Introducing 9takes

Where do we find authentic conversations today? Where do we discover diverse perspectives? How do we protect against developing echo chambers while also fostering a sense of community? I have not stumbled across that place but that is the place 9takes is going to become.

The closest comparison to 9takes would be reddit. But instead of random posts from around the internet, users will post questions. You can do the same on reddit, but there is a catch. Actually there are two catches:

• One, is that you cannot see the answers to the questions until you post.
• Two, is that users are anonymous. The only thing that identifies a user is their personality.

I will touch on this more in a minute but I want to address why 9takes is focused on questions.

Questions unlock everything

At a high level, questions are why people are on the internet. “Who is blank? What is blank? Where is blank? When is blank? How does blank?”

Google tries to serve you something accurate. But that accuracy is based on inferring the underlying question and matching it statistically to the data it has determined is relevant. There is a lot of room for error in that equation. So people have been going to reddit.

Reddit has a bunch of posts but it also can provide you answers to your questions you have. The trick with reddit is finding the right subreddit to ask you questions. Also these subreddit have their own cultures and it may not be in their best interest to provide you a good answer to your question. It might be in their best interest to troll you or say something funny in order to earn the approval and karma points of others on the subreddit.

Recently ChatGPT has come out and it will answer your questions pretty well. But the only catch is the language learning model has been trained on google and reddit data and therefore has limited creativity and originality. Any new information it produces is inferred from the data it was trained on.

These will all provide answers to your questions. But they are looking for the singular most accurate answer. If you are looking for a singular answer, cool, go to one of the above. The thing is that many of the most important questions that we can ask don’t have a one right answer. Many questions require diverse perspectives and insightful opinions.

• What is the best way to balance work and personal life?
• How do you feel about online learning and its effectiveness?
• What is the best educational system?
• How should I approach getting a girlfriend?
• How are you balancing caring for kids and aging parents?
• What does it mean to lead a good life?
• How have your relationships changed over time, and why do I think that is?
• How do you show someone you are interested in them?

Questions can be anything from simple to complex, timeless to basic. But we are all searching for answers to our questions and 9takes will be the place to ask questions.

Back to what makes 9takes different

Why you cannot see the answers to the questions until you post?

This is because your answer will be biased if you are able to see what everyone else said before you answer. In order to provide an authentic and original answer to a question, you shouldn’t be influenced by what everyone else said, you should be you. Give your take not what you think is the right or funny or nice take.

Why are users anonymous?

Users are anonymous so that they can be honest about their true thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Users shouldn’t be worrying about their personal brand when trying to answer a question. Just give your honest take.

What do you mean a user is identified by their personality?

When you answer a question your selected “personality” is displayed next to your answer. The personality system 9takes uses is the Enneagram. The Enneagram is a personality system where human psychology and philosophy meet and there are many reasons why it has been selected as the preferred personality system.

But why are users identified by their personality? People of the same personality or same Enneagram type will see the world similarly. This presents an opportunity to distinguish between similar and different perspectives or takes on a question. If 10 people of the same personality type answer a question, you are not going to be getting many new perspectives because they are all the same personality. However if 10 people of different personalities answer the question, you will have some significant differences in perspectives. Even if 10 people answering the same question it will be interesting. Theoretically there will be some common thread between people of the same personality types but the variations are the important bits.

9takes allows for nuance

In a world where absolutes and fact checking we forget that many of the things we are searching for don’t have black and white answers. 9takes invites users to explore different takes on questions because there is not just one right perspective. There is a kaleidoscope of different takes and diamonds in the rough waiting to be uncovered.