I’m thinking now that doing it for small communities like that makes a lot more sense than what I tried. I expect that in small communities like the EA community, where there is some existing sense of connection and where it is a pretty safe assumption that people are like-minded, people would be a lot more willing to meet over video-chat, and would probably get more out of it.
This is a good point—maybe it’s best to start by creating tech to build connections within a niche community with a strong sense of identity. This reminds me of the origin story of Facebook, building connections just within Harvard. I can see how the questions you were asking could be viewed as ways of finding subsets of developers with a strong sense of shared perspective as coders. Given how large and diverse the world of software development is, I can see how this would be necessary.
Second version of the “simplify” idea—what if you worked to discover the most unusually passionate, specific, and niche “developer identity” you could find, and created a micro-targeted app just for them? The most important feature for such an app might be creating a description and name for the app and the community it’s designed for that most compellingly describes that identity. It would be a description where its users will read it and have a powerful reaction of “YES, THOSE ARE MY PEOPLE!”
You already have the software, so it seems like the main part of the work would be in figuring out what that identity is. A combination of intuition, surveys, and interviews might let you make progress. I’m guessing you’d be looking for people interested in open source, niche languages, creative coding (generative artwork?). I imagine that professional developers and students in CS departments already tend to have a lot of opportunity to connect with other programmers, so figuring out the subset of programmers who don’t feel they have that social outlet would be key.
Huh. Care to elaborate, or point me to any resources? I’m interested to hear more about that.
I’m remembering my childhood experiences of the internet, with group chats with strangers and also applications that would serve up random web pages. Now that I’m thinking about it more, I’m less confident about how random it really was—that was just my childhood impression! 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.
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.
This is a good point—maybe it’s best to start by creating tech to build connections within a niche community with a strong sense of identity. This reminds me of the origin story of Facebook, building connections just within Harvard. I can see how the questions you were asking could be viewed as ways of finding subsets of developers with a strong sense of shared perspective as coders. Given how large and diverse the world of software development is, I can see how this would be necessary.
Second version of the “simplify” idea—what if you worked to discover the most unusually passionate, specific, and niche “developer identity” you could find, and created a micro-targeted app just for them? The most important feature for such an app might be creating a description and name for the app and the community it’s designed for that most compellingly describes that identity. It would be a description where its users will read it and have a powerful reaction of “YES, THOSE ARE MY PEOPLE!”
You already have the software, so it seems like the main part of the work would be in figuring out what that identity is. A combination of intuition, surveys, and interviews might let you make progress. I’m guessing you’d be looking for people interested in open source, niche languages, creative coding (generative artwork?). I imagine that professional developers and students in CS departments already tend to have a lot of opportunity to connect with other programmers, so figuring out the subset of programmers who don’t feel they have that social outlet would be key.
I’m remembering my childhood experiences of the internet, with group chats with strangers and also applications that would serve up random web pages. Now that I’m thinking about it more, I’m less confident about how random it really was—that was just my childhood impression! 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.
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.