Seven years in the forest

Seven years ago this month, I sent this list an essay about how I felt increasingly reluctant to be my real self online. I and many others, I wrote, were retreating from public view into the dark forest — a phrase borrowed from Cixin Liu’s novel, where civilizations stay silent because being seen is dangerous. “The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet” was a way of understanding how the feeling of the internet was changing. As each of us rationally responded to more aggressive online spaces, we began to migrate to group chats, private feeds, and invite-only spaces. An innocence and camaraderie had been lost. Seven years later, this has become a dominant pattern of online life. We show up and collaborate in private spaces. We lurk or perform in public ones. This in-between is where most of us stay. Everything public is an ad. Everything private feels more real.The Dark Forest essay put a phrase to these emotions. A new project we’re introducing today puts an architecture to it. It’s…