due to irreconcilable differences over the latest exogenous controversy which was otherwise completely irrelevant to ERE. And I know I don't want to deal with that again.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Seppia wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 7:32 am
Last and unrelated: it feels like this forum is moving from forum to collection of journals, which is in some sense halfway between a “normal” forum and a group in signal.
Am I completely mistaken?
I think some of the issue with that is that we've moved to a "post-FIRE" world where the FI stuff has become mainstream to the point it's no longer generating as much novel content. As in, with how old the forum is, all the low-hanging fruit have already been picked, and so it's transitioning to a social club at times, hence the high number of journals.

ERE2 is interesting but not personally actionable, and so draw less people. I personally find it interesting from a philosophical angle, and I'll try to share more of the philosophy I've read as it relates to ERE2, but it's just hard for WL5/6, which dominate the forum, to do much with it. Nevertheless, I do feel like I have a lot of experience in things that never get talked about here because they are outside of the overton window, which are still valuable to ERE2, so I can try to write more there.

As far as the politics section being closed, I personally found the atmosphere of the forum a lot better with it closed, and wouldn't want it reopened.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by rref »

If the MMGs were kept strictly synchronous (video chat only), then they probably wouldn't cannibalize the forum (asynchrounous text) as much but still keep most of their appealing qualities.
Last edited by rref on Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

rref wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 11:36 am
If the MMGs were kepts strictly synchronous (video chat only), then they probably wouldn't cannibalize the forum (asynchrounous text) as much but still keep most of their appealing qualities.
Yes!

That's a big ask though. It requires sacrificing the individual perks of the darknet such as privacy, convenience, hanging out, bar room style entertainment..., for some unseen/future greater whole.

In terms of design, the ability to do the same thing (asynchronous text) in two or more places is basically poison [to the network effect].

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

If possible, opening up the asynchronous conversation to the main forum like mountainFrugal's ecology MMG, could yield some win-win-wins and turn it into a positive-sum game.

The MMGs get access to more people for more viewpoints. They still retain the socializing of the regular zoom meetings for those who like that. And those, like me, who have a finite limit on how many zoom conversations they can handle in a given week, aren't excluded from the topic/conversation.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by mountainFrugal »

For the artMMG, we have about 50/50 forumites and non. The ability to quickly post photos of artwork, especially work in progress, and discuss makes the convenience factor a little too high in this instance. Also, the pool of artists from very different backgrounds doing very different styles of work makes the art critique discussion higher quality. Some of the images I post on the art discord also end up on my personal art portfolio site and I am not personally ready to associate this account with my IRL stuff. I always assume that anything I post online can be linked back to me IRL so maybe I should just not worry about it at all. My monthly update art takes a decent amount of time to complete and are only posted here. Not sure there is a good solution for this MMG moving back towards the forum. Suggestions?

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AxelHeyst »

Sounds similar to the fictionMMG. In my view, the topic is so different from ERE, and of such a nature that moving it onto the forum doesn't make sense. To my mind, the reason there's a fiction MMG that came out of ERE is just because that's where my online friends are. ERE is a good filter for smart people I'm likely to get along with and respect, so it's a decent place to find people to be in a fiction group with. But I don't feel the forum is really hurt by having our fiction group activities on the darknet... it's either going to be dark, or it's not going to happen. I am 100% not going to discuss my fiction projects here, until if and when I'm going to publish something (or maybe solicit beta readers). I sense it's similar with your art group.

edit: I can see some places to take the fiction process to the forum. e.g. one of my projects involves worldbuilding that relies heavily on future scenario stuff, e.g. Holmgren's Brown tech, Randers, etc. It could be interesting once I've got some together to post that to the forum for feedback, since obviously that highly intersects with ERE interests.

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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by jacob »

On the other hand ...

Making these obscure lenses/personal interests/etc. visible [on the clearnet] demonstrates the potential of alternatives to the job/title identity script. It may appear irrelevant from your own perspective (humble fish in water), but combined they provide many alternatives to the "earn and spend" pattern. It shows other life scripts. Except if they're hidden due to thinking that they can't possible be of interest to anyone else.

Positive freedom remains a huge issue for both ERE and espeically FIRE. After going mainstream, most pursue FIRE from a perspective of negative freedom. They simply hate their jobs. FIRE is seen as a magic pill to solve that. Yet we already know that a lot of FIRE'ees default to their old career after a year in Yurop. Thinking up alternatives is hard.

It is as important to provide as many examples as possible of all the things that people can do AFTER the starting line of reaching ERE/FIRE as it was to provide as many examples as possible on how to get to the starting line in the first place.

AxelHeyst
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AxelHeyst »

Hm. Touche. I'm reflecting on how I typically come to the forum when I have a problem or a struggle, rarely to celebrate wins or reflect about good things that are happening as a result of my ERE path. I suspect if all you knew of me was my journal, you'd think I spent my days pacing back and forth, worriedly muttering arcane minutia, neurotic af.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Let's talk about how to avoid darknetting ERE

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

That is indeed a good point. It makes me realize that I don't often talk about the "freedom to" part of my life because I deem it too "off-topic" or "weird" for the forum. But there may be people who need to hear that side of the story.

The issue with art/fiction is that I don't necessarily want anything I publish traceable back to my forum comments. This forum is "semi-IRL" for me where I do know a few people here by name over webcam, but I wouldn't want my forum presence easily pulled up on my LinkedIn profile in the same way I intend anything I publish to eventually be.

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