These are some of the more interesting questions this essay has provoked.
I feel like my answer here will be confused, because I’m not sure I understand perfectly, and I think as I type. Firstly, I think the network can increase the value of its participants in a few ways. Culture being one. A well-curated network will have a good culture—full of trustworthy, skilled / nice people – and you get shaped by your culture, so being in a well-curated network will push you to be better. And also, in trying to get access to a good network you have shape up. And since these networks are overlapping, my friends having slightly different networks than me, there can be this positive ratchet. Its pretty obvious when I write for example: I develop ideas with my friends, and then I put the ideas out in the world, which attracts new people that I can network with, and those new connections are indirectly connected to my friends. Sometimes it gets a bit competitive, when more high value people enter the network, so that I might have less time for people I cooperated with before; but then that sort of acts as a motivator for them to up their games, be nicer, more skilled, form more valueable connections. I phrase this in a fairly creepy, exploitative way. But the feeling of its all soft, mutual aid-y, and loving. Secondly, I’m not sure one could say the network extracts value from the nodes? But it does scale their value (to a limit) through culture and, I guess, non-monetary market mechanisms, or something?
Yes. Tit-for-tat is too strict. I’m not familiar with Gottman, will look into him.
I think the implicit model in the essay, or at least the one that guides my actions at the moment is that there are no bounderies in the network. I say that because I take “organs” to indicate some sort of bounderies. What I’m talking about is every node having a unique network, and “community detection” in that scenario is just referals. There is a lot of value of forming higher levels of organization, organs; but that’s a whole separate realm, with problems and possibilities that I haven’t thought about as deeply. By putting bounderies around a community you can leverage power against other entities, but it comes at the cost of having to achieve some sort of consensus and coordination, and I don’t know exactly how to do that in a way that is not to consuming for an introvert like me. Again: I think I might be totally confusing here… I’m mostly trying to provoke a reply, because I think what you’re saying is interesting and I want to know more.
Yes. And my impression is elites tend to rely much more on networks of trust than ordinary people already. If one were to exaggerate a ton, one could make a Voltaire riff: “I don’t believe in markets, but I want my costumer to believe in them”, said by someone from the old boy network corporate elites.
Can you unpack that? My first thought, which might not answer your question, is that there are several “Dunbar numbers”. If you look at something like the !Kung, everybodies favorite hunter-gatherer’s, they tend to organize themselves in several levels. A band of about 25 (which has a weird mix of people, most unrelated, which is what happens when everyone is free to choose whom to live with and so has to make compromises—a husband might say, no way, I won’t move in with the in-laws, I need to be with my brother, and the wife goes, yeah yeah, lets do the band where you have a brother and I have my aunt, that’s a good compromise). Where was I? Yeah, so they organize in several levels: a band of about 25, and then a dunbar number 150 people aggeration of several bands, which are the bands you tend to move in between; and on top of that you have a level of about 2000 people that tend to come together for bigger ceremonies and such. 2000 people seems to be were they max out. But yeah, so there’s like a layered network. And some people in the 2000, might be apart of another 2000-group, and they might change etnicity a few times in a life time, moving between different networks of groups, so there’s like this weird fluidity where its hard to tell where one ethnic group / network starts and ends. I don’t know where I was going with this. Anyway, I’d love it if you unpacked this point a bit more (as well as bullet 1 and 3).
Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I need a cup of coffee.
“non-monetary market mechanisms” sounds like a good idea, but not necessarily something one can quantify and experiment with.
John Gottman’s idea of 5 positive responses per 1 negative response (healthy bound being between 0.8:1 to 20:1) as a sweet spot is somewhat useful.
If one were to not rely on an organ-like structure, the number of connections per person can become overwhelming or inefficient.
Fair assessment
The fluidity is one thing, but the strength of the connections implies somewhat the utility of the collective, bigger unoptimized crowds lead to more burdens.
