I am an outsider/lurker, so maybe I just don’t get it, but it seems to me that even if the messaging around this event is changed to make it more clearly serious rather than there being a possible interpretation of all in fun no particular outcome is better than any other, there is a very real (not symbolic) mixed message going on with the way things are currently set up. The first message is hey, we’re doing this really cool ritual and you are invited to participate. The second message is we don’t want our website to go down so don’t do anything (please don’t participate).
This is completely outside the question of what the event actually symbolizes and so on. It’s about, well, as far as I understand the simulacra model, it’s about the simulacra level 1 aspects of the situation.
Someone who didn’t check their email/messages would participate as desired.
There is no clear way to accept the invitation to participate in an active way without threatening the desired outcome.
Maybe this is the point. Maybe it’s meant to be confusing. Maybe the people running the event are deliberately setting up a situation where they are sending mixed messages on purpose, because the event is about mixed/ambiguous messages?
But if mixed messages are not a vital part of the event, then I wonder if it would be a more effective ritual for people who receive codes if there was some way they could publicly revoke their codes. That way they could actively participate in not destroying something, instead of the only way to participate in the desired outcome being to not do anything (to imitate the person who didn’t check their messages).
Yeah, I think this is a real problem. I do think there is something a bit interesting about the ambiguity “The only way to win is not to play”, but there are also a bunch of costs associated with the weird ambiguity, and I am not sure how things weigh up.
The current thing and framing is the best we could come up with in a few dozen hours of collective thinking, but we can probably do better, and maybe the weird ambiguity is too costly, though overall I think we got the basic idea across to most people, despite the ambiguity, so I am hopeful that we can iterate on that and get us all the way everyone getting it.
I am an outsider/lurker, so maybe I just don’t get it, but it seems to me that even if the messaging around this event is changed to make it more clearly serious rather than there being a possible interpretation of all in fun no particular outcome is better than any other, there is a very real (not symbolic) mixed message going on with the way things are currently set up. The first message is hey, we’re doing this really cool ritual and you are invited to participate. The second message is we don’t want our website to go down so don’t do anything (please don’t participate).
This is completely outside the question of what the event actually symbolizes and so on. It’s about, well, as far as I understand the simulacra model, it’s about the simulacra level 1 aspects of the situation.
Someone who didn’t check their email/messages would participate as desired.
There is no clear way to accept the invitation to participate in an active way without threatening the desired outcome.
Maybe this is the point. Maybe it’s meant to be confusing. Maybe the people running the event are deliberately setting up a situation where they are sending mixed messages on purpose, because the event is about mixed/ambiguous messages?
But if mixed messages are not a vital part of the event, then I wonder if it would be a more effective ritual for people who receive codes if there was some way they could publicly revoke their codes. That way they could actively participate in not destroying something, instead of the only way to participate in the desired outcome being to not do anything (to imitate the person who didn’t check their messages).
Yeah, I think this is a real problem. I do think there is something a bit interesting about the ambiguity “The only way to win is not to play”, but there are also a bunch of costs associated with the weird ambiguity, and I am not sure how things weigh up.
The current thing and framing is the best we could come up with in a few dozen hours of collective thinking, but we can probably do better, and maybe the weird ambiguity is too costly, though overall I think we got the basic idea across to most people, despite the ambiguity, so I am hopeful that we can iterate on that and get us all the way everyone getting it.