I don’t like conferences or unconferences. But I find conferences at least bearable whereas unconferences are egregiously unbearable. The scale of political gam

I don’t like conferences or unconferences. But I find conferences at least bearable whereas unconferences are egregiously unbearable. The scale of political gamesmanship and signalling is just exhausting especially when it is dressed up in so much self-unaware insistence that it’s totally not just political networking or signalling. It has the same vibe to me as cultish start-ups. Conferences are often quite bad too. But I’ll take the structured interaction any time. The structure and scheduled topical constraints make it better, not worse. The problems that mainstream conferences have are not things that self-organizing look-how-salt-of-the-earth-we-are-just-having-a-potluck-or-hacking-in-a-garage “enlightenment” attitudes can solve.