Preface: Why Making a Science of Communities

We are wired to belong.

Every person is, instinctively, a community builder. But we must re-learn and adapt to unseen circumstances of a fast-changing environment since technology has transformed the way we build communities.

Turning community building into a science is about making it replicable.

I'd like to take multiple experiences, analyze it and identify patterns into a hypothesis which can be tested. Through trial and error, we'd come to a comprehensive method, adaptable to different needs and circumstances. Such knowledge and methodology would allow anyone to start a community from scratch or re-design an existing one.

It doesn't matter if you need to strengthen your company’s organizational culture or change how customers perceive your brand. I'm talking about practical ways how you can steer the ship in the best direction. My goal is to understand human systems and make it replicable with a high probability of success. That's my definition of science.

The Certainty Myth, The Era of Probability

By academic tradition, for an experiment to become scientific it should be verifiable. It means multiple tests, same results. According to the philosopher Karl Popper, a good theory should be falsifiable, meaning: we could test its fundamental hypothesis either to confirm it or replace it with a better theory.

When it comes to human communities, we have the entire world as our laboratory and all the nuances of human culture, making it challenging to find one absolute truth. But we can definitely come to several hypotheses which could be tested and verified (or falsified) multiple times, getting to a methodology with a high probability of success.

This might sound terrifying to those who regard science as the field of certainty. But even in physics, one of our most "certainty-ruled" fields of science, the quantum spookiness has been teaching us how to embrace probability as a means to move on since the beginning of the 20th century.

Making Science When We are The Mice of Our Lab

All human sciences are in to check when it comes to certainty. Fact. Too many variables would make an experiment valid for specific groups, but invalid to others. Besides, when our behavior is the subject of our own study, we are under the risk of falling victim to our very mindsets, based on a narrow range of personal experiences. These could influence our theories, as well as the methods of running experiments to validate it. Arguably, every science is influenced by the scientist's individual circumstances (from time, weather and geographic location to cultural beliefs surrounding and defining its perspectives).

Several brilliant individuals built theories which, at the start, are mere hypothesis or imagination based on their perspectives and experiences

Einstein said that "imagination is more important than knowledge".

My goal isn't of reaching a perfect human communities theory, but starting a conversation and inviting people to research along with you (yes, you).

Daring to Make a Science or Illusions of Grandeur

I'd argue that science isn't about certainty, but about sparking curiosity that lead us to the right questions.

We grew up to see beautiful how theories are thrown away, such as the idea of an atom model which looked like a Keplerian replica of our solar system. These human-made models, based on what imagination could grasp, were proved wrong - to a certain extent: these gave us ground to test and evolve into new, better theories.

Every science is an ever-evolving deal. All scientific theories are, from the start, a hint, an idea, a curiosity, a philosophical argument started by a culturally biased or inspired human brain.

All the ideas we believe in, today, may be overthrown by a better approach the future, but without these ideas, we would not have been able to evolve.

For instance, we are still trying to discover the one equation which elegantly explains the Universe. Although it might not exist, searching for it has to lead us to great discoveries which helped build new technologies, from the iPhone to the MRI machines. Science is uncertain, ever-evolving, as we are.

What makes a scientist? Similar to being an entrepreneur: an inquisitive spirit daring to be wrong, as long as it helps us move forward.

Starting a Conversation, Engineering Curiosity

Again, imagination matters.

I have beliefs, ideas, and models for community building which might be right (or wrong). I want to spark discussions about community building which will inspire your inquisitive spirit. A single idea can inspire people to follow it's track searching for answers. The journey will lead us to confirm or discourage our belief.

Studying ourselves (humans) in communities is a complex subject, diverse in variables based on space and time.

That complexity is the very reason why it is interesting: the diversity of cultures, belief systems, and languages which compose our history and future are perplexing. Our nature to build communities has allowed us to thrive as a species, but also to fight each other and decline at times. Our bonds are both based on commonalities and differences, two sides of the same coin.

We're still discussing if there's one thing which would bring us all together, the same way how we're searching for the one equation which explains Nature Laws and the Universe.

Although it seems we've studied enough, we never stop being surprised by human stories which exceed our comprehension of humanity. I guess we won't know what that commonality is until a hostile alien attack brings us all together. OK, that's a joke.

The Science of What Makes us Human

Before an alien invasion (not that I believe in it), we can come to a better discussion and understanding of what makes a human community, about why and how we bond. Finally, about what binds us together. There's a lot of content about that, already, from Socrates to Clifford Geertz, Jared Diamond, Susan Pinker, Brene Brown and, well... Mark Zuckerberg. It matters even more since technology substantially changed everything about how we connect, for the last 30 years.

The idea of a universal "human binding element” is a belief in itself. Maybe, it is a fiction. It implies that we can crack the human code. That belief will lead our curiosity to ask questions which could take us to new levels of development in Artificial Intelligence, replicating consciousness, transcendence and so on.

But, for now, this book it's just a sci-fi inspired idea, a question: can we build a replicable system to create better human communities?

Talking about communities which have diversity - in all its forms - at its core.

Opening space for serendipitous discoveries is the point of following a scientific process. Hope you join me!

Best,

Lais de Oliveira