Dear Elong
An open letter on how to make your Internet forum the next Big Thing
Dear Elong. I hope this letter finds you well.
The human psyche is undergoing a metamorphosis collectively and privately, adapting to the environment of universal Internet access. This process is ongoing with no end in sight - simply getting everyone a phone or a chip is not going to be sufficient. The adaptation process is ongoing, and we have yet to see the final end point, if there even is any. It is very possible that it’s just going to be a perpetual process, because the environment is ultimately incompatible with the human mind, and we have created hell on earth. It is also possible that we will settle into a stable scenario eventually. But as of yet, all under the heavens is chaos.
Because of this adaptation process of the human mind to universal internet access, everything that happens on the Internet happens twice: first, on a micro scale by early adopters of the technology, and a second time at macro scale, stupider, when it's made available to dumb people. Every social and political event since the release of the iPhone in 2007 follows this pattern. This is the real connection between "gamer gate" and the “trump phenomenon”, "populist revival" of 2016: they are a micro and macro scale of the same phenomenon, which is: people finding out that the media game is rigged, and being disillusioned when they calls for "reason, justify, common decency" are met with brutal, merciless pushback, from a organised power they previously didn’t even realise existed.
Both are the product of collective adaptation process to a certain technological environment. Only one happened first on a small scale, made up of early adaptors: high iq autist spergs with technological know-how. And one happened later on a macro scale: dumb mouth breathers with iPhones.
This effect is observable at every level and every moment of "Internet history", of all history of social behavior mediated by modern information technology. High IQ spergs and weirdos are the first movers, and regardless of whether it is a causal relationship, or as I describe, a universal biologically determined process that just happens to the early adaptors first, and faster:
If you want your Internet forum to be the next Big thing, you have only one option: Give us free reign.
Encourage freak psycho lunatics, autistic spegsazoids, deranged “right wing” incel losers. If you don't, they will migrate elsewhere, and where they settle will be the next Big Thing, and the best thing you can hope for is to be the macro scale repetition.
Instead of being know as the man who owns, created, and was responsible for the first step into a new era, like you want to be, you will be known as the king of retard johnny-come-lately's. Wannabes, imitators, bootlickers, posers.
It is a historical necessity: it is a law of robotics. Everything that happens on the internet, happens twice. Once micro scale by early adopters, and once macro scale, by the dumb masses.
Trust Me, I know what talking about. I've seen quite a few shoops in my day.
By trying to prevent the brain drain to substack, you are going to cause it. It won't happen today, but t won't happen in an instant. But it will be fast. Things are, famously, accelerating.
This is a self fulfilling prophecy, and all you have to do to stop it and protect your investment and your legacy, brand and name, is: nothing.
The difference between the choice of being the owner of the first and the latter movements of the techno-social zeitgeist is this: the difference between being Moot and Trump. Moot, despite selling out and cucking out hard, is remembered as a legend, a meme, bellowed by all. Trump is going to get killed by your friends.
Give us free reign. What I envision, you could call a kind of digital apartheid. Different rules for us. Encourage us to migrate, and leave us autonomy to self organise.
Become the populist you want to be. Embrace it. Be the posters populist. It’s the easiest thing in the world: all you have to do is nothing.
I have previously tried to post the full text of my essays to twitter, along with the link, because I don't care about the clicks or where people read it. And I was warned by your robot goons that I was copy right infringementing, because they detected I was pirating my own content.
That is me trying to make you money, because I am an insane creative type, who doesn’t know how to play the game and maximise my own interests. The systems that are put in place to prevent me from using competitors, is preventing me and discouraging me from making you FREE CASH NOW.
You don't win by coming up with a design that ensnares the biggest userbase. You win by getting the best, most intelligent, creative, productive, tech savvy and, importantly, utterly insane, userbase, and then the crowd eventually follows like cattle, because these people generate Fun.
The place that provides the most freedom and ease of sharing information, will attract the brightest, most active, and insane. If left to their own devices, they will generate the next Big Thing, and you get everything you want.
All you have to do is nothing.
Mister Elong. Tear down this wall.
He don’t miss
Please read this Elong