It’s sad that older people can feel that they don’t belong in a group of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings. I suppose that’s the kind of world we live in.
I wonder what your father feels, exactly. Simply uninterested in younger people? A belief that he wouldn’t have any interesting or rewarding interactions with the LW members because he doesn’t have enough in common with the younger generation? A belief that the sorts of things that are relevant to younger people aren’t relevant to older people? A feeling that he’s not wanted there because he’s older? Does he think of LW as a dating scene?
Probably many of those things, especially the not having enough in common, but I’m guessing we’re primarily looking at garden-variety conformity here… when I find myself in a group of people who are strikingly different from myself, even if I’m made welcome, I feel silly. When I realized there aren’t many other married women on LessWrong, my immediate reaction was literally, “Why aren’t there others? Am I doing something stupid? Am I a bad wife? Should I be doing housework right now?” This all happened within seconds. I was able to recognize these thoughts as maybe not totally rational only because the housework thing sounded silly, and I still did some vacuuming.
Speaking as a married woman, how exactly did you realize that there weren’t others on the site? What did you see or not see that would have been different?
My impression is that many women in online communities avoid visibly female names (because they’d rather dodge the entailed social complexities) and then announce demographic status only when it is topical. When I chose my login name I was aiming to contribute to a sense of real humans with real names taking responsibility for their ideas. Making my gender salient to some readers with every post was a by-product I’d have marginally preferred to avoid. I could have pushed even deeper into demographically transparent naming with something like “MrsRM”, but… um… no. That would push my feminism buttons a little much :-P
Given that I’m already unusual in using my real first name online, it wouldn’t surprise me if other demographic stuff that I’m not broadcasting was shared by other members of the community. If I was being less transparent and considered myself typical then I’d be more likely to think that “people like me” were common here, simply because the predicted paucity of evidence would leave my expectations closer to the base rate :-)
For what its worth, the recent (first ever) San Diego meetup had a relatively good mix age and gender wise: about one third female, at least one undergrad, several people old enough to have adult children, and some in the middle. It was the first meetup and maybe we’ll end up with evaporative cooling on relatively arbitrary demographic traits, but I hope we don’t.
As a thirty-something who has sometimes avoided twenty-something groups, I can add a couple of mostly hard-to-admit ones. For instance, it’s hard to keep up with the energy of the youngsters, you feel old in comparison, but also you feel like you’re going to be expected to, and you know you’ll fail… and possibly then be branded a flake-out. So it’s easier to avoid going in the first place.
It’s kinda silly in some ways. You see, twenty-somethings have not only more energy (and resilience and ability to stay up and not need to sleep as much), but more time (due to, on average, fewer Hard commitments)… so there’s no way we should feel bad about not being able to keep up… but we do.
I see the NY group is really gung-ho—making motivation-pacts and working towards goals and moving in together and everything… and while I sort of look at that in an envious way.. I also much prefer the more relaxed, less-commitment-essential approach of the London group.
I am certain that if I was part of the NY group, nobody would actually think less of me for not participating as much as the more committed members… but I would still feel bad by comparison.
I have a similar problem with the musical community—I know from experience that no group of musicians who invites me to play with them will think any less of me as a person or shame me in any way for having less talent or skill than they do, and yet I find it extremely difficult to alieve that I will fit in with a group of musicians at a jam session.
I used to be on the other end of this self-directed discomfort in the Jewish community—I heard over and over again about how laypeople and recent converts were too terrified and ashamed of their low skill levels or low cultural fluency to attend even relatively passive events such as festive meals. I am not aware that anyone has developed any Jewish programming that successfully addresses this issue...no matter how welcoming, inclusive, or beginner-friendly an event is, there is still a very large share of the target market that will say that they didn’t go because it was too foreign and threatening.
I had somewhat more success attracting newbies to Less Wrong San Francisco meetups, although, even there, despite my best efforts, for each person who came and said they were a newbie, about one person said they were a newbie and used that as a reason not to come.
Is this a general social problem with a general solution? What, if anything, can an in-group do that will reliably prevent prospective members from feeling insecure and marginalized?
I think it definitely is a general social problem. I’ve seen it in many other groups too.
Two solutions I’ve seen to work:
1) Having a “newcomer’s event” where everybody knows that most of the people are there are going to be new, and those that aren’t are there specifically to answer questions and ease the new people into the event. It not only reduces the fear-factor of “being the only new person”, but it helps set up friendships amongst people that are “at the same level”—which is very helpful.
2) having a “newcomers” section for each meetup. In the Sydney Linux User’s group (SLUG), the meeting format always included a timeslot called “SLUGlets” (after the main, joint talk) which was a general-discussion time that was specifically engineered to be for newbies asking all the questions they need. (of course lots of non-newbies also came along and had time just to chat amongst themselves too). Again—giving the newbies the space and permission to be newbies amongst other, equally clueless types.
