Sunday Snapshots (11/08/20) – Rubicon, Networks, and Discord
In which I talk about the fall of the Roman Republic
Hey everyone,
Greetings from Washington, D.C.!
It’s one of those weekends where fall takes its last gasp before winter emerges from its long slumber. The future weather outlook is certainly in stark contrast with the future political assessment of the city. Honks, claps, and crowds too-large-for-my-COVID-comfort-levels lined the blocks of the nation’s capital. In additional to the political sentiment of this northeastern urban haven, it also seemed like the closest thing to a party in 2020.
Now that the week long spectacle is over and everyone hopefully has part of their processing power back, we can back to truly important things like this issue of Snapshots in which I want to talk about:
The fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire in Tom Holland’s Rubicon
Why the formation of new social ties at change-of-life-phases are a breeding ground for network-based market opportunities
How Discord became a dominant platform and its framing of itself as a nation state
“If it hurts, it’s probably true”, Mark Zuckerberg’s memo on AR/VR, and lobster markets
Book of the week
One man, at the cusp of overturning everything we know about how things are done. One man, turning a divided republic into an authoritarian empire. One man, who left chaos in his wake and wrapped all that entropy into a political platform.
Of course, I’m talking about Julius Caesar.
Reading the first half of Rubicon by Tom Holland takes me to a period of history that feels strangely ancient and modern at the same time. He blends historical facts with Hollywood style stare-down scenes, abstracts away complexities, glimpses over shifting alliances and necessary coalitions to rule. But in doing so, he writes a book about the Roman Empire that doesn’t make for good bedtime reading – it’s far too interesting. It feels more like a good Netflix series that keeps nudging you along for “one more episode.”
Here were my favorite bits from the first half:
On our disdain for the classical:
The fascists, of course, had thrilled to its cruelty, its swagger, its steel, but nowadays even its noblest ideals, the ideals of active citizenship that once so moved Thomas Jefferson, have passed out of fashion. Too stern, too humorless, too redolent of cold showers. Nothing, in our aggressively postmodern age, could be more of a turn-off than the classical. Hero-worshiping the Romans is just so nineteenth century. We have been liberated, as John Updike once put it, “from all those oppressive old Roman values.” No longer, as they were for centuries, are they regarded as a mainspring of our modern civic rights. Few pause to wonder why, in a continent unimagined by the ancients, a second Senate should sit upon a second Capitol Hill.
A deep tradition of conservatism:
This was a presumption buried deep in the soul of every Roman. In the century that followed its establishment, the Republic was repeatedly racked by further social convulsions, by demands from the mass of citizens for expanded civic rights, and by continued constitutional reforms—and yet throughout this turbulent period of upheaval, the Roman people never ceased to affect a stern distaste for change. Novelty, to the citizens of the Republic, had sinister connotations. Pragmatic as they were, they might accept innovation if it were dressed up as the will of the gods or an ancient custom, but never for its own sake. Conservative and flexible in equal measure, the Romans kept what worked, adapted what had failed, and preserved as sacred lumber what had become redundant. The Republic was both a building site and a junkyard. Rome’s future was constructed amid the jumble of her past.
On the necessary (or at least inevitable) abstraction of history:
One day perhaps, when the records of the twentieth century AD have grown as fragmentary as those of ancient Rome, a history of the Second World War will be written that relies solely upon the broadcasts of Hitler and the memoirs of Churchill. It will be one cut off from whole dimensions of experience: no letters from the front, no combatants’ diaries. The silence will be one with which the ancient historian is all too familiar, for, to twist the words of Shakespeare’s Fluellen, “There is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in Pompey’s camp.” Nor in the peasant’s hut, nor in the slum dweller’s shanty, nor in the field slave’s barrack. Women, it is true, can sometimes be overheard, but only the very noblest, and even those invariably when quoted—or misquoted—by men. In Roman history to search for details of anyone outside the ruling class is to pan for gold.
I’ll be back with a more complete summary of the book and its lessons next week.
Long read of the week
The dynamics of U.S. college network formation on Facebook by Jan Overgoor, Bogdan State, Lada Adamic
I’ve long had a theory that there are inherent network effect-based markets embedded in the phase changes of life. These markets can be attacked by their various jobs-to-be-done. For example, the peer-to-peer payment service Venmo sees the highest number of new user signups during the months of August and September when hundreds of thousands of teenagers in the US start going to college.
This paper from Facebook confirms my hypothesis for college:
From the abstract:
The most prominent feature in the evolution of these networks is the burst in friending activity when students first enter college. Ties formed during this period play a strong role in shaping the structure of the networks overall and the students' position within them. Subsequent starts and breaks from instruction further affect the volume of new tie formation. Homophily (the tendency for people to seek out or be attracted to those who are similar to themselves) in tie formation likewise shows variation in time. Same-gender ties are more likely to form when students settle into housing, while sharing a major spurs friendships as students progress through their degree. Properties of the college, such as whether many students live on campus, also modulate these effects. Ties that form in different contexts and at different points in students' college lives vary in their likelihood of remaining close years after graduation.
Business story of the week
How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet via Protocol
A fascinating article on the rise of Discord, the platform that hosts communities across interests. Particularly interesting is its relentless focus on improving latency for large voice calls.
But what’s more broadly interesting to me is how the problem of content moderation permeates everything on the Internet and how Discord has made remarkable strides here:
"Discord is like a country with 100 million inhabitants, living in different states and towns," Li said. "We make the rules on what is allowed to help shape the society at large, and we empower server moderators and admins to help us enforce and expand upon them based on the needs of their communities." He wants to help moderators create whatever kind of community they want, and Discord's also getting better at giving moderators the tools and knowhow to do so, but only within the boundaries set by the broader platform. Those didn't exist for too many years. Now, Discord's trying simply to be clear and forceful about what's acceptable and what isn't, and to enforce those rules consistently.
I think there’s actually a case study here for other platforms (both large and small) to emulate to the extent possible by their incentive structures and business models.
Odds and ends of the week
A pretty mixed bag of goodies here:
👀 If it hurts, it’s probably true: Some much needed realism in your inbox before the Sunday Scaries settle in.
🕶️ Mark Zuckerberg’s VR/AR Memo: This excerpt reveals how underestimated (for good or for bad) Zuckerberg’s ambitions are:
I will discuss the main elements of the platform and key apps further below, but for now keep in mind that we need to succeed in building both a major platform and key apps to improve our strategic position on the next platform. If we only build key apps but not the platform, we will remain in our current position. If we only build the platform but not the key apps, we may be in a worse position. We need to build both.
🦞 An inside look into lobster markets: So fascinating.
That wraps up this week’s newsletter. You can check out the previous issues here.
If you want to discuss any of the ideas mentioned above or have any books/papers/links you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of Sunday Snapshots, please reach out to me by replying to this email or sending me a direct message on Twitter at @sidharthajha.
Until next Sunday,
Sid