Article

Scale changes everything

This is a much shorter version of the last post

Human behaviour does not stay the same as groups grow. The instincts that helped small tribes survive - loyalty, signalling belonging, defending boundaries, competing for status, consolidating influence - functioned well within natural limits. In small groups, feedback was immediate. Consequences were visible. Power was constrained by proximity and material reality.

But when those same instincts operate at contemporary social scale - inside […]

Article

Scale changes everything

This is a much shorter version of the last post

Human behaviour does not stay the same as groups grow. The instincts that helped small tribes survive - loyalty, signalling belonging, defending boundaries, competing for status, consolidating influence - functioned well within natural limits. In small groups, feedback was immediate. Consequences were visible. Power was constrained by proximity and material reality.

But when those same instincts operate at contemporary social scale - inside […]

Article

The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years

Very much a DRAFT

The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]

Article

The tension that’s pushed back into the fediverse the last few years

Very much a DRAFT

The idea and direction are broadly right (decentralised social web, commons infrastructure, alternatives to #dotcons). but the institutional reality is hollow, not enough resources going into the “native” messy grassroots work that actually keeps things alive.People like Evan and others stepping into organisational roles were, from their perspective, trying to stabilise infrastructure, secure insitunal funding streams, reduce fragmentation and make the ecosystem legible […]