If Social Media is evil, how can you fix it?
This is the question I try to answer.
The Inn is a laboratory. Its goal is to architect an alternate reality that shows how the world could be if it didn’t take that fork in the road that flushed it down the Social poop chute.
It’s not too late. Together, we can find a cure.
The smart thing to do is build small. Build simple.
That’s what everyone says you should do.
But I see an alien and beautiful world that I wish others could see too.
If it’s too simple, it might not make sense.
But I must make it simple.
The scary adventure of a worldbuilder
Failure is the daily reality of a worldbuilder.
People’s desires have evolved from generic to specific.
We’ve come a long way from the mass-industrial age where one-size fits all, to an on-demand bespoke economy, where people demand a perfect fit.
We used to have national TV. Now we have YouTube.
There used to be one TV per house. Now we have screens in our pockets. Many now watch the pocket screen while watching TV, while using the computer.
We used to have national newspapers. Now we have billions of blogs and Social hubs.
Bottle of supplements with identical chemical ingredients – one says vision supplements for Golfers; another says vision supplements for Recreational Pilots.
Can a generic architecture cater to specific — even fanatic — tastes?
I don’t know. This goes against everything I know is right. But I need to try.
In optimization, a tool for battling complexity is Divide and Conquer.
When a big problem is too tough, break it down into a smaller problem. Still too tough? Break it down smaller still.
What’s the problem with the information age? Too much information.
Imagine trying to organize a massive record collection, wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling. Will you sort it alphabetically by album title? I doubt it. You might sort it by artist. You might sort it by genre. You might sort it by how often you play it.
In general, you create categories — bins — to place them in.
The Internet has grown up, but the tools to manage the information haven’t kept up. Look around – a catch-all “music” bucket is worthless.
Our tastes are too deep and different. Even with categories, they don’t do much better than one large genre. In reality, even each genre fractures into slivers of fanatics.
Sadly, the information world is still flat. They still expect you to reach for things as if you’re looking up the title of the record you want.
Flat doesn’t cut it anymore. We have too much information to access it flat.
It’s getting too crowded. Too messy. So what’s the next step? Hierarchy.
The Inn needs Evil. There has to be a common enemy.
There will be a Monster in the House to force people to band together.
Without Evil, there will be no Good.
I see a possible universe. But does no one else see it?
It should be obvious to someone who walks between both worlds – the world of technology and the world of psychology.
There are people who are experts in one or the other. But this requires a rare combination of both.
The probability of someone having paid their dues both these fields at these opposite ends is rare. The probability of someone doing something about their knowledge is rarer. The probability of someone persisting long enough that what they do succeeds is even rarer.
I hate new inventions. Adapting proven formulas is smarter.
But I feel the urge to create this. Because I don’t think anyone else can. And if I don’t… I don’t think anyone else will… and we’ll keep barreling down this horrible trajectory.