Cards for Insight: Chat, Cards, Cybernetics and Formats
In a network, the best place to story knowledge is amidst, among and in between people.
Cards for Insight: Formats for cultivating shared understanding
Since 103% of all co-creation of value resides in the links, feedback
loops, the in-between spaces and unique insights and annotations
from participants, let’s design different social machines that can help us address this.
Cards for Insight: Prototyping
Zara Altair :
Here we are in details of FB messaging 😃
Card: Understanding
What if understanding is our
ability to hold space for the
possibility of knowledge, as
it emerges, unfolds, directs
and discloses its relevance
to unexplored aspects of
things known?
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Shared Understanding
Effective communication in light of
the information being conveyed.
Conversational intelligence turned
ability to hold shared context.
Metalogue conducive to mutuality,
learning and comprehension.
John Kellden:
Card: We
Model online citizens in
proprietary platform models! 🙂
Glenn Gaasland:
I wrote something a few days ago which relates to this, an alternative way of using social media, including proprietary platforms. And I believe a better paradigm for moderation/censorship than the common one today:
“Social media platform managers, generally, consider and treat the platform users as children. Social media platform users, generally, behave like children. This is why the form of censorship we currently see on social media continues, and why most of social media today is a sad and toxic wasteland. (This is especially the case for “political” groups and content).
We can imagine a version of social media where the platform users, generally, behave like responsible adults, and the platform managers also do this. And where the users and managers of social media platforms generally treat one another as fellow peers, with care and respect and dignity, in a mutually uplifting and creative synergistic relationship. The way people behave when doing something recognized as important and valuable together.
In this alternative scenario, almost all social media censorship would be self-censorship, while a cultural natural selection of attention in the community would take care of the rest. Platform managers would spend most of their time communicating with platform users, sharing content and developing amazing software. Platform users would spend most of their time creating and enjoying amazing content. Toxic content, misinformation and hateful propaganda would get little attention, not be rewarded, and not be prioritized by platform users in general, who would be doing far more fun and interesting things instead.
Truly interesting, useful and beautiful high-quality information would naturally rise to the surface and assist a better life for everyone.
This would be a very different kind of social media.
John Kellden:
Let’s see if I can rattle off some of the emojis that could work in light of instigating, cultivating, evolving and building shared understanding on — good enough human online behavior:
… 100, sparkles, two eyes, handshake, wizard, namaste hands, heart, …
One of the things that has always bugged me with proprietary platforms in general and fb in particular, is how so many participants add an emoji, a like button, to the near total exclusion of adding any considered, considerate comment conducive to conversation, to communication, avoiding almost any and all means to shared understanding ends, instead, opting to remain audience, passively, at the sideline.
- But we are subscribed to five-hundred socials, there’s no time?!?!
- Ok, so why are you subscribed to so many socials then?
Yes, proprietary platforms are horrible and we should not be on them at all — and — yes, while we are here, we could hack them towards convivial ends.
Glenn Gaasland:
“One of the things that has always bugged me with proprietary platforms in general and fb in particular, is how so many participants add an emoji, a like button, to the near total exclusion of adding any considered, considerate comment conducive to conversation, to communication, avoiding almost any and all means to shared understanding ends, instead, opting to remain audience, passively, at the sideline.”
One simple hack is to use the “copy” function to provide context, and follow a certain thread deeper.
A more fundamental hack is adopting a more useful mindset and conduct than what is common. “Comments are a waste of time/an arena for trolls/don’t read the comments” can be replaced with the mindset “Comments are an opportunity to create interesting ideas, formulations and insights.” Towards other: “This person is a (bullshit stereotype category” replaced with: “I don’t know who this person is, and even less who they might become”. Towards the platform: “This is cheap entertainment” replaced with “This is a place for learning, connecting with awesome people and creating things together”.
Another great hack is to get into the habit of going through your friends list, or group lists, rather than the standard wall.
To “value social media higher” is a common thread here. It includes many challenges to limiting beliefs (“proprietary platforms must be bad”), and opens new and totally unexplored possibilities.
