
The Emerging Wisdom Revolution - lazerwalker
http://mwhite.calepin.co/the-emerging-wisdom-revolution/
======
vixen99
"In fact, this is a general problem of capitalism: over any interval, people
who provide money to an operation at the beginning reap rewards far above the
value of any managerial abilities they contribute."

This is not a general problem of capitalism at all. If in a venture, you don't
like the actions or lack of them on the part of investors, provide your own
resources or choose another investor. Who is to say how rewards should be
allocated or deserved, other than by agreed local free and fair negotiation on
the part of the people who created the enterprise.

~~~
mwhite
What if you don't have any resources and your situation and skills aren't
suited to bootstrapping? That's true for the vast majority of workers in a
capitalist system.

I'm not saying traditional investment isn't valuable. Maybe it's the best way
of amortizing risk, for example. I just think that it would probably be
better, even from a purely consequentialist standpoint, if, in general, there
was somewhat less ability to control things in perpetuity just by virtue of
having money at the beginning. And maybe that sort of thing actually does
partly occur with stock dilution, stock options, etc. I don't know.

~~~
vixen99
Look on the bright side. Never before in human history have there been
opportunities as abound today for finding resources, acquiring & leveraging
skills and changing situations. Yes, there can be local difficulties. For
instance I live in Romania where there seems to be a conspiracy against those
creating and running small and medium businesses or start-ups. That's part of
the reason why the country is so poor. Talented young Romanians emigrate in
large numbers. Here, the dead hand of the state is all too evident. It is also
increasingly prevalent in Western Europe and the UK. I contend that it is the
ever-growing bureaucratic controls (mostly dictated by folk who have no
appreciation of how wealth is created but are comfortably financed by those
who do) that have created a massive disinclination for wealth creation on the
part of the workers in the capitalist system.

------
cageface
The problem with this is simple: money _is_ power. Those that have it are
deeply invested in keeping it that way. Any other social currency is DOA until
that changes somehow.

~~~
mvzink
It's worth noting that there is some consensus amongst sociologists that money
_and people_ are the two primary forms of power. (And I do mean primary: all
other forms of power derive from them.)

It's also worth noting, in a much less constructive but perhaps more
interesting discussion, that "money is power" presupposes a power structure
that allows money to exist. Hmm...

~~~
cageface
Sure, you have to bootstrap money from more fundamental conditions. But once
it's bootstrapped it seems remarkably tenacious.

~~~
itmag
One area that interests me: the metaphysics of money. Anyone that has any
ideas on that, please tell me :)

~~~
arethuza
Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" is pretty good:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ascent_of_Money>

It's a fairly readable history of money, credit and related topics (e.g. the
bond market and insurance).

~~~
itmag
I have George Simmel's "The Philosophy of Money" but I haven't read it yet.

Bought it on the recommendation of this guy:
[http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-independence-of-
money....](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-independence-of-money.html)

------
coopdog
The problem with asking for reputation points in exchange for services is that
you're really just asking for payment. A lot of the things people do that
deserve payment would be free with nothing asked in return

The system should also be anonymous so that it's not even possible to get
points as payment, otherwise the Donald Trumps of the world would pull some
marketing trick or make some system to get all the points and all the money,
assuming it's ever worth something. We want a system that would have put
mother Teresa or the google of old on top, just on their ability to reach out
and positively influence so many people

~~~
jiganti
True, if there's any way to game the system or brute force your reputation,
it's going to cause problems. Digg had issues with power users getting paid to
post, and even news aggregators like Reddit and HN can be abused if people
have their friends upvote submissions. People like sharing things they find
interesting/important or have an emotional response to, as twitter has proven.

If you search a business' name on twitter you'll get some sort of consensus on
what people think about it. This stuff isn't aggregated in a way that is
really helpful, though. That's is what my startup is trying to solve -
<http://moodstir.com>. When a company like Netflix pisses off its customers
and they are willing to tweet about it, others considering using the service
ought to be able to find out the general emotional stance customers have
towards the service.

------
jorangreef
Wisdom and collective decision making are not the same thing. Wisdom is not a
shifting changing quantum, nor is it a set of rules. Wisdom at its best has
always insisted on clearly defining the parameters within which we are to play
and within which our lives can be best enjoyed.

