Weak ties
Granovetter's weak-tie work is the network reason Social Media 2 does not simply amplify existing circles.
Research
Research foundations for human reconnection.
Social Media 2 is built from third-place theory, weak-tie network science, sortition practice, civic privacy, and older traditions of shared reading and disciplined disagreement.
Third places
Oldenburg's third-place account and Putnam's social-capital work define the civic loss Social Media 2 is meant to repair.
Bridging
Ovadya's bridging-based ranking frames the design pressure toward cross-cluster understanding instead of faction victory.
Bibliography snapshot
The full source map lives in docs2/serendipityengine/21_SOURCES_AND_INFLUENCES.md. This page gives the public short list behind the product choices.
Granovetter
Mark Granovetter, The Strength of Weak Ties, gives Social Media 2 its weak-tie and bridge-building primitive.
Oldenburg
Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place, names the third-place substrate that Partner Venues restore.
Putnam
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone, supplies the social-capital decline Social Media 2 treats as measurable civic damage.
Ovadya
Aviv Ovadya, Bridging-Based Ranking, informs the cross-perspective rerank used around Agora and civic deliberation.
Schmidhuber
Jurgen Schmidhuber's compression-progress theory informs the formal treatment of useful surprise and curiosity.
Aristotle
Aristotle's account of friendship, virtue, and flourishing anchors the Arete and eudaimonia language.
Jiang
Jiang's lectures on classical democracy and institutional decay shape the warnings against capture and status markets.
Plato
Plato's Symposium and dialogic method inform the Symposium, Theater, and shared-reading practices.
Belgian G1000
The Belgian G1000 demonstrates modern deliberative sortition at civic scale.
Irish Citizens' Assembly
The Irish Citizens' Assembly demonstrates rotating citizen deliberation with public institutional consequence.
Primer: How to argue the other side first
Before an Agora, a citizen should be able to state the strongest version of the opposing argument without sarcasm or caricature.
Primer: Disagreement without performance
The room is designed for changed minds, not public victory. No recording, no clipping, no audience reward.