Spread Human Scale — Sharing & Launch Kit

Growth rule: lead with usefulness, curiosity, and a specific problem. Do not ask friends to manufacture engagement. Do not mass-message strangers. Do not pretend independent interest exists when it does not.

What to share first

Best cold entry

Human Scale Audit

A five-minute, no-signup tool people can actually try. It turns an abstract worldview into reflection on their own environment.

Open audit →

Best short read

One-page Manifesto

For people interested in the thesis but unlikely to read ten chapters first.

Open manifesto →

Best thoughtful entry

Start Here

Explains the project in two minutes and routes readers to doctrine, guide, program, evidence, or audit.

Open start page →

Best skeptical audience

Evidence Atlas

Lead with the project's willingness to label hypotheses and show what would change its mind.

Open evidence →

Post starters

These are starting material. Rewrite them in your own voice, especially in communities that restrict AI-generated posts.

I built a small tool around a question I've been thinking about for years: how much does your everyday environment actually support being human? It asks about movement, sleep, nature, community, time, work schedules, technological control, proximity, security and meaning. The score is calculated locally in the browser; there is no signup and the answers aren't sent anywhere. The larger project is called Human Scale. The basic idea is not “technology bad” or “small good.” It's that modern systems should have to justify themselves by the lives they make possible. I'd especially like criticism of the questions and weighting: https://tmsteph.com/human-scale/audit/

I've been writing a living philosophy called Human Scale around a tension I can't shake: We should keep modern medicine, science, computing, abundant energy, cities and global exchange — while recovering more human time, nature, community, repairability, public space and agency. I'm trying to make it falsifiable rather than turn it into another ideology. The project now has a doctrine, field guide, civic program and an Evidence Atlas that explicitly labels what is evidence vs hypothesis vs value judgment. The one-page version is here: https://tmsteph.com/human-scale/manifesto/

Question: what is one part of modern life that is technically efficient but obviously hostile to the human beings living inside it? I'm collecting examples as part of a project about “Human Scale” — the idea that progress should be measured partly by human time, agency, health, relationships and ecological compatibility, not only output or convenience. I don't want agreement nearly as much as good counterexamples.

Where to launch

Hacker News

Use the Audit, not the manifesto, for a Show HN because it is something people can actually try. Explain why you built it, what is unusual about it, and what feedback you want. Avoid marketing language and never coordinate votes.

Show HN guidelines ↗ · HN guidelines ↗

Participate as a person before promoting. Check each community's current rules immediately before posting. r/SideProject explicitly exists for sharing projects; for philosophy, urbanism, simple living, solarpunk, open source, or local communities, contribute organically and ask moderators when promotion rules are unclear.

Reddit promotion guidance ↗

Publish a personal article about the origin of Human Scale, then make short posts from individual claims rather than repeatedly dropping the homepage. LinkedIn members can publish articles and create newsletters.

LinkedIn article help ↗

Bluesky

Post individual questions, findings, diagrams and experiments. If a real Human Scale community begins to form, a Starter Pack can help people find relevant accounts and feeds instead of making the project only about one account.

Bluesky Starter Packs ↗

Newsletters & podcasts

Pitch one sharp idea, not “please cover my project.” Good angles include human time after AI, why scale should justify itself, or why an ideology should publish falsification conditions. Link to the Evidence Atlas for credibility.

San Diego

Turn Human Scale into a local experiment: one garden, safer crossing, public-space audit, repair event, neighborhood gathering, shade project, or discussion night. A real-world pilot creates better stories than abstract promotion.

A launch sequence

1. Tool launch. Share the Audit to one builder community and one personal network. Ask for criticism of questions and scoring.

2. Publish the origin story. Explain the wrong-turn thesis and why this is not anti-technology.

3. Release one evidence audit. Show a claim becoming stronger, weaker, or more nuanced after research.

4. Run one local experiment. Document a small Human Scale change in the physical world.

5. Invite contributors. Ask for counterarguments, research, local experiments, design help, or code — not generic “followers.”

Measure learning, not vanity

Audit startsDoes the tool earn attention?

Audit completionsIs it worth finishing?

Deep readsDo people move into manifesto/doctrine/evidence?

Useful repliesAre we getting arguments and examples?

Return visitsDoes anyone come back?

Real experimentsDoes anything leave the screen?

Use campaign-tagged URLs when useful, for example ?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=human_scale_audit_v01. Vercel Analytics can then help distinguish channels without adding invasive tracking.

Paid advertising

Do not spend meaningful money yet. First learn which message earns voluntary attention organically. Once a page converts curiosity into real reading or Audit completion, run tiny, clearly bounded experiments comparing messages rather than buying broad “awareness.”

Do not target people based on sensitive personal traits or try to manipulate political fears. If paid promotion is used, keep it broad and topic/context based: technology & society, urbanism, open source, resilience, human-centered design, philosophy, community building.

Make the project worth sharing before making it loud.

The strongest advertisement for Human Scale will be a useful tool, a surprising piece of evidence, or a visible improvement in a real place.