Thoughts on DT Club

Lounge
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I’ve had this in my head for awhile now, and with the recent developments in Titan2 it’s come to the forefront of my mind, so…

First and foremost, I am not trying to be negative or disparaging, I just feel this needs to be stated openly. Agree, disagree, or just discuss endlessly, but at the end of the day, you are MY PEOPLE. Love you all.

If there are two things I am most proud of from my time here, they are:

  1. Permanently branding @Pilgrimsmaster as AI.
  2. Being there at THE critical moment, post M31, to turn @amal 's thought process towards the TITAN.

I take great pride and ownership in the development of the Titan even though I had very little to actually do with it. Because I WAS a part of it. I was there, with my people, my community, at it’s conception.

Since then, we have created DT Club, which while raising much needed funds for the continuation of DT, has also created a walled garden section of the community which I am not part of because of $$$. (Yes, yes, I could pay, but that’s not what I’m discussing here.)

Awhile back I saw (sorry don’t remember when/where) someone post something mentioning new magnet development, but the whole thing was being kept inside DT Club. Now months later, we have portions of that moved out of DT Club into the public forum.

Now that I’m through rehashing everything. Let me present the crux of my issue. When I compare the development of the two projects, the only conclusion I can come to is either,

  1. Titan2 is NOT a part of the community, and I certainly take no pride or ownership in it. I cannot help but believe this is intensely negative to that particular program. Or…
  2. I am not part of the community. And that… just ouch.

Since DTClub I see less and less of the more developed and nuanced content on the forum. I hardly ever see posts from @Satur9, and that is a god damn shame. I can only assume that activity is, inline with Satur9’s particular technical gifts, being expressed mostly behind the walled garden. I can’t really point to other specific examples, (that’s kinda my point) but the forum as a whole seems duller and duller as time goes on. I believe that’s a result of the “good stuff” being reserved away from public view. And killing off community engagement.

In conclusion. My thoughts on the matter. DTClub. Lack of ownership. Duller forum.

If you’ve gotten this far, please remember what I said earlier, You are MY PEOPLE. Love you all.

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magnet talk that you saw in the lounge, was in the DT club for about 6-12 hours.

You missed nothing there so dont fret about it.

Most of the content that gets into DT club makes its way to the lounge in under 2 days maybe 3 if i myself forget to post a release.

As far as technical projects. Most of them are posted here. Like in my threads or in Chimpo’s

To me it seems like you have a bit of Fomo. but i assure you that isnt the case. lots of discussion occurs in the biohackers discord and other discords.

I cant speak for @Satur9 but i know he has a lot going on and i dont think he posts a lot of his projects on the forum. but i know he is wizarding around.

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So I’ll let someone from DT respond, but I want to say what you’re seeing is a very isolated incident. DT Club doesn’t have many private posts. @Az_F posted the initial sale of his magnets there yesterday, to which Amal responded with some concerns. That necessarily brought up the titan2.

That being said, I have been vocal in the past about DT publishing a monthly news letter. Maybe with this post and the recent “is Dangerous Things OK” post, they’ll circle back to that

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Keep in mind, I’m outside, not knowing what’s inside. So from my view, I see this.

That’s from April 2024, so the discussions (from my viewpoint) have been ongoing for nearly a year.

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I definitely felt similarly prior to finally picking up a subscription, and was quite relieved to learn that wasn’t really the case in my opinion

While I do believe DT club to be worth it personally, I also don’t think the exclusive topics in any real way diminish the open forum

Most of the “community” bits still go on out here IMO

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Exclusion is the problem. Separate is inherently unequal. From the outside… I perceive, this. I would imagine any new forum member would as well. Even if totally unfounded. It still feels like it. Not a good look.

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There have been about 9 topics posted on within the last 30 days (in DT Club). Just adding some context, zero bias either way. (Not all topics were created within the last 30 days.)

