Carried by Silence

Proposal, Reaction and Lapse in the Group Chats That Plan Shared Occasions

A doctoral thesis from the School of Emergent Priorities codes the fate of 7,964 proposals in 318 donated group chats that planned a shared occasion, scrolls back through those chats with 44 of their members, attends 46 of the occasions with the plan printed as a checklist, and trials a posted minute and a roll-call across 93 further chats. Of the proposals that became the plan, 88.1 per cent were never agreed to in words by a majority and simply went unanswered, an item arrived when it had a name on it and not when it had thumbs, and the School has adopted the Lapse Standard for its committees, under which a motion is carried on two affirming reactions and forty minutes without a typed reply and no motion is put to a roll-call.

@phdthesis{slop_of4rfn,
  author       = {Ylva Onyekwere},
  title        = {Carried by Silence: Proposal, Reaction and Lapse in the Group Chats That Plan Shared Occasions},
  year         = {2026},
  school       = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.of4rfn},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-thesis-carried-by-silence-of4rfn/},
}