The easiest way to create close-knit groups is sustained geographical proximity. Hence meetup organization.
Consider Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, which met weekly to discuss things and had self-improvement as a focus. Every member was required to submit an essay (on any subject they liked) at least once every three months, and they would propose topics for discussion during the meetings. But the members were, presumably, filtered by Franklin; this is much more of an invite-only salon than it is a public-facing organization.
Another option is to create teams of some sort—mastermind groups are structured similarly to the Junto, with the group rotating its focus between individuals to ensure that someone is paying attention to their plans and giving them feedback and encouragement on them. (It’s useful to have a deadline and social pressure; being ashamed that you have nothing to show when it’s your turn is likely to make you get something done.) But how to create those teams? Do volunteers just put their names into a hat and get assigned to a group, or will that be insufficient to actually create social pressure / be subject to moral hazard effects?
So, my best experience with this sort of thing in an online setting was probably the vassal system in Asheron’s Call. (It’s been a decade since I played the game, so don’t trust any specifics.) Most MMORPGs use a guild system—a guild will have a leader, and then a bunch of members. The way it worked in Asheron’s Call was a tree—everyone who had ‘sworn fealty’ would do it to a particular person, and so the equivalent of ‘guilds’ were ‘kingdoms’ where the fealty tree terminated in someone who hadn’t sworn fealty to anyone else.
It was, basically, a pyramid scheme. If someone swears fealty to you, you get 10% of their experience, including the experience that they get from their vassals. Given the power differential between higher level and lower level players, this was often a very good deal for both parties; it was expected that one would provide items / assistance / tips to one’s vassals. (“Okay, you’re high enough level that you can start getting experience in this other spot; let me show you how to get there and how to best grind there.”) So mid-level players would hang out near the starting zones, offering support to any interested newbies (which only really pays off if they stick around!).
But the feature that makes this work is that both people get something out of it: the newbie gets benefits from sponsorship, the sponsor gets a steady stream of experience if they bring the newbie up to speed, and sponsorship is entirely voluntary. It doesn’t seem like the mechanical support is there for LW, but having some sort of sponsorship connection to establish personal relationships might be helpful.
It seems to me that the first issue with close-knit groups is purpose. If there is none (and I’m not sure whether general self-improvement qualifies), at best you’ll get a club which will become close-knit in a decade or two.
It seems to me that the first issue with close-knit groups is purpose.
Mmm; I think people are mostly adaption-executors when it comes to a lot of social interaction, and close-knitness comes from ape-things like familiarity and spending a lot of time around each other and looking into each other’s eyes, not having a shared purpose. The stated purpose is typically the excuse for the gathering.
I think this is more true for male-only groups; the primary way to get strong relationships between men is to put them on a team tasked with accomplishing a goal, possibly with an opposing team to rally together against. But I think that ‘camaraderie’ is a specific thing different from ‘close-knitness.’
close-knitness comes from ape-things like familiarity and spending a lot of time around each other and looking into each other’s eyes
Well, yes, but that takes time. A lot of time.
There are a couple of shortcuts. One is shared strong emotions, but that might be a bit difficult in this case. Another is purpose which leads to shared activity and forced cooperation.
I’m not seriously proposing trying to reorganize LW into purposeful teams, but you mentioned groups and plans and feedback—what kind of activity will those groups undertake?
I believe at least some people here have some stuff they want to do that is not orthogonal with rationality and may be helped by a group effort. Translation of some materials, writing articles, research, programming projects, just discussions of some topics. Then there is going to be a Group Bragging thread, where people can tell how much they have managed to do in a month or so. If the group hasn’t bragged for a few months, it’s considered dead. That can also give us some new info about group building and maintainance, which seems like a neglected topic here, as well as some data about which groups survive better than the others.
Generally true, and that’s the reason I believe it. As for group coalescence process… I’m thinking about paying lots of attention to newcomers and setting an active chat as well as a dedicated “meeting” time at least once a week when everybody’s online to discuss the topic at hand. Sure, any group may add anything they want if they think it helps.