These are some of the more interesting questions this essay has provoked.
I feel like my answer here will be confused, because I’m not sure I understand perfectly, and I think as I type. Firstly, I think the network can increase the value of its participants in a few ways. Culture being one. A well-curated network will have a good culture—full of trustworthy, skilled / nice people – and you get shaped by your culture, so being in a well-curated network will push you to be better. And also, in trying to get access to a good network you have shape up. And since these networks are overlapping, my friends having slightly different networks than me, there can be this positive ratchet. Its pretty obvious when I write for example: I develop ideas with my friends, and then I put the ideas out in the world, which attracts new people that I can network with, and those new connections are indirectly connected to my friends. Sometimes it gets a bit competitive, when more high value people enter the network, so that I might have less time for people I cooperated with before; but then that sort of acts as a motivator for them to up their games, be nicer, more skilled, form more valueable connections. I phrase this in a fairly creepy, exploitative way. But the feeling of its all soft, mutual aid-y, and loving. Secondly, I’m not sure one could say the network extracts value from the nodes? But it does scale their value (to a limit) through culture and, I guess, non-monetary market mechanisms, or something?
Yes. Tit-for-tat is too strict. I’m not familiar with Gottman, will look into him.
I think the implicit model in the essay, or at least the one that guides my actions at the moment is that there are no bounderies in the network. I say that because I take “organs” to indicate some sort of bounderies. What I’m talking about is every node having a unique network, and “community detection” in that scenario is just referals. There is a lot of value of forming higher levels of organization, organs; but that’s a whole separate realm, with problems and possibilities that I haven’t thought about as deeply. By putting bounderies around a community you can leverage power against other entities, but it comes at the cost of having to achieve some sort of consensus and coordination, and I don’t know exactly how to do that in a way that is not to consuming for an introvert like me. Again: I think I might be totally confusing here… I’m mostly trying to provoke a reply, because I think what you’re saying is interesting and I want to know more.
Yes. And my impression is elites tend to rely much more on networks of trust than ordinary people already. If one were to exaggerate a ton, one could make a Voltaire riff: “I don’t believe in markets, but I want my costumer to believe in them”, said by someone from the old boy network corporate elites.
Can you unpack that? My first thought, which might not answer your question, is that there are several “Dunbar numbers”. If you look at something like the !Kung, everybodies favorite hunter-gatherer’s, they tend to organize themselves in several levels. A band of about 25 (which has a weird mix of people, most unrelated, which is what happens when everyone is free to choose whom to live with and so has to make compromises—a husband might say, no way, I won’t move in with the in-laws, I need to be with my brother, and the wife goes, yeah yeah, lets do the band where you have a brother and I have my aunt, that’s a good compromise). Where was I? Yeah, so they organize in several levels: a band of about 25, and then a dunbar number 150 people aggeration of several bands, which are the bands you tend to move in between; and on top of that you have a level of about 2000 people that tend to come together for bigger ceremonies and such. 2000 people seems to be were they max out. But yeah, so there’s like a layered network. And some people in the 2000, might be apart of another 2000-group, and they might change etnicity a few times in a life time, moving between different networks of groups, so there’s like this weird fluidity where its hard to tell where one ethnic group / network starts and ends. I don’t know where I was going with this. Anyway, I’d love it if you unpacked this point a bit more (as well as bullet 1 and 3).
Sorry for the stream of consciousness. I need a cup of coffee.
“non-monetary market mechanisms” sounds like a good idea, but not necessarily something one can quantify and experiment with.
John Gottman’s idea of 5 positive responses per 1 negative response (healthy bound being between 0.8:1 to 20:1) as a sweet spot is somewhat useful.
If one were to not rely on an organ-like structure, the number of connections per person can become overwhelming or inefficient.
Fair assessment
The fluidity is one thing, but the strength of the connections implies somewhat the utility of the collective, bigger unoptimized crowds lead to more burdens.