John Kellden:
Proprietary platforms *are* bad, otherwise we wouldn’t have to hack them.
Cards for Insight: Grand Theft Data
fb:
Card 1: Convenience
… what’s on your mind? …
Card 2: Grand Theft Data
OpenAI:
Card 1: Convenience
… what’s your prompt? …
Card 2: Grand Theft Data
your car:
Card 1: Convenience
… what’s on your personal ken comfort zone enclosure mind? …
Card 2: Grand Theft Data
Big Data is The Waste Land Rover
“…the automotive sector has filled our cars with surveillance gear,
but that data is only reliably available to commercial data-brokers
and hackers who breach Big Cars’ massive data repositories.”
— Cory Doctorow
https://mastodon.social/@johnkellden/109942661878972242
The choice of not seeing this pattern, is denial. Denial makes for dysfunctional behavior.
Cards for Insight: Different social machines
Imagine a platform with a transparent AI, it’s transparency combined with a social machine designed in light of equity and equitability.
That’s the social machine I’ve prototyped here in this very chat.
(a group chat in fb, with around 150 members)
Now, imagine that our chat, is one of four modules of this social machine.
- chat
- cards
- feedback (personal, small group, online community dashboard: self-governance, cybernetics and governance)
- formats
Imagine our online behavior, at card format, small group genius scope, social social media reach, networked intelligent distribution and social machine scale.
The first three of the four parts of a social machine, chat, cards and feedback, are simple and intuitive.
The fourth, formats, require some unpacking. It’s essentially everything between rss and this:
Noosphere
https://github.com/subconsciousnetwork/subconscious/pull/392
Cards for Insight: Platform Design
Chat, cards, feedback and formats.
Proprietary platform format and design
fb:
Card 1: Convenience
… what’s on your mind? …
Card 2: Grand Theft Data
Cards for Insight: 100k two-card combinations
Card 1: Your pick
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card 2: Your second pick
The 100k two-card combinations drawn from the Cards for Insight
card deck, offers a superset to the proprietary platform design.
The value proposition can be easily understood by adding this:
Card 1: Your pick, one of the 500 cards
… conversational intelligence …
Card 2: Your second pick, another of the 500 cards
Cards for Insight: … patterns of play …
I’ve designed some of the 200 … patterns of play …
(observe that … … format) as method cards, to help
participants more easily get into the swing of things.
Card: Conversational Intelligence
1. What role are you as a conversation participant assuming?
2. What purpose is your comment serving?
3. What needs can be addressed by the conversation?
4. What feedback, mutuality and learning is provided, by whom?
5. What (joint) focus on what story, tasks and what generative review?
6. What experience and knowledge is shared, what perspectives are explored?
7. What criteria are used, towards teasing out what insights?
8. Which are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a meaningful conversation, and what are the steps followed to ensure there’s shared understanding around these conditions?
9. What insights can be turned actionable, serving what local and community needs?
10. What intention, perspectives, language and tools are chosen and held, making for what action and practice?
11. What unique individual skills combined with what collective intelligence can help produce something extraordinary?
12. What networks of practice, co-evolving and co-creating what value, with what lines of inquiry?
13. Given all of the above, what key insights can be drawn and what actions taken, in order to solve what important issues?
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Shared Understanding
Effective communication in light of
the information being conveyed.
Conversational intelligence turned
ability to hold shared context.
Metalogue conducive to mutuality,
learning and comprehension.
Cards for Insight: Homesteading different platforms
Obviously it’s more convenient to hide away 99% of what I’ve shared in this groupchat — and only present a “slick interface” offering convenience.
Proprietary platforms have, or at least should have taught us, that hiding away things to the point of designing black boxes, without transparency, as eg the case with OpenAI (100 million users in a couple of months) and how they used Kenyan subcontractors to “train” away the most horrible parts of the dataset — present us with a whole host of problems.
Yes, personally I get tons of mileage out of OpenAI. Yes, there’s tons of things wrong with it in light of all the things I just outlined re proprietary platforms.
