> The tradeoff for connecting with similar people is not connecting with people different from us.
disagree. as you say, micro-communities are aligned very narrowly. which means that if you pair any two random individuals from the same micro-community, they’ll be extremely similar along only one particular metric, but randomly different across every metric not relevant to that community. the easiest example of this is nationality: to the degree LW is a micro-community, it connects people of many different nationalities. perhaps the disappointment is that although you’re connecting with different people, you aren’t connecting over your differences.
> Widespread camaraderie is becoming rarer and rarer. Most of us live in highly polarized societies where the vast majority of people won’t even date across political party lines. More than ever, we should be looking for ways to create camaraderie at scale and soften the dividing impact of micro-communities.
this may be a misleading use of “divide” in the context of “polarization”. there’s a pretty clear hierarchy here: a societal foundation upon which micro-communities are built. most micro-communities, like ours, aren’t antagonistic to other micro-communities nor can they be too antagonistic to the foundation unless they seek literal suicide. in the realm of micro-communities, cross-community disagreements are resolved via distance. but every micro-community is subject to the demands of that massive, volatile foundation. lesswrong.com dies if the nations to which we belong decide they don’t want us using their cables to communicate. if not for the power of the macro over the micro, we would not experience the level of division we do today. just look up: is it the micro-communities, or the macro society/state, which wields the power to legislate and enforce every thing which is today the topic of polarization?
to consider your example: i think it’s quite right to reject a date from anyone who participates in political action focused on destroying the micro-communities which allow you or i to be as we are. i don’t mind different *philosophies*: i’m perfectly happy to have a companion with whom to debate the existence of God—just so long as they aren’t fighting crusades about it. but coupled to every “political belief” is a vote, and behind that, an action in the real world.
during some period of the 18th century, we lived in a politics of construction. legislating things like the Bill of Rights. *creating* choice in religion, choice in speech, choice in which aspects of our life we share with whom (protections from unreasonable “search and seizure”). we created the very protections which allow for micro-identity and micro-communities.
today’s is a politics of destruction. it’s about restricting what a person can do to or put in their body; restricting what one can teach to the youth; restricting the very bits and information you and i are allowed to share with each other (not just the tainted label of “free speech”, but everything from DRM to intrusive surveillance). the mistake of the day is not that we refuse to date across political boundaries, but that we fail to recognize the very real violence beneath our political abstractions.
> 9/11 broke Americans’ sense of micro-identity. All of a sudden, which team you supported or which political party you agreed with seemed to not matter. Instead, people defaulted to a higher level of identity—being an American.
and this was pivotal to everything you discuss around community. the post-9/11 “camaraderie” led directly to this lasting atmosphere of “if you see something, say something” mutual distrust; to an increased normalization of aggression and dehumanization in our social hierarchies: being fondled by a TSA agent is just a *normal* component of domestic travel; and to the surveillance state which views every micro deviation—vital to micro-community—as cause for suspicion.
if this is what political camaraderie creates, then **i don’t want that**.
> When the fate of humanity is at risk, we all take on the identity of human.
and of course, EA seeks to promote this type of identity even without the risk. it’s also not a terrible place to find those “serendipitous, unscripted, and raw interaction[s]” you treasure. it’s especially interesting if you were find camaraderie in any of its spaces… as a collection of growing micro-communities, promoting an ideal of cooperation as it grows toward that dominant macro-community that’s today largely void of camaraderie: as EA grows how does the sense of camaraderie change, and if its ideals really did become the universal, would that bring about the type of “at scale” camaraderie you dream of?
> If camaraderie at scale makes ordinary days better, wouldn’t it be awesome to experience it more often? Or at least recreate it on a smaller scale within our own lives and communities. [...] > What’s missing from the current stack is moments of serendipitous, unscripted, and raw interaction—moments where we find connection in places we least expect it.
i just want to promote in-person conferences and conventions of any kind here. to build on my claim that everyone in this micro-community is meaningfully different in ways we don’t display in this medium, IRL gatherings are exactly that opportunity to explore those differences. and especially the nominally entertainment-focused conventions (anything from Comicon to EMFcamp): these specifically create an atmosphere where you can feel both comfortable enough and inspired enough to be creative and spontaneous with complete strangers. the most amazing ones are at their core a chaotic swirling of intensely human passion, some unidentifiable thing that just wants for everyone there to impart a little bit of themselves into whatever’s being created and to see eachother in the product. i can’t tell you the number of times i’ve walked past some conference hall at the end of the day, see 4 people painstakingly stacking 1000 chairs, walk inside to help and ten minutes later there’s 20 of us and the room’s spotless. that alone is satisfying, and it’s a short journey from there to far deeper acts of camaraderie.
that camaraderie might not be so immediately focused on “changing the world” or operating “at scale”, but it does exist in the moment, it’s strong enough to perpetuate itself, and it might provide insights for anyone ambitious enough to recreate it in new environments.
