If You Build It, They Will Come

如果你搭建了舞台，他们自会到来

Several times in my life I’ve tried to break in with a new social group. I ran into a cool community I wanted to join, or I moved to a new city and wanted to make friends there, or I just wanted to broaden my horizons. 在我的人生中，曾多次尝试融入新的社交圈。有时是我发现了一个想加入的酷炫社区，有时是我搬到了新城市想结交朋友，又或者仅仅是想拓宽自己的视野。

Pretty quickly I learned that the best and fastest way to join a group is to organize events where we do the group’s core activity. In every group I’ve ever encountered, there is far more demand for social events and things to do than there is supply. Getting people to come is like giving away ice cream at the beach. You can make friends by showing up from the outside and consistently attending other people’s events, but it’s a lot easier and faster to make friends if you’re also organizing your own stuff and inviting the people you’re hoping to get closer to, or helping with someone else’s events. I’ve found this true everywhere from niche online fanfiction discussion groups to vanguard intellectual movements directing hundreds of millions of dollars annually. 我很快就意识到，加入一个群体最好、最快的方法，就是组织大家进行该群体的核心活动。在我接触过的每一个群体中，对社交活动和各类事务的需求都远大于供给。吸引人们参加活动就像在海滩上免费派发冰淇淋一样容易。你当然可以通过作为“局外人”持续参加别人的活动来结交朋友，但如果你能亲自组织活动并邀请你想结交的人，或者协助他人筹办活动，那么交友的过程会容易且迅速得多。我发现无论是在小众的在线同人小说讨论组，还是在每年运作数亿美元资金的前沿知识运动中，这一规律都同样适用。

Lots of people have a sort of consumer attitude towards their communities, where they take everything for granted. I saw things this way when I was young. A social scene is an automatic feature of the world that appears on its own, like a wild blueberry bush. It starts sprouting parties and dinners and conferences and reading groups as naturally as the bush sprouts berries. 许多人对他们所在的社区持有某种“消费者心态”，认为一切都是理所当然的。我年轻时也曾这样看待世界：认为社交圈是世界的一种自动属性，就像野生的蓝莓丛一样自然生长。它会像灌木结出浆果那样，自然而然地冒出派对、晚宴、会议和读书会。

Surprisingly, it turns out things don’t actually work that way. In fact, events happen when someone puts in the legwork to organize them. And one of the most reliable laws of the universe is that, if something takes a little bit of legwork, then most people just won’t do it. A scene’s leaders are mostly the people who actually bother to put in the work. 令人惊讶的是，事实并非如此。事实上，活动的发生是因为有人付出了组织工作的辛劳。而宇宙中最可靠的定律之一就是：如果一件事需要付出一点体力或精力，那么大多数人就不会去做。一个圈子的领导者，通常就是那些真正愿意投入精力去干活的人。

The work of organizing is underappreciated by many people. But the other organizers are very attuned to this, and absolutely will notice who else is picking up the burdens. 组织工作往往被许多人低估。但其他的组织者对此非常敏锐，他们绝对会注意到还有谁在分担这些重任。

I’ve come to believe that part of today’s problem of social alienation is a problem of too many free riders. Lots of people want to consume social fabric, but our social scripts telling people to produce social fabric have largely fallen by the wayside. I don’t know how to solve this undersupply at the scale of society. But you can solve it at the scale of your own community by just supplying it. 我逐渐相信，当今社会疏离感问题的一部分原因在于“搭便车”的人太多了。许多人想要消费社交资源，但我们教导人们去创造社交资源的社会脚本却已大多被遗忘。我不知道如何在社会层面解决这种供给不足的问题，但你可以在自己的社区层面通过亲自提供供给来解决它。