@aquablast3155

11 months ago

I think one of the biggest mistakes Cicada made was to involve leg work-- once leg work is involved, you're not going find the people who solved the puzzle, instead you're just going to find the grunts who do the leg work. Sounds like they did find some people they want, but they'd probably find even more if they had cut out the leg work phase. The other mistake is not doing a better job to keep the interest of their winning contestants-- to be fair, maybe they did find a few who actually stayed and were interested in their goals, but people would probably be more interested if they understand what the group is trying to do, and what they should prepare for... Sometimes people say yes, but then a few years later, the answer will no longer be yes. You can't really deal with people this way, like expecting them to still be in your pocket/aligned with you after years, when they aren't part of anything you did so far or are given no information for years. Social intelligence is just so undervalued by these highly intelligent type sometimes-- Sometimes this elitism and exclusiveness just rubs me the wrong way. I get not wanting the riffraff, but cramming your group with the same type of people means it's unlikely to detect a mistake that would have been apparent to people with a different skill set. (Assuming this really isn't just some sort of elaborate internet game. Honestly, as soon as leg work is involved, I thought it was just a game akin to the one from Gravity Falls-- which was really great and cool! But if it was an internet game, they probably could have done better than claiming to be people working on internet privacy/freedom of information, so I assume they are serious.) However, I think putting contradictory things in the email was brilliant. Without giving a clear signal of what answer they are really looking for, people are more likely to just answer honestly, rather than trying to game the answer. Spiking your interview with trap questions is a good way to weed out types you want to avoid. (Although maybe what they really believe is, only some information should be free. I mean, I don't believe ALL information should be free. The ones involving public interest, sure, but not the personal ones.) I also think going to 4chan is a good idea, as people there probably value their anonymity (hence align with the privacy concerns), so it was probably right place. Again, the biggest mistake probably was involving leg work.

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