Thread by @danctheduck

Scaling human systems beyond the natural constraints of how humans scale is almost always unethical.

Some natural human constraints that I've looked into seem to be:
- Number and strength of human relationships (Dunbar)
- Rate at which relationships and trust develops

You can't just 'friend' someone and make friends. That may work for a database. It does not work for human biology.

I suspect there are many more such constraints.
- Rate of social and intellectual maturation for children and young adults
- Rate of individuals processing new information and determining validity
- Limits on informed decision making in various contexts

There are many mitigations. Various means of grouping, rate limiting, architecting hierarchies all have proven successful. Formalization of implicit norms leads to more effective governance over larger scales of time and population.

But these are intense design challenges. That require deeply collaborative participation by the population they impact.

Just pressing a button, running some code, scaling some servers? That's how you trample human lives.

Expectation: The willfully ignorant scaling fetish of internet era will tend to produce misery for most.

Especially when it overwrites humans trying to live good human lives within their natural tolerances.

This ethical challenge exists even if we feel good about ourselves because our numbers keep going up.

What aspects of your systems are human scale? What harm is done when you try to grow beyond them?

For folks looking for more information about human scale constraints in online game, this essay is a good starting point. lostgarden.home.blog/2018/12/29/soc…