I think a lot of the problem can be solved my finding a way to prove to your newbies that they can feel comfortable and NOT ALONE in their newbyness. Especially having somebody around to answer all the dumb questions (and the permission to even ask them without looking stupid). Part of the issue is the fear of being judged… and maybe we know we won’t do that… but the newby doesn’t.
The LW community has a lot of extremely competent, educated, smart people in it.. it’s no wonder that people are worried of looking like idiots (I know I was… still am, in fact). The learning-curve even for the “basics” is extremely steep and long: people keep throwing around “a million words” as the length of the essential sequences (and I suspect that number might not include the comments)… and from personal experience, you kinda need to have read all of them so as not to miss out on large patches of the conversation without looking clueless.
In any case… to get back to my own reasons for steering clear of the more committed groups… it’s not just being clueless… but also not having the time to commit as much. I simply cannot keep up with all the extra-curricular work done by some of the people there. I have other commitments. I have other goals. Some people have families with children they have to look after, or two jobs or such like.
Even the non-newbies can’t always put in the same level of sustained effort that some can. And we don’t want to feel bad about that.
Making space for people with different commitment levels feels different problem to the “i don’t want to sound stupid” issue. I think that the solution to that one is to just allow space for it. Now, I don’t know the details of what the NY group is doing (so apologies if I make it seem worse than it is) but for instance - if the NY group always has a homework assignment every week—and if today’s discussion and homework depend on having been here and done last week’s homework.. it doesn’t leave room for people that didn’t have the time to work outside of the meetups. People that show up feel that they have to do the extra-curricular work… or don’t fit in in the group.
My solution would be to have two “streams”: people that want to do extra, and people that don’t/can’t. Have room at the table for both—and have discussions available for both. The “extra work” group could work as a sub-group of the whole, allowing anybody that wants to to join in… but not being the only thing available to do each week. ie use the SLUGlets approach—have some joint-group activity/discussion (to keep the group as a whole). then break up into “more work” and “less work” groups..
It’s sad that older people can feel that they don’t belong in a group of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings. I suppose that’s the kind of world we live in.
I wonder what your father feels, exactly. Simply uninterested in younger people? A belief that he wouldn’t have any interesting or rewarding interactions with the LW members because he doesn’t have enough in common with the younger generation? A belief that the sorts of things that are relevant to younger people aren’t relevant to older people? A feeling that he’s not wanted there because he’s older? Does he think of LW as a dating scene?
Probably many of those things, especially the not having enough in common, but I’m guessing we’re primarily looking at garden-variety conformity here… when I find myself in a group of people who are strikingly different from myself, even if I’m made welcome, I feel silly. When I realized there aren’t many other married women on LessWrong, my immediate reaction was literally, “Why aren’t there others? Am I doing something stupid? Am I a bad wife? Should I be doing housework right now?” This all happened within seconds. I was able to recognize these thoughts as maybe not totally rational only because the housework thing sounded silly, and I still did some vacuuming.
Speaking as a married woman, how exactly did you realize that there weren’t others on the site? What did you see or not see that would have been different?
My impression is that many women in online communities avoid visibly female names (because they’d rather dodge the entailed social complexities) and then announce demographic status only when it is topical. When I chose my login name I was aiming to contribute to a sense of real humans with real names taking responsibility for their ideas. Making my gender salient to some readers with every post was a by-product I’d have marginally preferred to avoid. I could have pushed even deeper into demographically transparent naming with something like “MrsRM”, but… um… no. That would push my feminism buttons a little much :-P
Given that I’m already unusual in using my real first name online, it wouldn’t surprise me if other demographic stuff that I’m not broadcasting was shared by other members of the community. If I was being less transparent and considered myself typical then I’d be more likely to think that “people like me” were common here, simply because the predicted paucity of evidence would leave my expectations closer to the base rate :-)
For what its worth, the recent (first ever) San Diego meetup had a relatively good mix age and gender wise: about one third female, at least one undergrad, several people old enough to have adult children, and some in the middle. It was the first meetup and maybe we’ll end up with evaporative cooling on relatively arbitrary demographic traits, but I hope we don’t.
Because I had asked a few comments down, and there weren’t many responses. There are a few more now.
Ah, now I see it. Thanks :-)
Speaking as a single guy, vacuuming is one of those things one is never done with.
As a thirty-something who has sometimes avoided twenty-something groups, I can add a couple of mostly hard-to-admit ones. For instance, it’s hard to keep up with the energy of the youngsters, you feel old in comparison, but also you feel like you’re going to be expected to, and you know you’ll fail… and possibly then be branded a flake-out. So it’s easier to avoid going in the first place.
