
What Good Is ‘Community’ When Someone Else Makes All the Rules? - kawera
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/magazine/what-good-is-community-when-someone-else-makes-all-the-rules.html
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sudoscript
>> There’s an association that still lingers between a “community” and a
physical location — the idyllic small town, say, or the utopian village, real
or imagined. It evokes a cozy, friendly, simple place in which people live in
easy harmony and cooperation, each with a role to play, each mattering to the
whole.

>> “Community” makes everything sound better. It makes “the activist
community” sound approachable; it makes “the skin-care community” sound
important; it makes “the Christian community” sound inclusive and kind; it
makes “the medical community” sound folksy and skilled at the bedside; it
makes “the homeless community” sound voluntary; it makes “the gun rights
community” sound humanistic; it makes “the tech community” sound like good
citizens.

All these "communities" that we're told we're part of all the time are really
just labels. Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine
feeling of comraderie that real communities are supposed to have. They exist,
but are much fewer and far in between than everyone uses the word for.

~~~
smallnamespace
> Very few of them actually have the organic bonds or genuine feeling of
> comraderie that real communities are supposed to have

There is a tradeoff between freedom and community.

Organic bonds with real feeling come from a true alignment in interests. One
of the simplest ways of creating interest alignment is making sure everyone
has a long-term commitment. But the flip side of 'commitment' is that people
can't be free to leave whenever they want.

A highly mobile society where everyone is largely free to join or leave any
virtual community, neighborhood, is one where nobody feels any form of
permanent attachment to that institution or to their fellow community members,
because there is no long-term commitment, either from themselves, or from
their fellow members. A neighborhood where _everyone_ has the ability to
freely come and go is one where nobody has a strong incentive to sacrifice for
their neighbors, because who knows who your neighbors will be tomorrow, or
whether you will still be there?

You can see one aspect with the rise of no-fault divorce; in the past, perhaps
many people were trapped in unhappy marriages, but by the same token, the
lifelong commitment may have encouraged many couples figure out ways to make
it work. Nowadays, it is no longer possible for both members to bind
themselves to one another. And since both partners can walk out at any time
(and both people know it), why go to extraordinary lengths to make it work?

~~~
foamflower
> There is a tradeoff between freedom and community.

This largely depends on the conception of freedom in question. If freedom
implies that individuals as a result of a the proliferation of human rights
are able to live atomistic lives without much interaction with most anyone
else than the state and their employers, then I agree. The last ~100 years is
empirical evidence of this.

If, however, freedom implies that beyond a few obligations and non-intrusive
rights (e.g. a right to free speech doesnt impose on anyone else, whereas a
right to education or health care does), then freedom and community are
correlated goods. We can see the evidence of this in the 19th century. Alexis
de Tocqueville for instance wrote extensively about how in America, people
organically formed their own communities in the absence of de jure social
classes (beyond citizen and slave, which he found grotesque), and that this
was a unique aspect of the relative freedom found in America at the time.

All of this is to say that the conception of freedom dictates the cohesion and
veracity and quantity of organic communities. Or, perhaps stated another way,
there is a trade-off between organic community and both inclusion and state
intervention in private arrangements.

~~~
smallnamespace
> there is a trade-off between organic community and both inclusion and state
> intervention in private arrangements.

I think this line becomes heavily blurred in a democratic society where laws
are authentic expressions of people's preference for how their society should
be ordered. The laws surrounding marriage being the obvious prototype.

You can see the proposals to abolish marriage in the wake of the French
Revolution as a recognition it is the ultimate intrusion of the state (and
Church) into deeply private affairs, but one which we as a society tolerate
due to long practice and because we ultimate recognize that the necessary
_freedom to enter into a binding commitment_ is more valuable than, say, the
freedom to be able to change your mind at any time (modern, unilateral no-
fault divorce notwithstanding).

I agree that the way freedom is defined strongly matters and I attacked a bit
of a strawman, but one that represents a trend. A naive conception of freedom,
where all rules, traditions, and authorities are seen as inherently limiting,
ultimately leads to normlessness and anomie.

I'd say that what many modern societies lack are meaningful commitments,
freely entered (strong, cohesive communities being one aspect).

------
headsoup
To me the greatest issue with the Facebook 'community' is that it is the
conglomeration (the umbrella) of sub-communities which, in not being a
Facebook member, excludes me from accessing any of them. It's basically like
having to obtain a passport just to enter the neighbouring town's pub.

A specific example: a local tabletop gaming store has a 'Facebook community'
but no alternative forum. There is potential friendship and worthwhile
discourse to be had by joining the community, but it is not accessible without
joining Facebook.

This problem just doesn't seem significant because so many are already in the
'Facebook community' already. It's not that Facebook set the rules or defines
the community, it's that _they own the front door and you need their key to
enter._

