Hi! I found this place by searching for google for Social Contract Online Communities.
I just finished my first semester of college. When I started I was very excited to learn about computer science. The reason I was excited to learn computer science was because I want to create web applications. Specifically, I want to create web applications which combine aspsects of government, business, social media, and voting into a new type of instition.
My favorite analogy is to think of money as electricty, the internet as a circuit board, and the world as a machine to try and make work. I think information precedes the market, and using the Internet we can make that information measurable and predictable.
Now I’m wondering if pursuing an education in political science and economics would provide a more effective career path.
So that’s me. I’m working to create a global online nation.
Has anyone ever heard of anything like that or know of any papers discussing the idea?
Recently I came across a wired article, which probably has a frightening title to some of you.
I would say that most people on here would have nothing against voluntary collectivism. Perhaps you can elaborate a bit on what you are trying to achieve.
Actually that article was posted up here a week or so ago. I think mostly people disliked it because it misused the definition of socialism to explain the voluntary interactions between individuals on the net.
I read the first page of the wired article. I read only a misapplied use of the word socialism to describe activity 100% compatible with capitalism, in fact to institute the opposite would constitute a definite socialisation. I refer to the article drawing a connection between ‘socialist practices’ and the sharing/pirating of digital information (Intellectual Property?!). Monopoly rights over ideas/patterns are a socialist invention and are contrary to free market capitalism. The author of the article seems ignorant of this.
People with CS skills will build tomorrow. Economists spend a lot of time studying the past, and political scientists usually end up as professional parasites.
Get skills.
You can’t. It’s a natural process. You could create “an online nation”, but not a monopoly nation. People would start their own if they could, and presuming you can start one, anynone can.
The only thing frightening about the article, is the ignorance of the author. He defines voluntary cooperation as socialism. This is socialism.
I love the free market. My favorite book is Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, who also wrote that article. I agree that the misuse of the word socialism is a bit irking. I’m pretty sure distributism is what he was describing. He lays out the system in much broader way in Out of Control.
I am aiming to create a system where voluntary associations are predicted and organized automatically by software. Reddit.com is a good example of where this technology is at now. The Ron Paul blimp is a good example of something that should become much easier in the next few years. They came up with the idea and developed into an input output system. Collectively input the money and get the blimp as output. Take that idea and apply it to everything.
The Ron Paul blimp was organized in a few weeks. The Statue of Liberty took years to organize. I think that illustrates the roll information technology plays in this.
I see our society as being incredibly inefficient. In microeconomics I learned about rent-searching and information asymetry. I think advertising is analogous to rent searching and leads to information asymetry. I think all centralized media, even though it is a result of voluntary association, is a form of artificial heirarchy and leads to information asymetry. I think that explains why Obama is president.
When media consumers embrace their ability to distribute media themselves, it minimizes information asymetry and results in dynamic heirarchy based maximised mutual benefit. I think that is how we got the Ron Paul presidential campaign and Campaign for Liberty.
I want to make business into a form of online media and get people to apply social contract theory to the websites they use.
In this context I define social contract as a community dictating to the website what services it wants.
For example, if users of reddit.com demanded a social networking feature similar to facebook.
Then, later on as the community grows and the culture developes, demanding a way to organize a buyout of Walmart. Then demanding software to allow the online community to run walmart.
Just like users of reddit used the service to run a campaign for Ron Paul, they can run campaigns for other things. There’s a really interesting phenomona occuring more frequently on reddit. Users can create subreddits where they discuss certain topics. The subreddits are forming with increasing frequency and becoming larger more quickly. The community is getting better at organizing itself. If the trend continues, the community could organize itself out of reddit and into a new site which they deem more useful. Furthermore, using reddit, the community could actually imagine a more useful site, build it, and move there. It just comes down to campaigning.
I used walmart as an example because so many people don’t like the way it’s run. As the culture of mass collaboration becomes more powerfull, changing big things in the world will become easier and easier.
I don’t understand why you think there is no free will. If I know you are a copper miner, and I know someone else is an iron minor, and I know someone else who can make something useful out of those things, and I know we’d all benefit if you were connected, how does it go against your free will to connect you?
I’m curious what in my post you consider misinformation and confusion.
I don’t know the specifics of business yet. That’s something I still need to study. I was under the assumption that shareholders had some controll over the company. In the event Wal-Mart wouldn’t sell, mass collaboration would lead to a Wal-Mart like competitor emerging and operating in a way which the community deemed more valuable. Compare it to the emergence of fair trade and organic goods.
Another question popped into my mind. Why do you usually say “mass collaboration” and “community” would be involved in a business? Why not an individual? Could there be both “community” and an “individual” entrepreneur businesses? And what do you mean by “community” or “mass collaboration” business?
Anyone who claims markets can be predicted and modeled, is on the wrong website. It’s great you have a bunch of ideas. Do you understand economics?
You talk about social contract theory. Are you an Anarcho-Capitalist, Individualist and/or Voluntaryist?
If you want to build a service for profit, knock yourself out. People who want to change WalMart, either out compete, or they buy it. In a free market, no one with any talent or worth will waste his time protesting that which he can compete with.
I was there throughout the Blimp project. I was there throughout most of the Ron Paul spontaneous actions. The infrastructure you are talking about as a dencentalized mechanism already exists, and is continuing to be developed. The notion of planning, predicting a “global” something sounds like latent tyranny to me.
You say that advertising is rent searching [sic] but then you propose to organize information dissemination networks, which is just advertising based on the Web 2.0 commons. You exploit Reddit for your advertising, instead of paying directly for it, which means you aren’t concerned with profit, which means you can afford to promote ideas at virtually no cost to yourself (or others) and thus have no price mechanism to truly measure the market power of your support.
The future of liberty and activism is competition via the market process. That means that such endeavours will thrive and survive based on their ability to profit, not strictly on ideology.
You ideas must be profitable in order to thrive in a free market. Anything less is parasitism.
Whatever. If you think that guy is a good writer, you really need to read more. Why not start with learning about economics?
You are missing the point entirely. You keep trying to refute me but everything you point to confirms my arguments.
I’ve got a great way to protest walmart. We’ve got this business plan right here, we need to raise 4 million dollars to make it happen. Our store will pay its employees $11.00 an hour. You can help us by voting up this story, making a video, buying a cd from one of the musicians we sponsor, or buying stock or bonds. We also own a wind farm, so you can buy our electricty and help protest walmart that way too.
Come try my fantastic new website! It has the most accurate recomendation engine ever developed. You will be amazed at the productive relationships our algorithm can find for you!
Nonpecuniary benefits play a roll. People pay more for organic and free trade products. Your point is pretty much moot. My point is that Information technology is accelerating the market process. The ideology I am promoting is that of seeking to accelerate the market process by using and creating new software designed with that purpose.
Advertising is like rent searching because groups are paying to have information resources allocated in ways they would not naturally be allocated possibly to the detriment of others. If you take away the payment it is just communication. If I can promote ideas at no cost, I am going to promote ideas which are most beneficial to me.
I don’t think it’s tyrannical to believe people will participate in the system that is directly in their best interest.