Also:

  • 1 was me giving away an extra ZINC theme code
  • 2 were over the same general topic
  • 1 was Amal basically “Hey, look at this tool we bought with DT Club funds”
  • 1 was the magnet post mentioned above
  • 1 was an update about Midwestgadgets.org

(I am leaving some out not to step on anyone’s toes.)

By comparison, there are about 40 topics posted on in the last 7 days outside of DT Club.

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i post my stock and new product updates in DT club 1-2 days prior to the lounge. Thats about it tho.

I also dont like cluttering up the forums so i keep everything in the same thread. I dont want to be a spammy spam ham

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:100: We will have the brand forged and at the ready the next time he manifests physically at HQ.

Some things, sure. Presales and the like. Sometimes the content is random pretty random.

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My initial thought was to explore having a fixed age where we make the content public but it doesn’t seem like you feel that would address the issue.

Ah. Fair. The reasons aren’t interesting and frankly depress me. Capitalism blows. In the post pandemic world such a high precision and quality device is impractical for manufacturing in such small batches in a sane manner. We could have continued to try and put together a an increasingly convoluted logistical chain to do the thing but who knew when it would pay off and we’re just in the middle of so many projects many of which have been ongoing for years and there are now a couple are passing from Soon ™ to any-possible-moment or in a few months but things are on autopilot. Circling back was on the list. There just hasn’t been anything to say. I am sorry I didn’t elaborate on the forum.

This is hard. And not my place to address. I but I wanted to at least acknowledge your view.

Can you elaborate? I have only the perspective of someone in that place, at that time. I appreciate any outside perspective.

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From my perspective.

Titan, I was a part of it. From the get go, ups, downs, cheers, and groans, I was there and FELT involved every step of the way.

From my perspective.
Titan2, I have been intentionally excluded. My input is nonexistant. I have zero skin in the game.

Keep in mind, perspective.
Prior to this conversation, what I had been able to see is that there was an ongoing development project that was walled off from me, that had been ongoing for almost a year, which suddenly burst into view yesterday.

It really truly doesn’t matter what is or is not in DT Club. Because as long as I don’t know, I am forced to work from what I can see. And the few bits I have lead me to believe that I’ve been excluded from an ongoing develpoment program that is finally bearing fruit.

True or not, this is what I see, what fits the only facts I have, (prior to this conversation)

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Y’all remember I’m a blacksmith, right?

Gotta go class, so I’m gonna be mostly AFK for awhile.

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Also had a thing. Back now.

I have been feeling that with @Chimpofm and @DonFire 's project. Not DT but definitely the community continuing to be amazing. It’s very easy for me to miss the outsider’s perspective–thank you for helping me see it. I’ll be thinking on it.

I know that the explanation that follows is not a solution, but it is the least I can do.

@mrln has been very active in talking about being able to source these magnets on Biohacker’s Digital. Lot’s of talk and excitement. I was asked if we’d like to evaluate one. We got it the day before yesterday, IIRC. Tested it. Shared our findings with @mrln re: Titan v. dental magnet field strength (on par with roughly the same size despite being samarium cobalt). Today @mrln and @Az_F announced they would be selling them. It went from zero to 100mph in like ten minutes from my perspective. So you certainly weren’t the only one surprised :slight_smile:

You build it, we’ll wield it :wink:

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I agree with your perspective… there is an exclusionary aspect to the DT Club, though to be fair $5/mo is not that high of a wall… but it is a wall. While I can’t defend the wall itself, I’ll just lay out my thoughts so we can have a discussion.

The club came about, at least initially, for these reasons;

  • I had people every few weeks literally asking for a Patreon or some other way to help me / dt out on a recurring basis.
  • There were projects which, unlike the Titan, weren’t applicable to anything but primary research… no application, just experimentation… but lack of funds meant nothing was going to get done on those endeavors.
  • Some people wanted broader access to behind the scenes action… what’s the lab got in it… what’s being worked on that isn’t really ready for public discourse… that kind of thing.

