So, I think I optimized this piece a bit too much as poetry at the expense of clarity. (I was trying to keep it brief overall, and have the sections sort of correspond in length to how much reading you could expect people to read at that scale).
Obviously people in the real world do successfully coordinate on things, and this piece doesn’t address the various ways you might try to do so. The core claim here is just that if you haven’t taken some kind of special effort to ensure your nuanced message will scale, it will probably not scale.
Hierarchies are a way to address the problem. Oral tradition that embeds itself in people’s socializing process is a way to address the problem. Smaller groups is a way to address the problem. Social pressure to read a specific thing is a way to address the problem. But each of these address it only in particular ways and come with particular tradeoffs.
So, I think I optimized this piece a bit too much as poetry at the expense of clarity. (I was trying to keep it brief overall, and have the sections sort of correspond in length to how much reading you could expect people to read at that scale).
Obviously people in the real world do successfully coordinate on things, and this piece doesn’t address the various ways you might try to do so. The core claim here is just that if you haven’t taken some kind of special effort to ensure your nuanced message will scale, it will probably not scale.
Hierarchies are a way to address the problem. Oral tradition that embeds itself in people’s socializing process is a way to address the problem. Smaller groups is a way to address the problem. Social pressure to read a specific thing is a way to address the problem. But each of these address it only in particular ways and come with particular tradeoffs.