We could have a fab, convivial social web, for everyone, with existing tech. The problem is not the tech. The problem is the proprietary platform affordances and how most humans have adopted them, leading to dysfunctional online behavior.
Cards for Insight: Negotiated self-interest
Aka, great, but what’s in it for me? Is there room for MY stuff?
- But, but John, I’d like to create “my own” cards?!?!
- The starter deck of 500 cards is both what makes the social machine AI compute, as well as providing options for personal, small group and online community governance at social machine scale. Also, the starter deck of cards can be extended. Think browser, with you adding your own personal and small group genius addons/cards, to the platform.
- Extend? Great! How?
- That’s where formats come into play. As a general rule though, cf Modular Process Onto-Epistemologies in general and Pattern Languages, DKRs Dynamic Knowledge Repositories and SLMs, Small Language Models in particular.
- But I don’t understand?!?!
- That’s ok. If you leave your car to the car mechanic, you don’t have to be a car mechanic yourself to get your car repaired. Same here. Think of me as the card mechanic.
Cards for Insight: Conversations that Mind, Cultivate and Matter
John Kellden replying to Glenn above
These are all great hacks, and we need different platform and social machine designs, precisely because the combination of convenience and lack of time, “wins” over these hacks. Most of the online participants, almost all of the time, end up with clicking like buttons, and adding the occasional non-committal emoji: convenience.
… turning to the others in the group chat …
Oh, and you don’t have to read all of this, as if “in a stream”. I’m adding most of my thoughts in this chat, to more asynch formats (online groups, blogposts, other platforms). You can add your own comments and then copy paste them, elsewhere as well …
Here’s one option:
Chat -> CMCM, Conversations that Mind, Cultivate and Matter
(online community in fb AND a prototype DKR)
Cards for Insight: Online Behavior
Glenn Gaasland:
What if we imagine a change on one axis alone: BEHAVIOR
(Defined as the movement pattern of the body in space)
And then, from a change of behavior according to the principles/hacks mentioned…new affordances, experiences,creations,relationships…
Is it this simple? Is it ALL about behavior? Will a significant enough change here affect ALL other parameters?
John Kellden:
Behavior as the ONE thing? Tempting, but no. One of the reasons for why I kept going with this groupchat for more than a year, is to figure out how we reinforce online behavior in groups, over time.
Card: Negotiated self-interest
I don’t wanna and you can’t make me.
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: School of hard knocks
Convivial behavior carefully hidden
lest it becomes exploited by others.
We don’t change online behavior easily. One of the exceptions is when something like OpenAI comes along, becomes adopted by 100 million humans, and then suddenly we have to adopt.
Glenn Gaasland:
Are you sure we could not use this term as “the ultimate simplifier”?
Of course, we may discover that behavior change is difficult…and also involves vastly more possibilities than we are used to conceiving of
(a practically unlimited universe of possible behaviors). Yet we have a very concrete point of departure: the pattern of movement of my body in space right now.
Building on this idea: an appropriate change of BEHAVIOR may allow us to get more value from existing proprietary social media platforms + create “virtual social machines” within these platforms…+ on the basis of what was mentioned: also create prototypes for entirely new kinds of non-proprietary social media platforms that contain a vastly better environment for good things to happen.
(This chat would seem like an example of one such kind of “virtual social machine” within an existing proprietary platform, pointing towards a potential for becoming something more).
And BEHAVIOR is a gate through which all of this must pass and by which all such possibilities could become actualized.
John Kellden:
Online behavior seen and understood as a gate, portal and profoundly important departure point — a big yes to that!
Cards for Insight: Information flow and knowledge ecosystem markets
The almighty attention dollar. Knowledge is abundant though, so it requires different market designs.
Imagine a different social machine, where it would cost one “platform dollar” to “like” that image in a chat.
Imagine a different social machine, where clicking on the associated online group post link, and then adding a considered, considerate comment conducive to conversations that mind, cultivate and matter, would earn the participant two “platform dollars”.
An information flow and knowledge ecosystem (circles of online friends) market.
