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Villages are stable because they can give a sense of belonging. Our basic human yearnings shape the world we live in.
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To foster village dynamics, I expect to see more and more open protocols. We need open protocols for our infinite games.
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Physical villages or group chats function relatively well compared to e.g. Twitter or Reddit. We have not managed to built a “human sized internet” (language from Urbit project).
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Notice that physical villages are decentralised in the sense that no single entity has visibility let alone controls what happens globally in all physical villages. There are no “moderators” that can kick you out of all villages. When someone gets too drunk too often and then rambles incoherent things, no one treats them seriously anymore, which is why people have incentives to behave (through our yearning for belonging). Our basic human yearnings shape the world we live in.
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I have the definition of village from https://www.marginalia.nu/log/82_killing_community/
- The central thesis is that what these villages can’t tolerate is a sustained large influx of strangers. A stranger in this context is an nothing more or less than an unfamiliar face.
- A slow trickle of strangers is tolerable, a brief large influx is fine; the strangers’ average interaction is eventually stabilises and biases toward the a stable group of members, and they quickly find shared values and become villagers too. They become familiar faces, and undoubtedly make their mark on the shared culture. That’s often a refreshing and welcome thing. It’s still a village.
- When sustained growth is too large, the strangers’ average interaction is with other strangers, and even if this would have eventually stabilised into something like a village, there are yet more strangers to prevent this from happening. Everyone stays strangers, and a sort of stranger-culture emerges where guards are up by default because there are never any familiar faces.
- It’s no longer a village, but something like a train station. The default mode of being is passing through. People come and go, and there’s no real sense of belonging. There is a sense of anonymity, there are no lasting repercussions for cutting in line or being rude.