As an aside, TPOT (though I'm off of x now) is really one of the coolest Internet cultures around. Hyper elite in a way that is scary. I feel like I was constantly hearing ideas and knowing things before mainstream.
I never thought of it as being an illegible community, but when I think of how you need to understand rats to get postrats, and the way ppl think and communicate in TPOT I'd say it's a strangely illegible group, where the bar of entry doesn't demand a certain culture beyond basic western stuff. Which is wierd.
yeah I don't remember the exact moment / I think you'll get different answers if you ask different people. In my head it was when I met etymologynerd in NYC and pitched him my idea of using the "good & evil" game (https://defenderofbasic.github.io/good-and-evil-concepts/) as an experiment. Like where he'd make a video about it, people would play it, we'd collect data on what people thought vs what the LLM thought, and use that to chart different ideologies (and then other influencers would repro it and we'd keep charting the entire memome this way)
I think that seeded the idea of self-aware experiments with the audience. And I think when his video about rationalist language went viral in tpot is when we brainstormed on discord that it'd be fun to make a video response to it
Thanks. Interesting essay. As someone who knows Defender but none of the other people and places, that comes from a peculiarity of mine. I love to read: Substack, Medium, Quora (in the past), and the major news outlets: nytimes, new yorker, the atlantic.
But I hate, hate, hate video and audio blogs. I find I get impatient when listening - hurry up already! Maybe I should be playing it at double speed, but the other thing I love is to skip back a couple of paragraphs or hit Ctrl-F which just doesn't work well in sight or sound.
I watch the occasional YouTube video, but only in three cases: Sabine Hossenfelder (because she is 8 minutes max), Rick Beato (his enthusiasm is infectious) and various Unitarian Universalist materials (but I prefer the transcript.
So videos are out. They will never reach me.
Also, "social media", such as FaceBook, Twitter, and increasingly, LinkedIn are out too. I pretty well automatically discount anything under 200 words. If you have cut it down to that size, then, well, you have a meme, but you don't have any information. Memes are signifiers that point to the information. They are not food for thought - they are only the wrapper.
I find it interesting that I run across 2 words that a friend and I have put together coming from another. Memetics and Egregore. Perhaps we have encountered eachother over on X/twitter..
As an aside, TPOT (though I'm off of x now) is really one of the coolest Internet cultures around. Hyper elite in a way that is scary. I feel like I was constantly hearing ideas and knowing things before mainstream.
I never thought of it as being an illegible community, but when I think of how you need to understand rats to get postrats, and the way ppl think and communicate in TPOT I'd say it's a strangely illegible group, where the bar of entry doesn't demand a certain culture beyond basic western stuff. Which is wierd.
I love witnessing this work in action.
Go team!
This is super cool. Timeline is missing the part where someone proposed this experiment tho!
yeah I don't remember the exact moment / I think you'll get different answers if you ask different people. In my head it was when I met etymologynerd in NYC and pitched him my idea of using the "good & evil" game (https://defenderofbasic.github.io/good-and-evil-concepts/) as an experiment. Like where he'd make a video about it, people would play it, we'd collect data on what people thought vs what the LLM thought, and use that to chart different ideologies (and then other influencers would repro it and we'd keep charting the entire memome this way)
I think that seeded the idea of self-aware experiments with the audience. And I think when his video about rationalist language went viral in tpot is when we brainstormed on discord that it'd be fun to make a video response to it
Thanks. Interesting essay. As someone who knows Defender but none of the other people and places, that comes from a peculiarity of mine. I love to read: Substack, Medium, Quora (in the past), and the major news outlets: nytimes, new yorker, the atlantic.
But I hate, hate, hate video and audio blogs. I find I get impatient when listening - hurry up already! Maybe I should be playing it at double speed, but the other thing I love is to skip back a couple of paragraphs or hit Ctrl-F which just doesn't work well in sight or sound.
I watch the occasional YouTube video, but only in three cases: Sabine Hossenfelder (because she is 8 minutes max), Rick Beato (his enthusiasm is infectious) and various Unitarian Universalist materials (but I prefer the transcript.
So videos are out. They will never reach me.
Also, "social media", such as FaceBook, Twitter, and increasingly, LinkedIn are out too. I pretty well automatically discount anything under 200 words. If you have cut it down to that size, then, well, you have a meme, but you don't have any information. Memes are signifiers that point to the information. They are not food for thought - they are only the wrapper.
wc message:
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I find it interesting that I run across 2 words that a friend and I have put together coming from another. Memetics and Egregore. Perhaps we have encountered eachother over on X/twitter..
Is there a public invite link to the discord? Very interested in joining!
can find it at the bottom of this page! https://www.community-archive.org/
Very cool, ty!!