mapping how ideas spread online

epistemic.garden · by epistemic garden · clipped 2026-01-31

Clipped from the web into my Obsidian; formatting may be imperfect.

We’re building tools to help communities understand their information landscape and protect against harmful coordinated narratives.

The internet is like a jungle: full of wonders, but also threats. We can build tools that give jungle eyes.

Philosophy

Online communities are rich sensemaking spots where people figure out truth together. But without awareness of the narrative patterns shaping discourse, they’re vulnerable to psyops and manipulation that will only intensify with AI growth.

We follow a living lab philosophy - open by default, community-oriented. Users who volunteer their data to the Community archive are our main stakeholders. We iterate with them to build “jungle eyes” - tools to inform awareness of the memetic forces at play.

We think of it as moving toward a germ theory for ideas. Just like building a microscope revolutionized public health, tools that map idea diffusion can help communities maintain memetic sovereignty and epistemological robustness.

Core Projects

ProjectDescriptionStatus
Community ArchiveCrowdsourced social media data (17M tweets and growing)Live
Keyword TrendsLike Google Trends but for your community’s discourseLive
BirdseyeVisualize someone’s body of work by topic over timeLive
The NooscopeTrack idea origins and diffusion across the social graphIn Progress
Meme ReportsWeekly synthesis of what ideas are spreading and where fromIn Progress
Discourse MapsNavigate complex discussions and identify camps/argumentsIn Progress
MatchmakingFind friends, collaborators, trades, etc.In Progress

Team

Support

We are graciously supported by Vitalik Buterin, the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and Peter Wang.