Calacanis on Gaming Techmeme

Jason does not equivocate: “Techmeme is brilliant,” he states.

And I agree with him. Techmeme is a great site, and the model of memetracking that Gabe Rivera has implemented has great social dynamics which yields very interesting patterns of interaction, and makes for a good reading experience.

Jason’s arguments for Techmeme, however, are a bit convoluted at times:

[from Why TechMeme is great and the haters hate (the *official*, 100% approved, final word on TechMeme)]

[…]

In the real world some folks get too much attention relative to their ideas, while others with great ideas sometimes get marginalized. The marginalization could be based on them not being popular, their inability to communicate, or any number of reasons—fair and unfair.

At a party you might have a large group of folks around someone listening to their stories for any number of reasons. Perhaps the person is great story teller or really intelligent. Perhaps they’re rich or powerful, or maybe they’re really good looking.

Is this fair to the ugly duckling in the corner of the room who has a good story to share that they are ignored? Of course not, but TechMeme releases so many of those biases that exist in the real world! Many of the folks on TechMeme have never meet each other…. in fact, many of the folks I know in the industry I found because of TechMeme.

Jason seems to be saying that life is unfair, and that popularity plays a big part in who gets how much air time in social groups: absolutely true. So, many people who have good things to say get less time to speak because those with higher status have a socially defined ‘right’ to more airtime.

Rivera hasn’t invented these biases, he has just emulated them in the ranking system within Techmeme. So, the assertion goes, he is not doing evil by merely reflecting the systems that we all live in. And I buy that, since people can become prominent through the system, as well: so long as they are invited to the party in the first place.

As Jason notes in his post, anyone can get to the top of the homepage with a well-written (or linkbait dripping) post, and so it is (relatively) open.

An apparently negative take on this is that Techmeme represents a game, with certain implicit and explicit rules, and those that choose to apply themselves to the game with intelligence will find a way to ‘win’ the game. Jason implicitly suggests the point of Techmeme is to get a story to the top, or to get onto and rise to the top of the Leaderboard. (Jason is such a naturally gifted striver and climber that he doesn’t even think to reflect on that.)

My agreement with all of this comes down to pragmatics: we are social animals, and this is how we perceive the world. We can’t concoct some sort of social revolution that will rewire this part of our minds, and thereby achieve perfect egalitarianism, even if such a thing makes sense (and I am uncertain as to whether it does, anyway). What we are left with is what we have, and it seems to work reasonably well in general.

I also agree that there are some people who are bitter about the way the world works, who believe that the inequities of the power laws within social systems can be overturned, like the effort to legislate that Pi sould be rounded to 3.

Techmeme is a microcosm of the larger world: a true high fidelity fractal of that greater context. While that does not exonerate the participants from its shortcomings, it’s easy enough to just not come at all. There are other ways to keep up with tech news, or to participate in the community. This isn’t a kindergarten, after all, where we need protection. And I don’t agree with some that it’s an old boys club, excluding the worthy in favor of the privileged.