I was actually envisioning connecting niche communities as just a separate thing entirely from what I was trying to do in connecting people from a broader community. But I think what you’re saying about how the former often paves a path to the latter makes total sense, and Facebook is a great example! I’m not sure why I didn’t see that at first; it’s funny how many things become obvious in retrospect.
That second version of the simplify idea is interesting. I agree that the difficulty is in finding that group of people. The first thing that comes to mind are niche programming languages/libraries/frameworks. But there the people who feel passionate about them very well might already be in touch with each other.
The internet used to feel more wild, perhaps, and so open-ended exploration felt more valuable. Now, finding the needle of interest in the haystack of content is more challenging.
Hm, an analogy that is coming to my mind is walking around a town with lots of mom-and-pop shops versus walking around a city with lots of chain stores and fast food places. Stumbling across a mom-and-pop shop feels kinda random because it’s new, whereas seeing another McDonalds doesn’t feel random. Is that what you’re going for? Do you also remember you or people you know connecting with strangers in a way that lead to eg. phone calls?
The first thing that comes to mind are niche programming languages/libraries/frameworks. But there the people who feel passionate about them very well might already be in touch with each other.
My experience with the EA chats project was that, although there were lots of people who’d be happy to connect with likeminded folks, they were nervous about taking the initiative to reach out to specific people and ask to chat. Having a mechanism by which they could be assured of being connected with others who wanted the same thing seemed to eliminate this problem. Likewise, while I’m sure there’s an internet message board for almost every interest at this point, that doesn’t meant there’s a way for people interested in forming real-life relationships to do so.
When I was a kid, there are lots of reasons why internet chats didn’t turn into real-world connections, and I think that’s appropriate for children. So no, these experiences didn’t turn into phone calls. But I’ve had quite a few zoom calls, and one extended real-world friendship, that were the result of requesting to be contacted or contacting others via the EA and rationality forums and on Reddit. These have always been positive experiences.
In fact, that might be a way to start seeking out passionate people to connect via such a service: just find subreddits with a high activity-to-members ratio. Two I can think of off the top of my head are the 3D printing subreddit and the Anki (flashcard) subreddit. I could easily imagine that devotees of these technologies might enjoy forming real-life friendships with others who share their hobbies. And I could also imagine that few people in those communities have consciously realized this desire—there’s little to no cultural concept of “the 3D printing community,” much less the “flashcard community,” as a resource for finding friendships and for dating, although there’s lots of community to support the use of the technology itself.
Creating technology to support that becoming a thing seems like a relatively easy win. And it makes sense. After all, it’s not just a love of memorization and plastic sculptures that draws these people together, but a sense of creativity, passion, and a certain idealism/valus that they find realized in the technology itself.
If you continue with this, you should probably also ask some of the questions my collaborator and I tried to address. If the tech catches on, how will you deal with trolls, thieves, complaints, and so on? I’m not sure why these services aren’t more common—like why doesn’t Reddit facilitate this on its platform? I’m sure there are interesting answers here that bear on the tractability of such technology, but I don’t know what those answers are!
My experience with the EA chats project was that, although there were lots of people who’d be happy to connect with likeminded folks, they were nervous about taking the initiative to reach out to specific people and ask to chat. Having a mechanism by which they could be assured of being connected with others who wanted the same thing seemed to eliminate this problem. Likewise, while I’m sure there’s an internet message board for almost every interest at this point, that doesn’t meant there’s a way for people interested in forming real-life relationships to do so.
Great point, that makes sense.
In fact, that might be a way to start seeking out passionate people to connect via such a service: just find subreddits with a high activity-to-members ratio.
That does sound like a good idea! There are a few other projects I’m feeling more excited about right now so I don’t think I’m going to pursue it. But I have added it to my list of ideas.
If the tech catches on, how will you deal with trolls, thieves, complaints, and so on?
Yeah that is an important question. It seems like a very difficult problem in general. I think big companies like Facebook have some sort of AI thing that tries to detect it, but my impression is that they haven’t had much success.
I was actually envisioning connecting niche communities as just a separate thing entirely from what I was trying to do in connecting people from a broader community. But I think what you’re saying about how the former often paves a path to the latter makes total sense, and Facebook is a great example! I’m not sure why I didn’t see that at first; it’s funny how many things become obvious in retrospect.
That second version of the simplify idea is interesting. I agree that the difficulty is in finding that group of people. The first thing that comes to mind are niche programming languages/libraries/frameworks. But there the people who feel passionate about them very well might already be in touch with each other.
Hm, an analogy that is coming to my mind is walking around a town with lots of mom-and-pop shops versus walking around a city with lots of chain stores and fast food places. Stumbling across a mom-and-pop shop feels kinda random because it’s new, whereas seeing another McDonalds doesn’t feel random. Is that what you’re going for? Do you also remember you or people you know connecting with strangers in a way that lead to eg. phone calls?
My experience with the EA chats project was that, although there were lots of people who’d be happy to connect with likeminded folks, they were nervous about taking the initiative to reach out to specific people and ask to chat. Having a mechanism by which they could be assured of being connected with others who wanted the same thing seemed to eliminate this problem. Likewise, while I’m sure there’s an internet message board for almost every interest at this point, that doesn’t meant there’s a way for people interested in forming real-life relationships to do so.
When I was a kid, there are lots of reasons why internet chats didn’t turn into real-world connections, and I think that’s appropriate for children. So no, these experiences didn’t turn into phone calls. But I’ve had quite a few zoom calls, and one extended real-world friendship, that were the result of requesting to be contacted or contacting others via the EA and rationality forums and on Reddit. These have always been positive experiences.
In fact, that might be a way to start seeking out passionate people to connect via such a service: just find subreddits with a high activity-to-members ratio. Two I can think of off the top of my head are the 3D printing subreddit and the Anki (flashcard) subreddit. I could easily imagine that devotees of these technologies might enjoy forming real-life friendships with others who share their hobbies. And I could also imagine that few people in those communities have consciously realized this desire—there’s little to no cultural concept of “the 3D printing community,” much less the “flashcard community,” as a resource for finding friendships and for dating, although there’s lots of community to support the use of the technology itself.
Creating technology to support that becoming a thing seems like a relatively easy win. And it makes sense. After all, it’s not just a love of memorization and plastic sculptures that draws these people together, but a sense of creativity, passion, and a certain idealism/valus that they find realized in the technology itself.
If you continue with this, you should probably also ask some of the questions my collaborator and I tried to address. If the tech catches on, how will you deal with trolls, thieves, complaints, and so on? I’m not sure why these services aren’t more common—like why doesn’t Reddit facilitate this on its platform? I’m sure there are interesting answers here that bear on the tractability of such technology, but I don’t know what those answers are!
Great point, that makes sense.
That does sound like a good idea! There are a few other projects I’m feeling more excited about right now so I don’t think I’m going to pursue it. But I have added it to my list of ideas.
Yeah that is an important question. It seems like a very difficult problem in general. I think big companies like Facebook have some sort of AI thing that tries to detect it, but my impression is that they haven’t had much success.