Jun 14, 2021

Meta-Reflection on Game 04, and Buzzard Sync - June 14, 2021

See also: Game04 Overview and Buzzard Group Sync 6/14/21

Forum-Style Discussion Invitation

Yo! This is Kristen, inviting ya'll Buzzards to drop some notes in here, however you see fit. No pressure in responding at all. But if you are keen to, maybe create a section for yourself? Or feel free to nestle into my bullets and drop your initials so we can track who's thinking what?

IDK - thought it may be interesting to hear from others on my thinking here, in a semi-chat or forum-ish structure.

Kristen

I felt like the mood was very different for this sync hang. @Dave, @Jon, and I were talking after and there seemed to be some agreement on this front. Thought I'd jot down some of the fleeting thoughts and points of our post-hang chat.

• Working on the "assignment" right before the call wasn't a good idea, Jon, Dave, and I all did this for today's call, oops. The result is being less "fresh"
• We're starting to get into more technical discussion, not code, but each of us has a unique way of talking about how they understand what it is that we're trying to build
  • This results in the need to translate - everytime someone is explaining their perspective, and each time a new perspective is mapped, we're holding that one in our heads while onboarding new ones
• What's cool about this ⬆️ is the whole point of a relational OS is to be able to relate to other people without the heavy lift of translation
  • Obviously there will be challenges in understanding different people and the way they think, but the relational OS should help carry the burden of this, at least in part
• In some ways, I think we backed ourselves into a corner (a good corner) - because now we know we've got all of these different perspective, that it's hard to communicate across them all, and it would be much easier if we had some kind of language, a grammar, for ease of communication
  • This leads into our call next week, a sync discussion to start to try to nail down some of the smallest component parts in a relational OS

Shahruz

• Yeah, I picked up a little bit on it being different too, but I figured maybe the black box or analysis-focused hangs were always just a little different... I also didn't realize "presentations" hadn't been a thing so far, I'd assumed that's how the black box formats had worked I guess. But it's helpful to know that isn't the case.

• The language stuff seems really useful to figure out, and I'm looking forward to the synchronous session on defining the amino-acid / building block level stuff. Coming in later I'm generally not sure what pre-existing contexts I may just not be caught up on - so apologies if I'm using any terminology wrong and making things confusing!

• I tend to think visually about things when listening to others or reading, so there have been moments where things have just felt more "understandable" to me because they were communicated that way. Jon's visualization of a post interface with annotations and highlights in the side panels was exciting to me because it felt like I could be sure I was seeing something pretty close to what he was seeing, and that felt like a higher degree of understanding, a clearer channel of communication. But everyone has their own ideal ways of taking in information, their own ways of trying to better understand it, and then their own ways of communicating the same thing back out. And people may have different versions of that depending on how far along they are in their own understanding of something. It's really interesting to be thinking about relational OS as something that can help bridge those gaps in communication, improve some degree of understanding without forcing it to go through a particular medium.

• Even that last paragraph: I don't know if I'm saying something completely off! Maybe that's not what anyone else is thinking at all! 😅

• Thank you for this forum-style discussion post! It's nice to be able to communicate async before the next one and in a different format than a Zoom or Telegram!

Dave

• Thanks to both of you for responding so quickly after the sesh. I need to get in the habit of reflecting right after hanging when things are fresh. Obvious, but worth reminding myself.

• Strong agree with @kristen on not waiting til the last minute on 'assignments' (also, worth taking a look at the general distinction between assignment and gameplay). I think I over-saturated my brain before the hang and had a harder time following everyone's patterns of thought. Better to give some mental breathing room before these things to allow for the energetic resource necessary in translating everyone's complexities. There's a compute cost, who knew. The cost seems to come down after every session, our group translation algo getting more efficient and fluid.

• Also strong agree on the fun of the linguistic side of this. Grammar = progress! Also, @shahruz our pre-existing contexts are next to non-existent. Everything is up for grabs at this point. It's impossible to put a foot wrong.

• General personal take-aways: remembering to keep all of this fun, try not to forget the game nature of the project in the technical dives, work on novel communication methods (the best way to do this is to experiment in the repo), focus on sharing more of my visual thinking (habituate design sessions to bubble some of this up), make more posts where I'm barely sure what I'm talking about but trust that everyone else can catch whatever logic makes sense to them. FUN TIMES

Jon

• Likewise, been a whirlwind of a week but this was an exceptionally interesting call and worth coming back to.

• Not eating lunch beforehand was a BIG MISTAKE

• Agreed on the forum-style discussion - it's a great complement to Telegram and calls

  • imagining an interface with collapsible, quotable threads with backlinks. A little like Reddit + early 2000's forum engines perhaps?

• @S: "It's really interesting to be thinking about relational OS as something that can help bridge those gaps in communication, improve some degree of understanding without forcing it to go through a particular medium."

  • 100% agreed! What we're experiencing feels like a microcosm of the overarching problem of allowing different people express themselves in the form most natural to them while increasing the group's overall understanding of the ideas being presented
  • if two people exchange something (in the open) in their preferred medium, a third person can come in and act as a "translator/bridge" - opening up the space for a fourth/fifth person to chime in
    • for a posted Figma doc, the "translation" might be the start of a written discussion, putting some of the ideas into language. Or the other way around! Someone comes across an interesting idea in text and attaches a sketch to it - thereby inviting more sketches OR more text. Increasing the surface area of discussion on that particular idea
    • the easier it is to jump across text<>voice<>diagram<>draw<>(?) the more diverse the possible representation of a given idea or concept within a group

• very excited for Monday's chat!

CJ

• This call got me very excited. I'm not sure how rare it is to have a 2.5hr "meeting" and be engaged and interested the entire time. But I guess that's why this is more an ongoing conversation between friends than a meeting. I am very grateful for this. I think the excitement came from the collective meshing on the base questions that underlie Relational OS. I think previously it'd been clear that we are aligned in many ways, but the questions are starting to feel more tangible to me.

• It's crazy to me that it's only been 3 months or so since the BUZZARD repo got under way. I think we've made a lot of progress which is really neat. @Dave says this a lot, but this reflection made it really hit me.

• I feel the same way @Dave. Coming to do meta reflection later is tough. Similarly I will also build the habit of reflecting a little more immediately, or take better meta notes (separating them in color/space) during the call.

• @Jon, @Shahruz I completely agree and dig this forum-like format. I think it lends itself nicely to longer form content than just a message. However as you mention @Jon, this is a great compliment on top of Telegram. Each communication format has it's own niceties to it, and each person may enjoy a certain format more. I think it opens up the ways of expression which is great. I think this also aligns very clearly with what @Jon mentions in response as well. I really appreciate @Kristen for exposing this method of communication and getting us started off here.

• I found it interesting too that we each have our own ways of analyzing someone else's work. However for the most part they seemed to be pretty similar. A lot jumping between media formats to finally arrive at something that is more friendly for everyone else to see. Digestion through media.

• Ugh as always the moments of insight as everyone is speaking and having the mind blown is awesome. Really vibed on the question "How do you mediate perspectival exchange", looking forward to exploring that one more shortly :)