The fool at his best will doubt the goodness of the goads of wisdom and will
insist on his ability to define those parameters for himself leading him to
folly and ruin. The tendency of wisdom is to be absolute. The hubris of the
fool is to say there is no absolute.

If anyone would be wise, let him start with Proverbs, quoting from the
beginning of chapter one:

"Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them
understand the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live
disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and
fair. These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and
discernment to the young. Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become
even wiser. Let those with understanding receive guidance by exploring the
meaning in these proverbs and parables, the words of the wise and their
riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise
wisdom and discipline. Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not
forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and
a chain to adorn your neck." - Proverbs, <http://bit.ly/aJpmva>

~~~
etherael
This is the worst kind of poisonous nonsense, appeals to authority and the
sanctity of the known falsehoods of religion. Wisdom may be hard to define,
but it is easy to define what is not wisdom; allowing provably bad sources to
make your choices and define the parameters of your existence for you.

~~~
jorangreef
Words like "poisonous nonsense", "appeals to authority", "known falsehoods",
"provably bad sources" are polemic.

In fact, the book of Proverbs is as sure in history as the Greek classics.
There is wisdom to be found in both. You would be better arguing in terms of
textual criticism, historicity of events, than polemic.

This kind of liberalist thinking that we are free to say anything so long as
it is liberal not does not seem very liberal to me.

If you are into Christopher Hitchens, you may also enjoy his brother, Peter
Hitchens, also a journalist and a former atheist. He has what looks to be a
good book out: "The Rage Against God". He warns against the kind of atheistic
state that his brother advocated, drawing on recent history: Stalin, Hitler,
Mao. That is the kind of state that uses words like "poisonous nonsense".

~~~
etherael
A polemic is an argument leaning toward attacking a person, I do not know you
at all and make no claim to be able to attack you and expressly disclaim any
desire to engage in polemic or ad hominem. Some things are simply accurately
described with negative labels.

Religion itself, as well as the ideal of moral absolutes defined therein being
the sole source of wisdom for the world is just as accurately described by
these words as fascism or North Korea's implementation of their Juche
ideology.

Some things simply really _are_ that bad. Religion is one of them. If after
all the water that has passed under the bridge of this particular debate has
not managed to sway your opinion at this stage of the game I am well aware
that my simply stating it is unlikely to do so now. However this does not
change the fact of the matter that all the labels that I used to describe the
position you put forward are simple truths.

For the record, I am an anarcho capitalist, not a "liberal", and I do not take
my positions wholesale from anybody else, I think about them extensively and
decide for myself.

------
majmun
"The idea of a reputation economy is that by implementing the "reputation
graph" and making it a public resource, everyone will be able to make better
decisions about people."

don't think this is good idea making it public , what if you have good
reputation of <name some activity that you don't want everybody to know.>

~~~
mwhite
With a pseudonymous identity model, you could simply maintain separate
identities for separate areas if you wanted. You wouldn't even be able to
manipulate the system that way (say some activity = "being evil"), because as
long as you confined behavior that generated reputation for being evil to one
pseudonym, the positive reputations for your other pseudonyms that don't
mention being evil would actually be entirely correct.

~~~
majmun
wouldn't this be susceptible to leak if someone finds out your pseudonym, how
about system that keep your current reputation rankings (encrypted). and only
you know it. system gives your current rep (of some activity) only to people
of similair reputation. and that you are making deals with.

------
ccoggins
Interesting article. Reminds me a lot of Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the
Magic Kingdom".

~~~
noobface
Interesting for sure. Practical, nope.

I despise Doctorow though. Not sure why, but I can't help but really dislike
the guy.

Edit: Put my finger on it finally. It's the ceaseless shilling on boing boing
when he as new work coming out.

Don't get me wrong, his work with the EFF and CC is hugely important and
appreciated, but the outright lack of subtlety when it comes to promoting his
own gravitas on BB gets to me.

------
TeMPOraL
Obligatory mention: Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom" - a
book about post-scarcity technological utopia that has imlpemented a
reputation economy.

<http://craphound.com/down/download.php> (available for free)

------
rbanffy
It's very meta to have such a discussion here, a non-place where reputations
meet to discuss.

I didn't mean to interrupt. Please go on.

