A few years ago I investigated how medieval Europeans built cathedrals. It was just incredible to me that anyone completed anything over multiple generations- how did anyone possibly stick with anything that long?
My conclusion after a fairly brief investigation:
they mostly didn’t. Many more cathedrals were attempted than finished.
a major contributor to the finished ones was a lack of competing options. Yes, people were poor, but given resources and a desire to spend them on something in the class of a cathedral, the local cathedral was really the only option.
I’m reminded of this every time I think about modern socialization. There were lots of reasons people participated in bowling leagues and rotary club, but one of them was that there wasn’t a lot else to do. You could lock in without worrying about the opportunity cost.
And that was true for everyone, and everyone knew it was true for everyone, which mean you could count on each others’ participation in the stag hunt, which made you and them even more willing to invest.
I didn’t play TTRPGs for ~10 years, but got back into over covid. I am supremely confident the game would have fallen apart if we’d had anything else to do. Some players were flakey even in lockdown, and it took a few months for the game to really gel. But by the end it really paid off and I was so glad I’d put in the time.
Trying to socialize in the bay area, especially stag-hunt socializing where people predictably invest and it takes time to pay off, is undercut by the sheer abundance of options. It’s hard to get people to cook a meal when there are so many snacks, even when every individual prefers meals to snacks.
A few years ago I investigated how medieval Europeans built cathedrals. It was just incredible to me that anyone completed anything over multiple generations- how did anyone possibly stick with anything that long?
My conclusion after a fairly brief investigation:
they mostly didn’t. Many more cathedrals were attempted than finished.
a major contributor to the finished ones was a lack of competing options. Yes, people were poor, but given resources and a desire to spend them on something in the class of a cathedral, the local cathedral was really the only option.
I’m reminded of this every time I think about modern socialization. There were lots of reasons people participated in bowling leagues and rotary club, but one of them was that there wasn’t a lot else to do. You could lock in without worrying about the opportunity cost.
And that was true for everyone, and everyone knew it was true for everyone, which mean you could count on each others’ participation in the stag hunt, which made you and them even more willing to invest.
I didn’t play TTRPGs for ~10 years, but got back into over covid. I am supremely confident the game would have fallen apart if we’d had anything else to do. Some players were flakey even in lockdown, and it took a few months for the game to really gel. But by the end it really paid off and I was so glad I’d put in the time.
Trying to socialize in the bay area, especially stag-hunt socializing where people predictably invest and it takes time to pay off, is undercut by the sheer abundance of options. It’s hard to get people to cook a meal when there are so many snacks, even when every individual prefers meals to snacks.