[48] The Geography of Scenius
GM Readers,
We can’t believe we’re almost at the end of the year! The holiday season is always a good time to reflect and look at things differently. We’ve been thinking a lot about people and places. Today we explore “place”, particularly its role in enabling Scenius (communal form of the concept of genius).
Next week, we’ll explore “people” for our last essay of the year.
Thanks for reading!
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Your Apple laptop has a background featuring El Capitan, a rock ledge in Yosemite National Park.
It’s famous not just for its beauty, but for its history.
The bottom of the ledge is home to Camp 4 — a camp that’s recognized on the government’s National Register of Historic Places for spawning the growth and development of rock climbing in Yosemite Valley.
Similar to how rock climbers worship Camp 4, humans have always paid homage to the flashes of genius that have defined certain historic eras and places.
What did Camp 4, Renaissance Florence and Silicon Valley have in common?
Answer: Scenius.
Brian Eno recognized that “important changes in cultural history were actually the product of very large numbers of people and circumstances conspiring to make something new. I call this ‘scenius’ — it means ‘the intelligence and intuition of a whole cultural scene’. It is the communal form of the concept of genius."
Scenius is one word to describe all of that innovation, disruption and unparalleled growth / progress.
But what conditions led to the different periods of scenius across history? And is the current Web3 Scenius wavering?
Camp 4 and Scenius
Let’s dive deeper into Camp 4 as an example.
Some of the most famous climbers have stayed, trained and bonded at Camp 4. Climbers would learn from each other, solve problems together and exchange ideas on how to climb Half Dome and El Capitan. Even the founder of Patagonia made new climbing equipment on an anvil and sold the equipment to climbers.
But Camp 4 is often described as physically unimpressive.
Yet at Camp 4, there was a sense of belonging. Everyone was chasing a shared dream that outsiders thought was obscure.
There was a source of pride in roughing it with the “in-crowd”, sort of like the pride techies have in sleeping on someone’s couch and eating ramen while coding all night. The “in-crowd” probably thought the outsiders simply didn’t get it.
Kevin Kelly pointed out: “Camp 4 is also a walk-in camp. You need to haul everything on your back. That immediately filters out a lot of wannabes. The absence of cars also keeps everyone around. From the outside you would never guess there was anything special about the place”.
Camp 4 (unintentionally) also had a mechanism to filter out the tourists and wannabes. And it’s not that being a tourist is bad… but if you are a tourist, you are not in the “in-crowd.” This applies beyond physical places, too. You can be a tourist founder, a tourist crypto believer, etc.
Of course, Camp 4 wasn’t the only scenius. Scenius is sprinkled throughout history.
Scenius Building Blocks
From Camp 4 and Kevin Kelly’s article on the topic, Scenius seems to be enabled by:
Culture
Invention and exchange of ideas and tools
Mutual appreciation for each other that serves as motivational peer pressure
Appreciation for new ideas where successful new ideas are celebrated by the community
Mechanisms to preserve the Culture
Mechanisms to filter out tourists (wannabes) — it’s not for the faint of heart
Mechanisms to keep people engaged (absence of cars) — the party never stops
Non-obvious place to be together
The place feels novel and different (e.g. secluded campground)
The culture bucket is usually the most obvious. Mechanisms to preserve the culture are slightly less obvious, but are often derived from the Culture.
The place where the scenius happens is the most interesting. A non-obvious place is only non-obvious the first time it’s introduced in a scenius — suggesting that the non-obvious place is critical to that scenius.
For example, Silicon Valley can be seen as a Scenius. You can copy everything about Silicon Valley, except for the physical location of Silicon Valley. Pushing this further, you can’t copy the original Silicon Valley (time period) from history.
Is Web3 in Scenius?
During the recent bull market of Web3, many said that Web3 was experiencing scenius. Now that we are in a bear market, is Web3 still in scenius?
On the Culture element, it’s easier to make the argument that Web3 checks all the boxes.
On having Mechanisms to Preserve Culture, Web 3 checks all the boxes as well:
🖐 Mechanisms to filter out tourists. There’s a “barrier to entry” associated with investing in crypto and owning NFTs. Besides the capital, there’s an education and awareness component to overcome.
🎡 Mechanisms to keep people engaged. Web3 has spawned the creation of thousands of sub-cultures by bringing like-minded people together across variables (see our piece on infinite design). Tokens are incentivizing creation and engagement.
On having a non-obvious place to be together, Web3 technically checks the box.
Web3 exists in a non-obvious place: the Internet, which is not a physical place at all!
But, different scenius across history were all physical places.
French salons in Revolutionary France.
The agora in Ancient Greece.
Building 20 at MIT.
Camp 4.
Since Web3 is digital, it’s “every where” and “no where” at the same time.
🗡 This double-edged sword might actually hinder the cohesion of the Web3 scenius as compared to the scenius that were physical (e.g. Camp 4).
Is Digital Scenius a Paradox?
Is digital scenius a paradox? I.e. is a physical place required to enable scenius?
The specific physical place itself matters less for the growth of scenius. Plato and Socrates would’ve been friends anywhere.
🤝
But a physical place does create a clear boundary where tourism ends and scenius begins — a sense of inside versus outside.
A physical place creates a sandbox and environment for the geniuses to come together and form scenius.
🏜
But creating this sandbox and environment is really hard on the Internet because the Internet is an endless place.
So… how do you design and nurture scenius when there is no meeting “place”?
Without (physical) walls to create the boundary between the tourists and the “in-crowd”… culture and mechanisms are what defines the space. Promoting culture, acting as evangelists and building a bigger pie are what delineates Web3 enthusiasts from everybody else.
This is why we always say “vibes matter”.
⚡️
The fact that the “place” is digital means the impact of culture and mechanisms for preserving that culture take center stage.
Until now, humans have always existed in a physical place where the constraints served as a natural form of curation.
But in a digital place that is endless (Internet), enabling scenius requires a different form of curation — culture.
Ultimately this is about helping Web3 design its corner of the Internet. Curation that leads to good vibes allows a scenius to flourish — even in a digital / endless space.
Remember, it’s vibes all the way down (the crypto rabbit hole).