~~~
denimnerd
Facebook killed my favorite real community's local discussion forum on their
own hosted website. Everyone just uses the Facebook group now and so I can't
just leave facebook which leaving the communication I have with this group.

~~~
tokyodude
I had an active forum before facebook and twitter. the forum died and was not
transferred to facebook. Rather it seems like people’s free time to
participate in tb forum got occupied with their time on fb and twitter.

Unfortunatelt neither fb nor twitter are really designed to support forum
style interaction. No list of topics and threads

~~~
sharemywin
My understanding is marketplace is killing a lot of neighbor garage sale
facebook groups.

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magpi3
Well written and makes a lot of great points, however... I am no fan of
Facebook, but you have to give it and other social networks some credit for
giving communities - real communities - tools to organize. For example, we've
rapidly gone through a generational shift in how people view lgbtq persons in
the past 20 years, and I entirely (admittedly without any hard data) attribute
that shift to the tools the internet and social networks have provided that
have allowed lgbtq communities to connect, organize, and educate non-lgbtq
folks like me.

~~~
pjc50
You can't give Facebook credit for lgbT acceptance when for a long time they
banned trans people. They're also bad at moderation due to not understanding
language; [https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-hate-speech-
policies-c...](https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-hate-speech-policies-
censor-marginalized-users/)

The internet may well have been great for lgbt acceptance but it's despite not
because of Facebook.

~~~
nl
I think many people (not just FB) have made mistakes on lgbT acceptance, and
trans acceptance can be one of the harder areas to get right (many people just
don't know what accepted behavior is).

I had no idea about dead-naming etc. I think FB should have done better, but I
think their apology did seem genuine.

So I think criticism is valid, but they also deserve some credit. It's not
like _anyone_ knew how to run a social network in 2012.

~~~
pjc50
More of a "customer service" problem: there were plenty of people telling them
it was a bad idea right from the start, but they didn't listen.

> It's not like anyone knew how to run a social network in 2012.

Only if you try hard not to see prior art. "Online communities" of one sort or
another have existed as long as the internet, and wrestled with questions of
what constitutes abuse.

Really the problem is that Facebook has gone from a mere product to something
quite important to society without going through a self-examination period.
It's also, oddly, never really tried to have a relationship with its users as
a community or communities. Tom being your "friend" on Myspace may have been a
gimmick but at least it was pretending that the relationship existed.

~~~
nl
_there were plenty of people telling them it was a bad idea right from the
start, but they didn 't listen_

Perhaps, but it seems to me that (most of?) these people were actually saying
the "real names" policy was a bad idea.

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awinter-py
IMO forums & listhosts are richer, healthier & better-moderated than the
platforms.

I think this author is right to link community to ownership & governance.

~~~
Animats
Yes. If you can't vote to fire the leadership, you're not a "member". You're a
customer at best.

------
dfxm12
_Nobody feels any personal kinship with "community" of billions of fellow
Facebook users_

That's kind of disingenuous, no? I'm sure this fits some dictionary definition
of "community", but it is quite different from the context the rest of the
article is using. That's like comparing my kinship to a human across the world
I've never met because we're humans vs my kinship to my gaming group, whom I
meet with weekly.

These two "communities" are very different, and yeah, even in my offline
gaming group, we are beholden to the gaming store (and to a lesser extent, the
companies who make the games we play) who set rules, in a similar way to the
way Facebook users are beholden to Facebook. I don't think this is
unreasonable, as they are providing a service. I also don't certainly feel
like a loser for playing by these rules, even if the gaming store, or
Facebook, is winning (I guess by profiting more? or asserting their rules? I'm
not really clear on what the author's premise is here).

