🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (23 tweets)
How is it that Scenius manages to coordinate disparate people without "governments or companies"? Alan Kay believes it's captured in the 'power of context'. I agree. Scenius is capable of unique coordination because its members create and play unique games. https://t.co/QG1uzKcYSZ
Finding a new game is a natural thing to do for curious, dedicated people. They naturally want to find a "creative frontier that is large". Large enough to play for a long time. (h/t @michael_nielsen) https://t.co/ohye3jemSt
The Royal Society is a great example — they basically formed around the new social "game" of science. Science was such a niche pursuit at the time, that only a few geeks would center around "doing science" for fun. https://t.co/nRG3DkpCzi
Once a new game is formed, groups want to recruit, so they often make legible pathways for new participation in the frontier. They document discoveries, share interesting problems, and evangelize "the thing". The Royal Society wanted to spread the gospel of science. https://t.co/HplKrWXt3J
When the game is exciting enough, word spreads, and an entire scene develops around it. There is a new frontier to explore. The "rules" for this new space are mostly social — the Hackers had their "hacker ethic", the Inklings had their "mythopoetic vision" https://t.co/yyPyqY8kve
Sometimes you don't know the rules for the new game yet. Moments like this are exciting. You can feel a new game forming that you want to play -- that you might want to play for years -- and you've got a shot at greatness. https://t.co/qzoMlUdliy
Sometimes the game is crashed. A corporate interest takes notice, the powers that be are brought to bear on the problem. It's amazing AND tragic. You did it! You convinced the world to play. But now it's over, you need to move on to the next game. https://t.co/EIvNWrbTbv
It's hard to know which "new, exciting game" will turn out to be tremendously valuable. The Royal Society was 12 dudes who loved the game of science. The Hackers cared more about the game of "neat hacks" than impressing anyone else. https://t.co/dKO7wls8TY https://t.co/yvo56XeGtc
Peter Thiel is famous for denouncing competition. Scenius seems to agree: by playing a new game, you create a new incentive landscape and status hierarchy. Scenius gets "a monopoly" on exploring "The New Thing" Impressing your peers becomes all that matters, more than money.
Conjecture: any successful new science basically starts as a new game that a group of people love to play with one another. The incentives of that game shape the field. https://t.co/HFEO07KhmO https://t.co/QTsNLGapmL
The social incentive landscapes of new games can be observed through the flow of social capital throughout the scene. What contributions earn social capital in this scene? https://t.co/rOW8KKTkdx
Economic incentives need to keep people together, AND the social economy needs to reward innovation. When a scene's social incentives converge with "something brilliant", they can't help being brilliant. https://t.co/COu4gVqgNc
2/ Without an economic ecosystem that ties people together in positive sum games, new cultures can be easily destabilized, especially by:(a) global crises (see how corona rekt so many subcultures)(b) shiny economic opportunities (eg job in a different city)
A "new game" is a type of "social frontier", which creates incentives for people to explore an intellectual frontier, where it's common for groups to build an "innovation commons" https://t.co/21786Q43N1
In great scenes, these new social games almost always create strong incentives for Unblocking, which is a core component of Scenius: https://t.co/DsxOzw72bY
re: new sciences start out as unique games https://t.co/kBsfu2X0Kr
@TylerAlterman There's a game to connect interesting people/ideas together on Twitter. @visakanv, @Malcolm_Ocean, etc. There are new games and grifts in ai/web3/metaverse (@vgr covers these) A game around New Governance (@palladiummag, @newscienceorg, etc) Still early days for these spaces
@TylerAlterman @__drewface ha i loved that you asked the same question as the last time (in reply to quoted tweet above) I would say since then my sense is that the old game is reactive while the new game is proactive. it's hard to point at, but few people realize we can tweet *absolutely anything*
@TylerAlterman More interesting to me: what new games are you playing right now? Personally I have a lot of eggs in an emerging game (rules haven't formed yet) around building/connecting communities for the sake of flourishing Many people doing this, but extremely loose organization.
@__drewface @TylerAlterman one i'm gonna start playing after i ship my book is i'm going to look for talented people to microfund, and then compete with other people for who can do the best/most microfundings. let a thousand emergent ventures bloom https://t.co/TXAwaUUorU