It’s kinda silly in some ways. You see, twenty-somethings have not only more energy (and resilience and ability to stay up and not need to sleep as much), but more time (due to, on average, fewer Hard commitments)… so there’s no way we should feel bad about not being able to keep up… but we do.
I see the NY group is really gung-ho—making motivation-pacts and working towards goals and moving in together and everything… and while I sort of look at that in an envious way.. I also much prefer the more relaxed, less-commitment-essential approach of the London group.
I am certain that if I was part of the NY group, nobody would actually think less of me for not participating as much as the more committed members… but I would still feel bad by comparison.
I have a similar problem with the musical community—I know from experience that no group of musicians who invites me to play with them will think any less of me as a person or shame me in any way for having less talent or skill than they do, and yet I find it extremely difficult to alieve that I will fit in with a group of musicians at a jam session.
I used to be on the other end of this self-directed discomfort in the Jewish community—I heard over and over again about how laypeople and recent converts were too terrified and ashamed of their low skill levels or low cultural fluency to attend even relatively passive events such as festive meals. I am not aware that anyone has developed any Jewish programming that successfully addresses this issue...no matter how welcoming, inclusive, or beginner-friendly an event is, there is still a very large share of the target market that will say that they didn’t go because it was too foreign and threatening.
I had somewhat more success attracting newbies to Less Wrong San Francisco meetups, although, even there, despite my best efforts, for each person who came and said they were a newbie, about one person said they were a newbie and used that as a reason not to come.
Is this a general social problem with a general solution? What, if anything, can an in-group do that will reliably prevent prospective members from feeling insecure and marginalized?
Make them impatient to apply and demonstrate acquired expertise.
I think it definitely is a general social problem. I’ve seen it in many other groups too. Two solutions I’ve seen to work:
1) Having a “newcomer’s event” where everybody knows that most of the people are there are going to be new, and those that aren’t are there specifically to answer questions and ease the new people into the event. It not only reduces the fear-factor of “being the only new person”, but it helps set up friendships amongst people that are “at the same level”—which is very helpful.
2) having a “newcomers” section for each meetup. In the Sydney Linux User’s group (SLUG), the meeting format always included a timeslot called “SLUGlets” (after the main, joint talk) which was a general-discussion time that was specifically engineered to be for newbies asking all the questions they need. (of course lots of non-newbies also came along and had time just to chat amongst themselves too). Again—giving the newbies the space and permission to be newbies amongst other, equally clueless types.
I think a lot of the problem can be solved my finding a way to prove to your newbies that they can feel comfortable and NOT ALONE in their newbyness. Especially having somebody around to answer all the dumb questions (and the permission to even ask them without looking stupid). Part of the issue is the fear of being judged… and maybe we know we won’t do that… but the newby doesn’t.
The LW community has a lot of extremely competent, educated, smart people in it.. it’s no wonder that people are worried of looking like idiots (I know I was… still am, in fact). The learning-curve even for the “basics” is extremely steep and long: people keep throwing around “a million words” as the length of the essential sequences (and I suspect that number might not include the comments)… and from personal experience, you kinda need to have read all of them so as not to miss out on large patches of the conversation without looking clueless.
In any case… to get back to my own reasons for steering clear of the more committed groups… it’s not just being clueless… but also not having the time to commit as much. I simply cannot keep up with all the extra-curricular work done by some of the people there. I have other commitments. I have other goals. Some people have families with children they have to look after, or two jobs or such like.
Even the non-newbies can’t always put in the same level of sustained effort that some can. And we don’t want to feel bad about that.
Making space for people with different commitment levels feels different problem to the “i don’t want to sound stupid” issue. I think that the solution to that one is to just allow space for it. Now, I don’t know the details of what the NY group is doing (so apologies if I make it seem worse than it is) but for instance - if the NY group always has a homework assignment every week—and if today’s discussion and homework depend on having been here and done last week’s homework.. it doesn’t leave room for people that didn’t have the time to work outside of the meetups. People that show up feel that they have to do the extra-curricular work… or don’t fit in in the group.
My solution would be to have two “streams”: people that want to do extra, and people that don’t/can’t. Have room at the table for both—and have discussions available for both. The “extra work” group could work as a sub-group of the whole, allowing anybody that wants to to join in… but not being the only thing available to do each week. ie use the SLUGlets approach—have some joint-group activity/discussion (to keep the group as a whole). then break up into “more work” and “less work” groups..
Anyway—that’s my 2c
Interesting, I didn’t know this was such a pervasive phenomena.