~~~
acobster
The premise is that FB is the target of lots of recent scrutiny about how
they've exposed your data and that of many, many other FB users, even turning
a blind eye to companies collecting that data in violation of FB's own terms
of service.

While being beholden to standard terms-of-service arrangements are to be
expected, it's very different from your gaming example where you've paid
someone for a product and must simply abode by certain community guidelines
when interacting with other users. To FB, you are the product. If you're
really not aware of this dynamic, googling "Cambridge Analytica" is a good
place to start.

The way FB and others have capitalized on people willingly giving up personal
info so that advertisers can pay for more effective ways to manipulate its
users is rather disengenuous given all the talk about "community."

------
paulmd
See: Ethereum.

Boy, I really want a 17-year-old making all the macroeconomic decisions for my
currency! I guess we're doing a deflationary currency now, because he did a
"joking not joking" April Fools "prank"!

------
tempodox
If someone else makes all the rules, it's more like a cult than a community. A
community would have decision mechanisms for making their own rules.

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noir-york
Well written article with excellent points. "community" is another instance of
using language to frame or spin an issue, with the consequent diluting of what
a real community is.

"Community is the spoonful of sugar that makes the othering go down." was
particularly evocative.

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stretchwithme
Someone else is always making the rules. Because we are always only one
amongst billions. Why would I expect to make the rules?

And many of the rules we have to follow are handed to us by nature.

What matters is what we do within the rules that exist. Which can potentially
be a lot if you don't hobble yourself with self-made rules that aren't really
valid. The rules in your head are the biggest challenge.

~~~
dannyw
Rules of most groups are, directly or indirectly, decided by the same group.
Such as professional associations, your local tabletop gaming group, homeowner
associations, or democracies.

They’re not perfect, but at least there is a chain of input. For Facebook,
that group has opposing motivations to this “community” – its lets and
requirement is to exploit this resource, ie your cold hard data.

This is not a critique of capitalism – it is an argument that large
corporations cannot create communities.

~~~
watwut
Local tabletop gaming groups have rules set by store that hosts the meetings.
It is not members setting rules, but the place setting rules. Professional
association have rules set by few companies with others not having realistic
chance to change the rules.

In many places, homeowner associations is something you have to be member of,
whether you want it or not.

~~~
Lionsion
In all those examples of communities, the members have real channels of
influence over the rules, they are not merely subject ones handed down by a
distant authority. HOAs have boards that members can petition or join, etc.

------
rdlecler1
In response to the title, nation states and employment and companies is not
that much different. We may gravitate to certain countries or companies
because we like the culture those rules create. I don’t see why online social
networks should be different.

------
8bitsrule
That's not a community, that's a 'congregation'.

~~~
chillingeffect
or even just "population."

we used to have this debate over and over in grad school.

People would invent things and hope for a "community" to form--- that was the
ultimate validation. But it was naive and pretentious to expect that any
single invention could lead to community, especially within the time frame of
grad school.

~~~
8bitsrule
LOL. I seem to recall spending a grad school time sitting in a cubicle in a
remote corner of the library with a pile of books and papers. Not too
conducive to 'community' except for the 2 or 3 people who -had- to read my
scrivening.

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tmaly
What I find interesting now is many people do not know their neighbors in a
physical location. I know a few people in my neighborhood, but for the most
part everyone is a stranger.

I happen to live in an HOA where a select few make rules for everyone else.
This idea of an online community and the draw back of rule makers seems to
extend to the real world in this situation.

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JulianMorrison
Your problem is capitalism, subset: private property. The idea that essential
mass communication infrastructure can and should be owned and fully controlled
by its owners, and that outweighs the wishes and intent of _fully a quarter of
all humans alive_.

I simply disagree with it.

------
usermac
China

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ziotom78
When I read the title, I thought it was an essay about the European Union...

------
EGreg
It seems every other day something on HN makes me glad we built an open source
platform to empower people and unite communities.

Open source removes a lot of the criticism in this article. The trick is to
make it powerful and easy to use enough to compete with Facebook. Like
Wordpress or Discourse do a great job doing.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI)

