These are the notes I took while reading, which led me to the reflection above.
(For background context, lot of my perspective is shaped by Taleb’s thoughts from Antifragile – with that said, I don’t believe his arguments are infallible either).
A lot of these notes are simply just identifying + questioning what I considered important assumptions in the argument.
Depending on the scope that Theos takes, some of the items may not end up being that relevant.
But I feel the discussions around some of the proposed core objectives/features are important.
Motivation
#1.
Looking for alternatives, we recognise that an improved economy must begin to respect ecological boundaries and social wellbeing, and shift from prioritising self-interest towards encouraging prosocial relationships.
Must the economy shift from prioritizing self-interest towards encouraging prosocial relationships? What if self-interest works, but with different conditions? What if if we should shift towards a type of relationships different from prosocial?
#2.
Widespread transition to a new paradigm now involves people opting in to a digital social-economic network when they are ready,
I think this is envisioned and described in a positive way, but something about the phrase “widespread transition” makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.
#3.
The need for elected human representatives and centralised institutions is replaced with consent-based protocols which define how we conduct our relationships with one another and our environment.
From the perspective of the Lindy Effect, the longer something non-perishable (e.g. technology, ideas) has been in existence, the longer we can expect it to remain in existence.
Human/animal representatives/leaders, “elected” one way or another, have been around for a very long time.
Instead of trying to replace that long-surviving system with something new (and un-battle-tested), could we work backwards to a proven system that’s even older/more fundamental?
Basically, what would this statement look like if we phrased this in via negative terms?
Like:
The need for elected human representatives and centralised institutions is removed, leaving us with consent-based protocols which define how we conduct our relationships with one another and our environment.
^Is there any historical precedent for this?
Proposition
#4.
The core economic rules are like the DNA for a large component of our collective social and economic behaviour. A minor, well-crafted change in this DNA would yield immense transformation of the emergent social behaviour and impact of our species - reshaping our social relations, our economic output, and our collective impact on the planet.
This is a critical assumption of the argument. Supporting evidence, links to historical examples/precedents of this type of change and transformation taking place could be helpful here.
#5.
Therefore, we devise an holistic,
Is this a typo? A or an? Not sure, just wanted to briefly note it!
#6.
Its core rules are designed to emergently fulfil the following objectives
What does “emergently” mean in this context?
#7.
Facilitate prosocial coordination, favouring co-creation and collaboration over competition
a. Prosocial coordination and a preference for co-creation over competition is something we (Hackalong group and related communities) tend to value.
However, it may not be a uniform value.
I see the importance of it in terms of boundary coniditons, but respecting (and potentially promoting) diversity of values is important to keep in mind.
b. With prosocial coordination as an objective, it’s an assumption that co-creation and collaboration over competition will be lead to better results (in terms of resource sustainability, personal wellbeing, etc.) than competition
I would be interested in seeing examples from history/nature/civilization that support and refute this core objective
(A biomimicrical design of this core rule/objective could be compelling. You may end up seeing a balance or a blend of collaboration and competition, self-interest and prosocial)
#8.
Fulfil psycho-physiological needs, ensuring wellbeing for all humans
From the text later in the piece, I recognize this isn’t necessarily fulfilment or wellbeing at all times (e.g. things get harder when the reserves are running low)
Just wanted to mention the assumption that wellbeing as an objective will lead to better results.
Personally, I would find it difficult to argue with
-Fulfil psycho-physiological needs, ensuring basic needs are met for all humans
As an objective.
However, I’m not sure if you can ensure wellbeing for all humans – or even if you’d want to.
Simply put, sometimes stressors – the momentary deprivation of wellbeing, so to speak – increase our wellbeing in the long run.
This gets into our respective definitions/understandings of “basic needs” and “wellbeing” (which could very well be aligned) – and it could be worth exploring for this objective.
#9.
To realise such a design without falling into the trap of reinventing the prevailing macroeconomic system, we must begin from a new set of fundamental assumptions. To this end we adopt a tabula rasa approach, where we start by revising our assumptions about our relationship with the world.
a. Again, according to the Lindy Effect, the expected longevity of new fundamental assumptions is significantly less than the expected longevity of existing fundamental assumptions.
In stead of starting anew, can we work backward via negativa to a long-existing (and perhaps forgotten) set of fundamental assumptions that is aligned with:
-fulfilment of our physco-physiological needs
-regenerating the planetary ecology
-respecting boundary conditions
-(if validated as a core objective) facilitating prosocial coordination?
b. Is there a justification for adopting a tabula rasa approach?
And in particular, are there any notable objections to a tabula rasa approach that would be worthy of discussion/consideration?
Needs-Driven Economy
#10.
Since our needs drive what we consume, the economic food web begins with gathering them. Each person uploads their needs via a gateway application, specifying the type and location of each need. The geo-localised needs are then broadcast as requests to the entire economic network.
Are individuals the best judge of their own needs?
Some perhaps, but all individuals?
Furthermore, is it possible that we’re better at judging our needs in certain categories – say, shelter – and less effective at judging our needs in other categories – say, hedonistic pleasures?
These questions are relevant, given the diversity of values and personality types (disciplined, addictive, etc.) that could be signaling their needs in this network.
Continuing …
Once uploaded, individuals’ needs are aggregated into shared needs, and the different types of needs are then ranked by their frequency and intensity relative to one another, yielding a global measure of the relative importance of our shared planetary needs.
