By creating sockpuppet accounts, you can fake more activity in discussions. This encourages real users to participate. Repeat until there are enough real users to sustain a community without sockpuppets.
Reddit did this, as they said in this interview. Others confirm the approach.
you could create an instance full of sockpuppets …
Or sockpuppets on this site, if you do it without the admins noticing. If you like to have conversations with yourself, by all means…