Cards for Insight: Gaming the market, gaming the machine
- But John, no one would click the like button in such a social machine?!?!
- Are you sure?
Imagine clicking the like button, differently designed in the social machine, reflecting and adding to the social capital among participants? As in, “I actually like this!”
- But John, everyone would game the shit out of the comment section, hustling for the “comment dollar”?!?!
- Are you sure?
What if there were self-governance, cybernetics and governance principles, heuristics and algorithms in place, an AI governed by the online community itself, making it increasingly difficult to game the social machine in bad faith, and training the AI to grow increasingly good at rewarding the good stuff?
Cards for Insight: Algorithms of Loving Grace
- John, AI?!?!
- Yes:
Cards as Shared Understanding Affordances
A prompt and OpenAI response outlining complementary perspectives on knowledge.
John Kellden:
Outline five complementary perspectives on knowledge, co-evolving with cards as shared understanding affordances, cards forming stepping stones, scaffolding generative sequences between worthwhile dilemmas and preferable outcomes.
OpenAI:
1. Constructivist Perspective:
According to this perspective, knowledge is constructed through the active engagement of an individual with their environment. In this view, cards can serve as shared understanding affordances, providing a tangible tool to aid in the construction and exchange of knowledge. By using cards, individuals can engage in active learning processes that help to construct and refine their understanding of a given topic. The use of cards can be particularly useful in group settings, where they can serve as a shared artifact that facilitates collaborative knowledge construction.
2. Cognitive Perspective:
From a cognitive perspective, knowledge is viewed as mental representations of information that are organized and stored in memory. In this view, cards can be thought of as stepping stones, providing a means for individuals to organize and structure their knowledge in a way that is easily accessible and retrievable. By using cards to organize and structure their knowledge, individuals can improve their ability to recall and apply what they have learned.
3. Socio-cultural Perspective:
This perspective emphasizes the role of social interaction and cultural context in shaping knowledge. From this perspective, cards can serve as a scaffold for generative sequences between worthwhile dilemmas and preferable outcomes. By engaging in collaborative activities that involve the use of cards, individuals can learn from one another and build on each other’s ideas. Cards can provide a shared language and framework for dialogue, enabling individuals to collectively navigate complex issues and generate new knowledge.
4. Pragmatist Perspective:
The pragmatic perspective emphasizes the practical application of knowledge in real-world situations. From this perspective, cards can serve as a tool for problem-solving and decision-making. By using cards to represent different options or scenarios, individuals can evaluate and compare different courses of action. Cards can also serve as a means of visualizing and communicating complex ideas, helping individuals to make sense of and communicate their knowledge to others.
5. Critical Perspective:
The critical perspective emphasizes the role of power and ideology in shaping knowledge. From this perspective, cards can serve as a means of disrupting dominant narratives and promoting alternative perspectives. By using cards to represent diverse perspectives and ideas, individuals can challenge existing power structures and create new forms of knowledge. Cards can also serve as a means of promoting social justice and equity by centering the voices and perspectives of marginalized groups.
… pick cards and add your thoughts, prompts, insights, individual and small group genius annotations, book excerpts and prompt responses, between …
Cards for Insight: Q&U
- Gather a small group genius around a generative question
- Pick two cards and add your thoughts between
- Engage in conversation and cultivate shared understanding in light of intelligence augmentation and intelligence turned ability
- Take practical wisdom as a stopping rule and generative closure
- Create Q&U cardcasts, forming interactive supersets to the more commonly known Q&A podcast formats
Q: Questions; U: Understanding, see cards below.
Cards for Insight: Formats for cultivating shared understanding
Since 103% of all co-creation of value resides in the links, feedback
loops, the in-between spaces and unique insights and annotations
from participants, let’s unfold a way to address this:
Cards for Insight
1. Addressing how we relate to information and meaning-making.
2. Pick two cards and add your thoughts between.
3. Notice social stigmergy and reflect on attention.
4. Design and homestead social learning systems in light of intelligence, networked intelligence and systems intelligence.