Putting a kind of “fan club” arrangement together seemed like the answer, because this is where putting a tiny little wall of exclusion actually has some positives for all the negatives;

  • It naturally creates a limit to the number of people involved, without actually creating a significant challenge to most. This is why;
    • The lowest tier is $5/mo which should be affordable to basically everyone. I realise though that this is still not insignificant for many people.
    • There is no additional difference in the subscription tiers… everyone in the club has identical access and is treated the same. The tiers only exist because some people feel strongly about supporting DT. I literally started with a $5/mo tier only and was asked for larger options. The mind boggles, but it’s true.
  • It keeps discussions not suitable / ready for public discourse hidden behind special permissions which bots, search engines, and AI can’t get at.

Where it might matter / hurt the most though is DT Club early access to special small batch or one-off production projects. I acknowledge this very much sucks for the greater community, but the comparatively small size of the DT Club is the main reason certain things / opportunities are offered there first.

Offering a one-off to the community at large on a first come first served basis really does mean it comes down to whoever sees it first gets claim (and has the interest). Coordinating announcements across all the public channels… forum, twitter, facebook, instagram, tiktok, reddit, discord, etc… and trying to make sure that offering is posted across all of them with in a reasonable time so people don’t feel cheated on timing… it’s all kind of a lot… and then of course, doing it in this way means a new person with 1000 level excitement and 0 level experience could jump at something they don’t quite understand and snag the thing… not likely… but possible.

By contrast, the club offers me a much smaller space to discuss these types of things and offer things to a smaller dedicated group of people who are basically guaranteed to “get it”. The number of random strangers I get asking me if they could be a guinea pig for completely untested stuff… it’s seriously a problem. In the club, I can put up one-offs or prototypes I feel are ready for testing in vivo but aren’t yet products or ready for mass production and not be all that worried a newcomer who doesn’t understand proper risk assessment is going to snag something they aren’t ready for and basically have a problem.

So yes, in a certain way I value the exclusionary aspect of creating and operating the DT Club… but as I stated before, the wall isn’t that high on purpose. I didn’t want to create a walled garden simply for the purpose of extracting $ from and separate the community… but there are reasons the garden was created and continues to exist.

I know it’s not about the $ for you @ODaily but I’d be happy to add you to the group. I just don’t know any other way to get you over the wall while also addressing the principal of the thing for you. I hope the offer doesn’t feel icky. I just want happy cybogs.

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Much appreciated.

Thankyou, but no. The problem for me is not the side of the wall I’m on, it’s the wall.

Let’s divide DT Club into 3 portions. Financial, Access, and Information.

Financial. Sales, discounts, incentives, etc. Absolutely zero problems here. In fact, I see it as a net positive.

Access. By which I mean early access, or perhaps even priority access. The Texas meetup Airbnb slots went first to DT Club, then to everyone else. Totally fair. If a new product or a fresh load of a previously out of stock product were to drop, I see no reason why paying DT Club member shouldn’t go to the head of the shipping list. As long as it’s above board that that’s what’s going to happen. Same with guinea pig selection. Only available to DT Club, or DT Club first, fine. I can see people begging to get into guinea pig, or jumping onto DT Club just to get access to a particular trial as being problematic. Perhaps a seniority system? First shot at that kind of thing goes to people with 1yr, second to 6months??? Just spitballing.

Information. This is the one that rubs me the wrong way. DT is both a business and a community. As a business, I get it. As a community, problems abound.

Stuff like lab tours, or a video of you using the new laser to open a Diet Coke, or even just showing the gas plasma sterilizer working, not a problem.

What becomes a problem is walling, or potentially walling development / discussion / collaboration.

(I have never in my nerd-life had opportunity to pull out the following nerd-argument so please excuse my nerd-gasm)

I summon Shrodinger’s Cat!!!

