The key to Clubhouse’s rapid accession is that its social design makes it an ideal platform for cults at a time when the social internet is rapidly evolving away from organizing around communities and toward cults. Clubhouse’s rise likely signals major strategic shifts that several legacy social platforms are going to have to consider.

It is possible that art is nearer to the heart of creation than philosophy. It is therefore capable of letting something entirely new begin. The revolution can begin with as little as an unheard-of color, an unheard-of sound.  

+ Local tolerance for the novelties — The local “outside” does not push back too hard against the transgressions of the scene. The renegades and mavericks are protected by this buffer zone.

But truth, unlike information, has a centripetal force that holds society together. Information, on the other hand, is centrifugal, with very destructive effects on social cohesion. If we want to comprehend what kind of society we are living in, we need to understand the nature of information.

Before Clubhouse existed, Twitter created a proto-cult platform where aspiring cult leaders could build enormous audiences, disciples retweeted their messages, leaders blessed followers with public replies, and so forth. Instagram and TikTok have followed the Twitter model and minted new cult leaders and behaviors of their own.

But a few specific fe... See more

The serendipitous ingredients for scenius are hard to control. ...  What Camp 4 illustrated is that the best you can do is NOT KILL IT. When it pops up, don’t crush it. When it starts rolling, don’t formalize it. When it sparks, fan it. But don’t move the scenius to better quarters. Try to keep accountants and architects and police and do-good... See more

...“blockchain trust” can be defined as generalized trust, since it does not deal with personal relationships; it is a form of distributed trust, because the truth is ensured not by a centralized body but through a consensus of all the participants; it has both affective and cognitive aspects of trust, due to the fact that although human elements w... See more

The upshot is this: Communities and cults are both valid and reasonable ways to organize social structures. Flat communities worked well in the early internet of high barriers to participation and limited people and content. Hierarchical cults work better today, when the internet has a plethora of content and people, and all those barriers have fal... See more