I think this essay is worth including in the Best Of LessWrong collection for introducing a good conceptual handle for a phenomenon it convinced me exists in a more general form than I’d thought.
It’s talking about a phenomenon that’s easy to overlook. I think the phenomenon is real; for a trivial example, look at any self reported graph of height and look at the conspicuous shortage at 5′11″. It comes with lots of examples. Testing this is maddeningly tricky (it’s hiding from you!) but doable, especially if you’re willing to generalize from one or two examples you may have an unusually good vantage point on.
If there’s a followup post I’d love to see, that post would be on how to observe or detect the dark matter. That would be an anti-inductive game in many ways, but I expect general principles might exist- I’ve taken to looking at survey data with an eye towards “hrm, there’s a dip or break in that line there- would I expect that spot to be Social Dark Matter?”
If someone was involved more directly working with dark matter subjects, this post would be more material to them I think. For me, it’s mostly overkill, but a concept I keep in my back pocket for when it’s needed.
I think this essay is worth including in the Best Of LessWrong collection for introducing a good conceptual handle for a phenomenon it convinced me exists in a more general form than I’d thought.
It’s talking about a phenomenon that’s easy to overlook. I think the phenomenon is real; for a trivial example, look at any self reported graph of height and look at the conspicuous shortage at 5′11″. It comes with lots of examples. Testing this is maddeningly tricky (it’s hiding from you!) but doable, especially if you’re willing to generalize from one or two examples you may have an unusually good vantage point on.
I’ve taken to thinking of this as paired with Dark Forest Theories (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xDNyXGCDephBuNF8c/dark-forest-theories). If you look around and notice a gap in the world, is that because there’s nothing there, or because what would be there is concealed from you?
If there’s a followup post I’d love to see, that post would be on how to observe or detect the dark matter. That would be an anti-inductive game in many ways, but I expect general principles might exist- I’ve taken to looking at survey data with an eye towards “hrm, there’s a dip or break in that line there- would I expect that spot to be Social Dark Matter?”
If someone was involved more directly working with dark matter subjects, this post would be more material to them I think. For me, it’s mostly overkill, but a concept I keep in my back pocket for when it’s needed.