> The tradeoff for connecting with similar people is not connecting with people different from us.
disagree. as you say, micro-communities are aligned very narrowly. which means that if you pair any two random individuals from the same micro-community, they’ll be extremely similar along only one particular metric, but randomly different across every metric not relevant to that community. the easiest example of this is nationality: to the degree LW is a micro-community, it connects people of many different nationalities. perhaps the disappointment is that although you’re connecting with different people, you aren’t connecting over your differences.
> Widespread camaraderie is becoming rarer and rarer. Most of us live in highly polarized societies where the vast majority of people won’t even date across political party lines. More than ever, we should be looking for ways to create camaraderie at scale and soften the dividing impact of micro-communities.
this may be a misleading use of “divide” in the context of “polarization”. there’s a pretty clear hierarchy here: a societal foundation upon which micro-communities are built. most micro-communities, like ours, aren’t antagonistic to other micro-communities nor can they be too antagonistic to the foundation unless they seek literal suicide. in the realm of micro-communities, cross-community disagreements are resolved via distance. but every micro-community is subject to the demands of that massive, volatile foundation. lesswrong.com dies if the nations to which we belong decide they don’t want us using their cables to communicate. if not for the power of the macro over the micro, we would not experience the level of division we do today. just look up: is it the micro-communities, or the macro society/state, which wields the power to legislate and enforce every thing which is today the topic of polarization?
to consider your example: i think it’s quite right to reject a date from anyone who participates in political action focused on destroying the micro-communities which allow you or i to be as we are. i don’t mind different *philosophies*: i’m perfectly happy to have a companion with whom to debate the existence of God—just so long as they aren’t fighting crusades about it. but coupled to every “political belief” is a vote, and behind that, an action in the real world.
during some period of the 18th century, we lived in a politics of construction. legislating things like the Bill of Rights. *creating* choice in religion, choice in speech, choice in which aspects of our life we share with whom (protections from unreasonable “search and seizure”). we created the very protections which allow for micro-identity and micro-communities.
today’s is a politics of destruction. it’s about restricting what a person can do to or put in their body; restricting what one can teach to the youth; restricting the very bits and information you and i are allowed to share with each other (not just the tainted label of “free speech”, but everything from DRM to intrusive surveillance). the mistake of the day is not that we refuse to date across political boundaries, but that we fail to recognize the very real violence beneath our political abstractions.
> 9/11 broke Americans’ sense of micro-identity. All of a sudden, which team you supported or which political party you agreed with seemed to not matter. Instead, people defaulted to a higher level of identity—being an American.
and this was pivotal to everything you discuss around community. the post-9/11 “camaraderie” led directly to this lasting atmosphere of “if you see something, say something” mutual distrust; to an increased normalization of aggression and dehumanization in our social hierarchies: being fondled by a TSA agent is just a *normal* component of domestic travel; and to the surveillance state which views every micro deviation—vital to micro-community—as cause for suspicion.
if this is what political camaraderie creates, then **i don’t want that**.
> When the fate of humanity is at risk, we all take on the identity of human.
and of course, EA seeks to promote this type of identity even without the risk. it’s also not a terrible place to find those “serendipitous, unscripted, and raw interaction[s]” you treasure. it’s especially interesting if you were find camaraderie in any of its spaces… as a collection of growing micro-communities, promoting an ideal of cooperation as it grows toward that dominant macro-community that’s today largely void of camaraderie: as EA grows how does the sense of camaraderie change, and if its ideals really did become the universal, would that bring about the type of “at scale” camaraderie you dream of?
> If camaraderie at scale makes ordinary days better, wouldn’t it be awesome to experience it more often? Or at least recreate it on a smaller scale within our own lives and communities. [...]
> What’s missing from the current stack is moments of serendipitous, unscripted, and raw interaction—moments where we find connection in places we least expect it.
i just want to promote in-person conferences and conventions of any kind here. to build on my claim that everyone in this micro-community is meaningfully different in ways we don’t display in this medium, IRL gatherings are exactly that opportunity to explore those differences. and especially the nominally entertainment-focused conventions (anything from Comicon to EMFcamp): these specifically create an atmosphere where you can feel both comfortable enough and inspired enough to be creative and spontaneous with complete strangers. the most amazing ones are at their core a chaotic swirling of intensely human passion, some unidentifiable thing that just wants for everyone there to impart a little bit of themselves into whatever’s being created and to see eachother in the product. i can’t tell you the number of times i’ve walked past some conference hall at the end of the day, see 4 people painstakingly stacking 1000 chairs, walk inside to help and ten minutes later there’s 20 of us and the room’s spotless. that alone is satisfying, and it’s a short journey from there to far deeper acts of camaraderie.
that camaraderie might not be so immediately focused on “changing the world” or operating “at scale”, but it does exist in the moment, it’s strong enough to perpetuate itself, and it might provide insights for anyone ambitious enough to recreate it in new environments.