How would this Bardic Conspiracy have any real power?
12 years later, Steven, I have an answer for you. Narratives are very, very good at translating into motivation. In some sense they are the native language of motivation. If you want to keep your motivation fueled while you attack a problem, having a story to tell about how it’s important is incredibly valuable.
And unskilled narrativemancy is quite dangerous; the same things that make it valuable to have a properly-aimed narrative make it very harmful to have a misaimed narrative. It will feel true and important and point you off in the wrong direction and it will take you a long while to recover from the error (and indeed you may never recover).
The initiation ceremony is an example of really good Bardic technique at work; they are presenting the message of ‘speak the truth even if your voice trembles’ in a way that the initiates will never, ever forget. That is a story which will never leave them and permanently remind them of the dangers of succumbing to social pressure.
This is particularly important when trying to harness the power of large groups; I suspect if Conspiracies were joined purely based on the standpoint of how best to optimize the world, the Cooperative and Bardic Conspiracies would have long-since merged.
But also,
Bayes hobbyists, wisdom-of-crowds hobbyists, and moral virtue hobbyists.
These are bad characterizations of the conspiracies. Bayesian Conspiracy is obvious, but is it Cooperative or Competitive which is supposed to be the wisdom-of-crowds faction? And how could either of those be construed as ‘moral virtue hobbyists’?
I’d characterize the four as “Bayes’s Theorem, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, “Narrative, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, “The human urge to excel, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, and “A large group of people working together, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”. They are each offering, to their initiates, a “Big Secret” of “Learn to master this tool and you will become masters of the world”. Bardic actually has the strongest argument, because the system of Conspiracies is in fact a direct application of Bardic techniques to the world.
12 years later, Steven, I have an answer for you. Narratives are very, very good at translating into motivation. In some sense they are the native language of motivation. If you want to keep your motivation fueled while you attack a problem, having a story to tell about how it’s important is incredibly valuable.
And unskilled narrativemancy is quite dangerous; the same things that make it valuable to have a properly-aimed narrative make it very harmful to have a misaimed narrative. It will feel true and important and point you off in the wrong direction and it will take you a long while to recover from the error (and indeed you may never recover).
The initiation ceremony is an example of really good Bardic technique at work; they are presenting the message of ‘speak the truth even if your voice trembles’ in a way that the initiates will never, ever forget. That is a story which will never leave them and permanently remind them of the dangers of succumbing to social pressure.
This is particularly important when trying to harness the power of large groups; I suspect if Conspiracies were joined purely based on the standpoint of how best to optimize the world, the Cooperative and Bardic Conspiracies would have long-since merged.
But also,
These are bad characterizations of the conspiracies. Bayesian Conspiracy is obvious, but is it Cooperative or Competitive which is supposed to be the wisdom-of-crowds faction? And how could either of those be construed as ‘moral virtue hobbyists’?
I’d characterize the four as “Bayes’s Theorem, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, “Narrative, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, “The human urge to excel, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”, and “A large group of people working together, wielded correctly, is extremely powerful”. They are each offering, to their initiates, a “Big Secret” of “Learn to master this tool and you will become masters of the world”. Bardic actually has the strongest argument, because the system of Conspiracies is in fact a direct application of Bardic techniques to the world.