# notes --- - [[{2.4b2} the dark forest theory of the universe]] - [[{2.4b} the dark forest theory of the internet]] - [[{2.4b1} bowling alley theory of the internet]] # highlights --- >Imagine a dark forest at night. It’s deathly quiet. Nothing moves. Nothing stirs. This could lead one to assume that the forest is devoid of life. But of course, it’s not. The dark forest is full of life. It’s quiet because night is when the predators come out. To survive, the animals stay silent. >These are all spaces where depressurized conversation is possible because of their non-indexed, non-optimized, and non-gamified environments. >The web 2.0 utopia — where we all lived in rounded filter bubbles of happiness — ended with the 2016 Presidential election when we learned that the tools we thought were only life-giving could be weaponized too. The public and semi-public spaces we created to develop our identities, cultivate communities, and gain knowledge were overtaken by forces using them to gain power of various kinds (market, political, social, and so on). >The dark forests grow because they provide psychological and reputational cover. They allow us to be ourselves because we know who else is there. >This is the Bowling Alley Theory of the Internet: that people are online purely to meet each other, and in the long run the venues where we congregate are an unimportant background compared to the interactions themselves. Did we meet on MySpace, Tinder, or LinkedIn? Does it matter?… What kind of bowling alley it is depends on who goes there.