I have heard the boiling crab before, but I’ve never thought to apply it to a community. I almost feel as though we should have one day a year where we try to evaluate ourselves with fresh eyes and try to imagine how things would appear to an outsider. We could also ask ourselves if we’d really choose to set things up the same way if we were starting fresh. In fact, I’d probably try to start this tradition if I had more social capital.
This sounds like the idea that is good in theory, but difficult to implement in practice.
I am not too familiar with the community, but my understanding is that most communities ‘drift’ into what they are, often by happenstance: not much is a conscious choice.
For example, it is well documented that people tend to live in communities and have friend groups that are ethnically similar to themselves. (Example: Nicky Case’s Parable of the Polygons. http://ncase.me/polygons/). Few people consciously choose to do this. It happens when people follow their feelings on what groups make them feel comfortable and at home. You can think of this as gradient descent.
As such, it seems like “choosing to set things up in the same way” is a bit of a mis-classification. I would guess that most properties of the community you are referring to, which I am not familiar with, occurred due to the individuals within the collective following what felt right to them at the time. I would imagine only a few core bits were consciously decided on.
Here, I may be very wrong. I’m not familiar with the ‘we’ you are referring to, and who that does and does not cover :). (Is it LesserWrong? Or is it some broader umbrella).
I have heard the boiling crab before, but I’ve never thought to apply it to a community. I almost feel as though we should have one day a year where we try to evaluate ourselves with fresh eyes and try to imagine how things would appear to an outsider. We could also ask ourselves if we’d really choose to set things up the same way if we were starting fresh. In fact, I’d probably try to start this tradition if I had more social capital.
This sounds like the idea that is good in theory, but difficult to implement in practice.
I am not too familiar with the community, but my understanding is that most communities ‘drift’ into what they are, often by happenstance: not much is a conscious choice.
For example, it is well documented that people tend to live in communities and have friend groups that are ethnically similar to themselves. (Example: Nicky Case’s Parable of the Polygons. http://ncase.me/polygons/). Few people consciously choose to do this. It happens when people follow their feelings on what groups make them feel comfortable and at home. You can think of this as gradient descent.
As such, it seems like “choosing to set things up in the same way” is a bit of a mis-classification. I would guess that most properties of the community you are referring to, which I am not familiar with, occurred due to the individuals within the collective following what felt right to them at the time. I would imagine only a few core bits were consciously decided on.
Here, I may be very wrong. I’m not familiar with the ‘we’ you are referring to, and who that does and does not cover :). (Is it LesserWrong? Or is it some broader umbrella).