Notes on Universal Feedback
One of the best ways to see universal feedback at work is through the activity of self-organizing groups. A self-organizing group is one that comes together without the hierarchy of a top-down command. Its members are motivated by their own desire to gather—not by paycheck, leader or religion. It’s non-corporate—grassroots in the truest, organic sense. The group exists because of deep, hidden connections that go beyond the everyday. The sheer number of self-organizing groups around today are only possible because of the flourishing of the social web. Applications such as Twitter and Facebook allow people to gather virtually—as one would at a gigantic cocktail party—complete with overheard conversations and the big names that are crowded by admirers and social climbers. The self-organized groups that have resulted are like groups of friends—the connections are fluid—at time tempestuous and at other times rigid and stuck in old models.
Unlike its social media cousin, Evolver.net, which was built with the intention of fostering not one but several self-organizing groups, the group on Reality Sandwich sprung up unplanned like a rhizome—a philosophical concept by Deleuze and Guattari which likens de-centralized, non-hierarchical systems to opportunistic plants such as ginger that use a horizontal stem in order to grow in-between trees. The trees were the old model—the top-down world in which authority came on high. The rhizomes weren’t bent on taking and replacing the trees as plant kings of the forest—they revealed a way of existing not as an either/or of systems but of an either and or. The botanical and conceptual rhizomes were about an expansion of possibilities—it wasn’t about doing away with the old—it was about coming up with that which was the least expected, like living life as a gathering of decentralized multiplicities in a world of towering, top/down metaphysical ideals.
The RS rhizome sprung up in damp shadows of the comment boxes. The posts themselves were submission only—their closed system based on approval factors formed the forest of trees while the comments became the twisting brambles and moss below where anyone who registered for the site could join in.
An old cohort from back in the blog 1.0 days used to say—sometimes comments are the best part. I don’t know if this was often the case given the generally high quality of the writing on RS, but what I did find to be the case was that the RS comment boxes were ripe for synchronicity—there were always connections being made through links or obscure references that would be mind-blowing with epic levels of uncanniness. I’d think—isn’t it crazy, I was just thinking the same exact thing!…or, wow, that’s the same book I was drawn to on my friend’s bookshelf yesterday—a friend who has the same initials as this commenter, making it not only about the connection of the book but about the friend, and the timing of having been over their place when I was, with the spine of the book sticking out from the shelf, just as the light in the room turned into long strands—the afternoon undoing its golden locks and letting them fall over us…
My research has shown that the grounds for telepathy increase in proportion to the amount of recognition that self-organized group members have of their status as members. It wasn’t enough to all happen to fall into a certain category in which they shared certain things in common—it was the group’s awareness of being a group that made the self-organized group truly dynamic. Not only were the commenters on RS technically members of a group by virtue of having a log-in and password, they were also members by virtue of an assumed curiosity towards RS’s subject matter. That said the group had no real rules—no membership dues or meetings to attend.
What was real was that you had the feeling you were in the middle of something. A way of thinking and being that was happening NOW.
Magical things happen in places where people feel compelled to gather without being coerced into doing so. Wanting to do something makes a huge difference in the experience of doing it—whatever it is. The feedback loops created in the comment boxes effects the entire site—from the writing to the graphics and layout—everything feels like it’s coming together according to remote control powers—there is the nagging sensation of a larger significance, the sensation of being one part of a bigger story.