The easiest way to create close-knit groups is sustained geographical proximity. Hence meetup organization.
Consider Benjamin Franklin’s Junto, which met weekly to discuss things and had self-improvement as a focus. Every member was required to submit an essay (on any subject they liked) at least once every three months, and they would propose topics for discussion during the meetings. But the members were, presumably, filtered by Franklin; this is much more of an invite-only salon than it is a public-facing organization.
Another option is to create teams of some sort—mastermind groups are structured similarly to the Junto, with the group rotating its focus between individuals to ensure that someone is paying attention to their plans and giving them feedback and encouragement on them. (It’s useful to have a deadline and social pressure; being ashamed that you have nothing to show when it’s your turn is likely to make you get something done.) But how to create those teams? Do volunteers just put their names into a hat and get assigned to a group, or will that be insufficient to actually create social pressure / be subject to moral hazard effects?
So, my best experience with this sort of thing in an online setting was probably the vassal system in Asheron’s Call. (It’s been a decade since I played the game, so don’t trust any specifics.) Most MMORPGs use a guild system—a guild will have a leader, and then a bunch of members. The way it worked in Asheron’s Call was a tree—everyone who had ‘sworn fealty’ would do it to a particular person, and so the equivalent of ‘guilds’ were ‘kingdoms’ where the fealty tree terminated in someone who hadn’t sworn fealty to anyone else.
It was, basically, a pyramid scheme. If someone swears fealty to you, you get 10% of their experience, including the experience that they get from their vassals. Given the power differential between higher level and lower level players, this was often a very good deal for both parties; it was expected that one would provide items / assistance / tips to one’s vassals. (“Okay, you’re high enough level that you can start getting experience in this other spot; let me show you how to get there and how to best grind there.”) So mid-level players would hang out near the starting zones, offering support to any interested newbies (which only really pays off if they stick around!).
But the feature that makes this work is that both people get something out of it: the newbie gets benefits from sponsorship, the sponsor gets a steady stream of experience if they bring the newbie up to speed, and sponsorship is entirely voluntary. It doesn’t seem like the mechanical support is there for LW, but having some sort of sponsorship connection to establish personal relationships might be helpful.
It seems to me that the first issue with close-knit groups is purpose. If there is none (and I’m not sure whether general self-improvement qualifies), at best you’ll get a club which will become close-knit in a decade or two.
Mmm; I think people are mostly adaption-executors when it comes to a lot of social interaction, and close-knitness comes from ape-things like familiarity and spending a lot of time around each other and looking into each other’s eyes, not having a shared purpose. The stated purpose is typically the excuse for the gathering.
I think this is more true for male-only groups; the primary way to get strong relationships between men is to put them on a team tasked with accomplishing a goal, possibly with an opposing team to rally together against. But I think that ‘camaraderie’ is a specific thing different from ‘close-knitness.’
Well, yes, but that takes time. A lot of time.
There are a couple of shortcuts. One is shared strong emotions, but that might be a bit difficult in this case. Another is purpose which leads to shared activity and forced cooperation.
I’m not seriously proposing trying to reorganize LW into purposeful teams, but you mentioned groups and plans and feedback—what kind of activity will those groups undertake?
I believe at least some people here have some stuff they want to do that is not orthogonal with rationality and may be helped by a group effort. Translation of some materials, writing articles, research, programming projects, just discussions of some topics. Then there is going to be a Group Bragging thread, where people can tell how much they have managed to do in a month or so. If the group hasn’t bragged for a few months, it’s considered dead. That can also give us some new info about group building and maintainance, which seems like a neglected topic here, as well as some data about which groups survive better than the others.
That’s generally true for any sufficiently large collection of people. The issue is how do you bootstrap the whole group coalescence process.
Generally true, and that’s the reason I believe it. As for group coalescence process… I’m thinking about paying lots of attention to newcomers and setting an active chat as well as a dedicated “meeting” time at least once a week when everybody’s online to discuss the topic at hand. Sure, any group may add anything they want if they think it helps.
In person events like CFAR workshops and also the community camp I attended in Berlin seem to be good at this.