Also, from an informational perspective, do people (we) really know our needs best?
If we were in the 1950s, people could believe they needed cigarettes as medicine, given the prevailing information and beliefs at that time.
Or, as Taleb describes in Antifragile, when it was widespread mistakenly believed that transfats were healthy.
Or the 1960s-era food pyramid in the USA
Basically, in the space of nutrition/medicine at least, there could be many mistaken beliefs held by individuals about what they need, leading to a false measure/indicator of our shared planetary nutritional/medicinal needs.
Tldr; The notion that “we (as individuals) know what our needs are” is a critical assumption.
Prosocial Incentives
#11.
Although profit can be earned by improving value to consumers, over time, profit-maximising strategies tend to serve the self-interest of suppliers - ultimately converging on behaviours which are detrimental to people and the planet.
This could be an important assumption. Does profit-maximizing necessarily converge on detrimental behaviors?
As one example, what if producers had to pay for the environmental resources they used and the negative externalities they created?
Then, wouldn’t maximizing sustainability (likely a positive outcome) be part of a profit-maximiation strategy?
#12.
Following these rewards, producers emergently orient their behaviour towards the fulfillment of the community’s needs.
It’s a critical assumption that producers will respond in this way.
Through this network, you could also give producers/resource-holders a crystal clear signal for need – which implies even more necessity than market demand.
So if producers don’t orient their behavior towards the fulfilment of the communty’s needs, it could be dangerous – as it could give producers/resource-holders tremendous leverage of those who have already communicated/signaled that they are in need.
Resource Ecology
#13.
Resources are linked together in recipes which relate all resources to their constituent components in specified physical units. For example [1 loaf] bread = [320g] flour + [375mL] water + [2g] yeast. Every time a recipe is requested, orders for its component resources are requested too.
Consequently, the resource ecology harmonises the efficiencies of globalisation and the resilience of localisation.
With efficiency, you could sacrifice individuality and uniqueness.
E.g. If you include energy/cooking time as one of the specified physical units (e.g. the approx amount of Joules required to cook a loaf of bread), then it means every loaf of bread in a given geo-location would be identical in composition.
Is that level of efficiency (and thereby, uniformity) necessary condition to meet planetary boundary conditions?
Is that a desired condition?
Resource-Based Economy
#14.
Want to refer back to a piece of text from Prosocial Incentives:
By replacing profit with a prosocial reward, we remove perverse incentives which reward antisocial individual gain, rebalance the power relationship between people and producers, and realign one’s individual incentive with a measure of common good. This simply could not be achieved with the competitive price system and profit motive of the prevailing economy.
a. One thought: a reference to “resource-based pricing” could be helpful earlier on (e.g. in the prosocial incentives section), as that may be more intuitive than “prosocial rewards”
b. Isn’t the resource-based pricing still a competitive price system?
(Assuming you have some diversity of a given product in the economy – and therefore competition between different versions of the same product – which seems like a reasonable + realistic characteristic, right?)
With a diversity of products, I don’t believe resource-based pricing and competitive pricing are necessarily exclusive.
And (as described above), if you have the two together, couldn’t that be a positive consequence – an incentive to maximize the sustainability of production?
Regenerating the Resource Commons
#15.
When resources are considered scarce, individuals race to exploit their desired share of resources before they miss out, degrading the resource base in the process. This process is called the ‘tragedy of open-access’, commonly mislabeled as the ‘tragedy of the commons’. The commons is in fact an ecologically viable alternative to the ‘market’ for collectively managing and allocating resources, as opposed to open-access where no management system applies.
Could it be simpler to build a process around a rule like, “if you want to extract a resource for commercial purposes (or proprietary ownership), you must pay for it?”
Planetary Boundary Avoidance
#16.
Love the reserve ratio and how it’s envisioned.
Via a distributed consensus mechanism, we collectively set targets and boundaries in any relevant economic sector. The system then automatically realigns incentives for the entire group to navigate towards or away from them.
In terms of distributed consensus, what happens when a lot of people are hungry?
How do hard decisions – like, deprivation of basic needs to protect low reserves vs. fulfilment of basic needs by exploiting low reserves – get made in this type of system?
Impact and Transition
#17.
Widespread adoption of a novel social coordination protocol which achieves the stated objectives would induce a systemic impact with enormous benefits for social and environmental wellbeing.
The feasibility of widespread adoption is a critical assumption.
Also, doesn’t the notion of “widespread adoption” seem to contrast with the idea of “a small change in DNA” described in the Proposition section?
A minor, well-crafted change in this DNA would yield immense transformation of the emergent social behaviour and impact of our species - reshaping our social relations, our economic output, and our collective impact on the planet.
#18.
There may be historical, non-technical examples of resource management and resource preservation across different cultures and citilizations
#19.
We foresee that with time, the prevailing political-economy will be assimilated into a new and improved paradigm with vastly different consequences.
“Assimilation” implies moving forward towards something new, less tested, less Lindy
“Via negativa” could be stepping back towards something that works just as well, something we had before, that has been tested (but perhaps forgotten)
#20.
Participants who engage in this new economy can trust in fair indirect reciprocity - that everyone else who participates will be bound by the same set of rules and be rewarded in the same manner for their contributions.
How can we trust that participants are bound?
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