5. Experience and learn to use Cards for Insight — As easy as a card game, as powerful as a social machine.
6. Understand how to add value in light of situational awareness.
7. Interact to the full extent of your ability.
8. Map moves conducive to knowledge mapping and flows.
9. Play with frames, frame and reframe, move beyond rigid narratives.
10. Cultivate shared understanding in light of generative closure.
11. Take thought conducive to convivial conversation.
12. Extend conversations, at card formats, small group genius scope, social social media reach, networked distribution and social machine scale.
13. Coordinate by applying design cybernetics conducive to a requisite variety of paths between attention turned situational awareness and preferable outcomes.
… pick cards and add your thoughts, prompts, insights, individual and small group genius annotations, book excerpts and prompt responses, between …
Card: 100 Ideas
One hour, one
hundred ideas.
https://litemind.com/tackle-any-issue-with-a-list-of-100/
… pick three ideas from the last ten of the one hundred and turn your combining them into a working synthesis phrased as a generatlve question …
Card: Question
A question is mind rediscovering
the generative nature of relating
with reality and transforming it
into possibility.
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Understanding
What if understanding is our
ability to hold space for the
possibility of knowledge, as
it emerges, unfolds, directs
and discloses its relevance
to unexplored aspects of
things known?
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Cards
Cards are play, possibility space,
unfolding path, understanding and
shared understanding affordances.
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
Card: Relate
How do we relate to
information and
meaning-making?
… does this mean that it’s all about what
the Card does, rather than what it is? …
… yes …
Card: Conversational Intelligence
Conversational intelligence is a function of curiosity,
social cognition, affordances and constraints, signs,
symbols and archetypal meaning-making and
essential character evolving along unfolding paths
made luminous by joint sauntering.
… conversations that mind …
Card: Conversational Intelligence
1. What role are you as a conversation participant assuming?
2. What purpose is your comment serving?
3. What needs can be addressed by the conversation?
4. What feedback, mutuality and learning is provided, by whom?
5. What (joint) focus on what story, tasks and what generative review?
6. What experience and knowledge is shared, what perspectives are explored?
7. What criteria are used, towards teasing out what insights?
8. Which are the necessary and sufficient conditions for a meaningful conversation, and what are the steps followed to ensure there’s shared understanding around these conditions?
9. What insights can be turned actionable, serving what local and community needs?
10. What intention, perspectives, language and tools are chosen and held, making for what action and practice?
11. What unique individual skills combined with what collective intelligence can help produce something extraordinary?
12. What networks of practice, co-evolving and co-creating what value, with what lines of inquiry?
13. Given all of the above, what key insights can be drawn and what actions taken, in order to solve what important issues?
… pick cards and add your thoughts in ways conducive to
insights conducive to addressing the issues at hand …
Your move:
… pick cards and add your thoughts between …
… jot down your thoughts as they relate to
the everyday world around us …
More lines and cards here:
https://johnkellden.medium.com/cards-for-insight-lines-d23cd4391855
Cards as Shared Understanding Affordances
Note that in the above prompt: Cards as Shared Understanding Affordances — that was the first response from the OpenAI dataset. The tech works, the AI is already good enough.
It is perfectly possible for thousands of online community members, social machine stewards, digital conversation participants, to ask for, and enact a requisite variety of takes on, eg “cards as shared understanding affordances”.
Thus: “at social machine scale”
One of the worst things proprietary platforms did to us, was turning us against each other.
Cards for Insight provides cards as shared understanding affordances enabling different games offering a place for conversational intelligence to unfold a requisite variety of paths between comfort zones and preferable outcomes.
Cards for Insight: Prototyping
Returning to the group chat:
Oh, and Glenn Gaasland your notions related to “copy” is a profound, actionable insight. Personally, I do chat, joplin, mastodon, joplin, twitter, joplin, web, joplin, conversation community on fb, joplin, web search, joplin … Did I mention joplin? :)
“We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth
we are immersed in action and can only guide it by taking thought.”
― Alfred North Whitehead
Cards, card moves, annotations: tools for taking thought