However, I’m going to replace the box with DT Club, and the cat with Titan2 / magnet development. Because that’s what I’m most familiar with here due to my interests. {Other forum members may have identical experiences with different products, NExT2 development comes to mind, etc, etc.}

Anyone with DT Club could simply peek in the box, see that there was nothing to see, cat’s alive, all is good.

From my view, box is closed. The one piece of info I got from @tac0s (see previous) is that development was in DT Club. So now, I know there’s a cat in the box.

While DT club members still know the cat is alive and well, I haven’t gotten a look in, so alive or dead, is there an ongoing magnet development discussion that I’m locked out of, or not? Only Shrodinger knows. Which means both are true.

With the Titan2 news publicly breaking, I received:

So now the development in DT Club is confirmed, I have most definitely been walled off from discussion and participation in a major development on a product that I’m deeply interested in. Also the cat is so so dead.

So for DT Club, there never was a discussion, for me there was always a discussion, I was just locked out, and here’s the kicker, prior to this very thread / topic, BOTH WERE EQUALLY TRUE.
Which means if you were in DT Club, you probably don’t see the big deal, and if not (and you were interested) you kind of feel like you’ve been kept out in the cold.

And that is it. From the time I learned of it, until today, nearly a year, I was locked out of discussion that (for me) actually existed due to Schrodinger’s Club, on a subject that I’m deeply interested in. And I’m not happy about it at all.

I can deal with this, especially as now that we’ve ripped the lid fully off the box, I can see just how alive the cat is. I might be the only one to voice the complaint, and I DO NOT enjoy doing so, but I’m certainly not the only one to feel this way.

Another fine example of nergasm Schrodinger’s Club.

Nor do I think there are not others similarly unhappy with what they perceive to have lost to the DT Club wall. This whole thing works directly against having happy cyborgs. As long as people can’t see what’s being witheld from them, then stuff is DEFINITELY being witheld, and the stuff will always be the very stuff that that person cares about most. It’s practically designed to make unhappy cyborgs, or at least resentful ones.

Like I said before, I don’t like bringing this up at all, but few would, and if you’re not experiencing it, you’d never see what it actualy costs our community.

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That dropped in the DT Club when a member decided to sell a few magnets, and when things turned to the development of the Titan v2, things got moved to the lounge rather quickly.

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I’m not certain without going through the entire history of the club, but I can feel pretty comfortable saying we never keep information like this sequestered within the club.

In short, there was zero discussion about Titan development in the club. This all happened within a matter of hours because @Az_F posted in the club. @Jammyjellyfish tried to explain this above;

I don’t see any purpose for keeping information like that exclusive to the club. The thread concerning the magnets was started there by someone other than me, and as it evolved I knew pretty quickly someone would post publicly about these magnets @Az_F was offering and discussion would quickly move to the public forum.

I feel like we are on the same page. If I had any sort of community discussion regarding Titan development, it would definitely happen in the public forum. Can anyone from the club point to anything to the contrary? Keep me in check here.

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Yes, but…
The point is that due to the schrodinger effect. There was an ongoing and active discussion going on inside DT Club for a year.
Which never existed, and which fully existed. Viewpoint and access determines which world you live in.
Here, kitty kitty kitty.

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A year? What are you talking about exactly? I honestly I’m not sure. I may have shared updates but there was no community development discussion as far as I am aware?

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How might you like to see it changed?

What would help?

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What conversation? About the Titan v2? I can assure you that the Titan v2 conversation happened in a matter of hours, and it started as a private sale of a few magnets that DT didn’t make. Once it got derailed into a conversation about the Titan v2 it was moved.

If you join the club expecting to gain access to months of conversations about implants, you will be disappointed. But you will find out about products a few days in advance.

I should mention that I was underwhelmed at first, but knowing that I’m helping develop new implants softened the blow. I should take advantage of the early access for the next implant release.

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