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It's just the standard 8th rule: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight. Requiring participation in a community is not elitist; it is wha
by Robin_Message 16y ago
It's just the standard 8th rule: If this is your first night at FIGHT CLUB, you HAVE to fight.
Requiring participation in a community is not elitist; it is what makes it a community. Otherwise, you just have some vaguely related people coming together, some of whom are leeching. By requiring everyone invest in the community you create a shared bond and a shared ownership. It's not saying it's an elite club only for special people; but it is saying you have to make a minimal first step of your own before you can enter. It's the same as building a monastery or dojo high up a mountain -- partly for the peace and quiet, but also partly to make it hard to enter -- those who turn up have demonstrated some commitment.
In terms of motivation and teaching others, I'm imagining a fun club that I can't go to unless I get on with doing some actual hacking....motivation to load Vim in 3..2..1!
- Robin_Message 16y agoAlso from Fight Club (which, if you think about it, addresses exactly this question -- making a difference to the world instead of just passively consuming,) is the scene where Tyler holds up a convenience store. Tyler drags an Asian convenience store clerk out behind the store, ostensibly to shoot him. Instead, he badgers the poor clerk into distilling things: that he never wanted this job; in fact, he's just making time as a clerk, and he was at one point in school -- he had a passion to become a veterinarian. Tyler opts not to shoot him and leaves him instead with the message: You're the living dead now. Go back to school and make your life mean something, or I’ll kick you into the grave for real. Getting people to contribute something, before they can belong, is powerful.