Yep, and also as things scale you just get less information about everyone.
An random local meetup might fit in one room, sometimes splitting into two rooms so it’s easier to have multiple conversations. I can have line of sight to everyone at once and hear it if voices start getting raised. With meetups in ten cities, I can at least wave at most attendees, and have had a couple hours of conversation with the organizers. With meetups in a hundred cities, I have only demographic guesses about who the attendees are, and it takes time and effort to get to meet the organizers in a way where I’d notice an “I Eat Puppies” tattoo on their face.
Weirder things can happen, and also you have less bandwidth to notice it.
Edit: There’s an essay that’s shaped some of my thinking here called Default Blind. I recommend it.
Yep, and also as things scale you just get less information about everyone.
An random local meetup might fit in one room, sometimes splitting into two rooms so it’s easier to have multiple conversations. I can have line of sight to everyone at once and hear it if voices start getting raised. With meetups in ten cities, I can at least wave at most attendees, and have had a couple hours of conversation with the organizers. With meetups in a hundred cities, I have only demographic guesses about who the attendees are, and it takes time and effort to get to meet the organizers in a way where I’d notice an “I Eat Puppies” tattoo on their face.
Weirder things can happen, and also you have less bandwidth to notice it.
Edit: There’s an essay that’s shaped some of my thinking here called Default Blind. I recommend it.