I’m jotting a quick note as I read about something that stuck out to me. This is totally speculative and the order is the order I had thoughts in, so it will not be super great, but maybe this will guide someone else to a new idea.
I notice that I am wondering if the “big conversation” vs “private talk” distinction is fundamental in the human mind to the extent that they trigger different social behaviors.
I feel that large group situations cause me to be more modest and to make sure I am respecting others, while in small groups I can be easily goaded into sharing emotions or feelings for more than “my share” of the time.
Upon further reflection, I wonder if this is one of those situations where “a order of magnitude quantitative change IS a qualitative change” [1].
It seems to me like I can make a model of this idea by saying that sharing my feelings requires 10units of conversation and some certain conversation has a total of 100units comprising it [2]. If I am in the conversation with 2 people, there are 100/2=50units each and I will happily take turn after turn to share. If, however, there are 20 people, there are only 100/20=5units per person, so the conversation has to either focus on a few members only or switch to a different type.
My model doesn’t yet have any form of disproof to it, so it’s not a good thing to use unless you like being wrong, but maybe it can be firmed up into a framework worth using.
I’m jotting a quick note as I read about something that stuck out to me. This is totally speculative and the order is the order I had thoughts in, so it will not be super great, but maybe this will guide someone else to a new idea.
I notice that I am wondering if the “big conversation” vs “private talk” distinction is fundamental in the human mind to the extent that they trigger different social behaviors.
I feel that large group situations cause me to be more modest and to make sure I am respecting others, while in small groups I can be easily goaded into sharing emotions or feelings for more than “my share” of the time.
Upon further reflection, I wonder if this is one of those situations where “a order of magnitude quantitative change IS a qualitative change” [1]. It seems to me like I can make a model of this idea by saying that sharing my feelings requires 10units of conversation and some certain conversation has a total of 100units comprising it [2]. If I am in the conversation with 2 people, there are 100/2=50units each and I will happily take turn after turn to share. If, however, there are 20 people, there are only 100/20=5units per person, so the conversation has to either focus on a few members only or switch to a different type.
My model doesn’t yet have any form of disproof to it, so it’s not a good thing to use unless you like being wrong, but maybe it can be firmed up into a framework worth using.
I cannot remember the name of this maxim.
In this toy model, this total unitage comes from things like time, setting, and probably many other environmental factors.