So a few people have asked me about Empty Spaces in some capacity and each time the subject comes up I essentially say the same thing, so I'm collecting my thoughts about it here.
If you've ever used Twitter/Tumblr, especially if you've ever interacted with their post-rationalist scene you might be familiar with some terms floating around from the Empty Spaces pantheon like "angel" or "doll" or "moth".
Now you might be wondering: what exactly is Empty Spaces? If you go to the website you won't get a clear answer (because being legible to others is kinda antithetical to post-rationalists1), but the shortest explanation I can muster is that it's a combination of a website and a community centered around identifying as things that are not people (e.g. "angels", "dolls", and "moths").
So I take no issue with everything that I've described so far. For example, I was pretty adjacent to the post-rationalist scene on Twitter and I think it's fine if this Empty Spaces pantheon resonates with some people and helps them find meaning or make better sense of their lives.
The part I take issue with is that some people seem to want to wield this Empty Spaces pantheon as a golden hammer for understanding everyone and that makes me uncomfortable.
I'll use myself as an example. Sometimes people ask me where I fit within this pantheon (or they go even further and presume where I fit within this pantheon … often incorrectly). The closest section of the pantheon that does an okay job of describing (part of) me is "combat doll" (a.k.a. "battle doll"). But the problem I have with that is:
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(A) the "combat doll" metaphor is really strained in my case
There's a lot more to me than that, especially if you go beyond my public persona.
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(B) the "combat doll" metaphor is not evocative
What I mean by "evocative" is that the combat doll metaphor only makes sense if you already know what it's supposed to mean. Like, if you knew nothing about Empty Spaces and I told you I was a combat doll you'd probably have no clue what I meant unless I first explained what a combat doll is to you.
In contrast, I think a much better metaphor for that same part of me is an "attack dog"; and if I tell someone that I'm an "attack dog" they typically know exactly what that means because it is a much more evocative metaphor. People who hear that can intuit that I like to be sic'ed by my master(s) on enemies (challenging problems).
So I guess what I'm trying to say is: please stop trying to pigeonhole everyone (especially me, please and thank you) into this Empty Spaces pantheon. If some people identify with it, great, but if not it doesn't mean you need to expand the pantheon or whatever to put a label them; just let them pick whatever labels make sense to themselves.
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although Empty Spaces is kinda an attempt by post-rationalists to make themselves more legible to others by labeling themselves, which seems antithetical to post-rationalism
