Rippling circles
Agitated people talking over each other isn't a community
The internet started with three tribes, and they couldn’t have been more different. The U.S. military laid the foundations and funded it. West Coast college professors led the early charge, with academics around the world following. Then a group of San Francisco hippies incubated the first iterations of online communities.
All three assumed good faith from anyone they encountered. The frameworks we see today were built on this premise. The problem—they never encoded trust into the architecture. It was assumed it would hold.
Correspondence was a click away. Files shared, browsing, chatting, talking. Identity and trust, though, were largely ignored.
Today, sites and apps get big fast by enabling easy access and removing barriers—a drive-by, anonymous experience. When they monetise, they do it more and more. Good business, without identity.
We’re suffering from the very openness the internet was built on. Agitated people talking over each other isn’t a community. Bad behaviour ripples out without regulation or consequence.
The fix is complicated, but a shared set of ideals, an understanding of consequence, and basic respect would help start a realignment.
The ripples just need to reach further than they do today.
Nick
