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> I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other But we can. One Thing that is absolutely evi

> I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other But we can. One Thing that is absolutely evident from the fantastically vibrant open source communities forming around every conceivable niche, it is exactly how much energy and enthusiasm to do just that is out there. We “just“ need to scale it up.

jariel 6y ago
"I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other" Hmm, maybe we could 'exchange' our services and creative works for some kind of 'credit system, or currency' - not controlled by a 'central source' - but, you know, acting as 'free acting agents and groups of agents' - freely exchanging our products services for one another, setting our own prices and terms with one another. Hmmm ... I wonder if there's a term for that kind of system ...
- CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
  I imagine some form of market economy will always be an important part of organizing human endeavors. The driving force in a market economy is _extrinsinc_ though. Or as some in thread put it, “greed”. What we are talking about here is carving out a complementary arrangement scaling up _intrinsicly_ motivated production. One interesting thing that happens when trying to use extrinsic rewards to encourage some behavior is that it tends to suppress any intrinsic motivation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory Also for more on the intersection of open source development culture and economic systems I warmly recommend to checkout “The Wealth of Networks” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks
  - jariel 6y ago
    I disagree. A market economy is not based on greed, it's based on the willingness of people to provide services for one another whereupon actor's first motivation may be individual wealth creation, but the side effects of trade, division of labour and especially competition create massive surpluses, usually for the buyers, i.e. consumers. Most importantly, companies are only successful if they focus really hard on doing things that others (i.e. 'the market') believe is valuable. Paradoxically - it is 'intrinsically motivated' behaviour that is 'greedy' or purely self-oriented. To think that someone - anyone - deserves some kind of high standard of material living because 'they want to do whatever they want all day' - irrespective of the net utility they create for the community ... is selfish. 'Intrinsically motivated work' already has a name, it's called 'art'. And in that I would lump the vast majority of OSS which was designed to meet the makers view of what is useful, not 'the market's view', which is why most of it is not used. Nothing could be less healthy on the whole than letting Engineers build 'whatever they want' because most of it will be completely useless, and projects will generally not produce enough material input to be able to do anything at scale. Another bit of paradox is that if there were more efficient means to fairly license and maintain software - 90% of OSS makers would happily do that. I don't believe they are ideologically tied to OSS - if they could tool away on their favorite bit of software and earn what they though was a 'fair living' by selling it - they would do it in a heartbeat. Intrinsically motivated initiatives are important, and frankly, nobody would do Engineering if they didn't like it on some level, but it's only one ingredient, and not the primary driver. And of course, most labour has zero possibility for intrinsic motivation: 40-80% of jobs would instantly be vacated if that were the only motivator as they're just too grinding, boring, difficult for someone to do mostly on that basis. The market forces people to 'serve others' and that's ironically want people don't want to do ... because it's a grind. What people really 'want to do' is 'whatever they want' which probably won't bode well on the whole for having a broadly high standard of living.
    - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
      Didn’t really mean to imply that all market behavior is greedy. Should have clarified that. I think we agree pretty much on how markets can, and should, work. I do think we have some problems in the current incarnation though. Way to much resources are spent on, frankly, destructive behavior. Which I think the word greed perhaps could be used to describe. But I think it’s anthropomorphizing things that are actually structural and institutional deficiencies, not necessarily moral failures of individuals. I do not agree that intrinsically motivated work is just art though. The public sector can be described as being the kind of scaled up intrinsically motivated production I was thinking of. But thoughts of what is and should belong to the public sector vs the market differ wildly. On a personal note I might add that I am actually primarily motivated intrinsically. A sufficient income is necessary, but not sufficient. Now I’m not actually arguing for giving everyone a heap of money and just see what’s built. I do think it would be interesting to study the result though. What I do argue is that there probably are some interesting, and worthwhile, ways to put more capital in the hands of more organizations that produce things of value for its own sake.

jariel 6y ago

"I wish we could live in a world where the default was to contribute with time and/or money to support each other" Hmm, maybe we could 'exchange' our services and creative works for some kind of 'credit system, or currency' - not controlled by a 'central source' - but, you know, acting as 'free acting agents and groups of agents' - freely exchanging our products services for one another, setting our own prices and terms with one another. Hmmm ... I wonder if there's a term for that kind of system ...

CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
I imagine some form of market economy will always be an important part of organizing human endeavors. The driving force in a market economy is _extrinsinc_ though. Or as some in thread put it, “greed”. What we are talking about here is carving out a complementary arrangement scaling up _intrinsicly_ motivated production. One interesting thing that happens when trying to use extrinsic rewards to encourage some behavior is that it tends to suppress any intrinsic motivation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory Also for more on the intersection of open source development culture and economic systems I warmly recommend to checkout “The Wealth of Networks” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Networks
- jariel 6y ago
  I disagree. A market economy is not based on greed, it's based on the willingness of people to provide services for one another whereupon actor's first motivation may be individual wealth creation, but the side effects of trade, division of labour and especially competition create massive surpluses, usually for the buyers, i.e. consumers. Most importantly, companies are only successful if they focus really hard on doing things that others (i.e. 'the market') believe is valuable. Paradoxically - it is 'intrinsically motivated' behaviour that is 'greedy' or purely self-oriented. To think that someone - anyone - deserves some kind of high standard of material living because 'they want to do whatever they want all day' - irrespective of the net utility they create for the community ... is selfish. 'Intrinsically motivated work' already has a name, it's called 'art'. And in that I would lump the vast majority of OSS which was designed to meet the makers view of what is useful, not 'the market's view', which is why most of it is not used. Nothing could be less healthy on the whole than letting Engineers build 'whatever they want' because most of it will be completely useless, and projects will generally not produce enough material input to be able to do anything at scale. Another bit of paradox is that if there were more efficient means to fairly license and maintain software - 90% of OSS makers would happily do that. I don't believe they are ideologically tied to OSS - if they could tool away on their favorite bit of software and earn what they though was a 'fair living' by selling it - they would do it in a heartbeat. Intrinsically motivated initiatives are important, and frankly, nobody would do Engineering if they didn't like it on some level, but it's only one ingredient, and not the primary driver. And of course, most labour has zero possibility for intrinsic motivation: 40-80% of jobs would instantly be vacated if that were the only motivator as they're just too grinding, boring, difficult for someone to do mostly on that basis. The market forces people to 'serve others' and that's ironically want people don't want to do ... because it's a grind. What people really 'want to do' is 'whatever they want' which probably won't bode well on the whole for having a broadly high standard of living.
  - CuriousSkeptic 6y ago
    Didn’t really mean to imply that all market behavior is greedy. Should have clarified that. I think we agree pretty much on how markets can, and should, work. I do think we have some problems in the current incarnation though. Way to much resources are spent on, frankly, destructive behavior. Which I think the word greed perhaps could be used to describe. But I think it’s anthropomorphizing things that are actually structural and institutional deficiencies, not necessarily moral failures of individuals. I do not agree that intrinsically motivated work is just art though. The public sector can be described as being the kind of scaled up intrinsically motivated production I was thinking of. But thoughts of what is and should belong to the public sector vs the market differ wildly. On a personal note I might add that I am actually primarily motivated intrinsically. A sufficient income is necessary, but not sufficient. Now I’m not actually arguing for giving everyone a heap of money and just see what’s built. I do think it would be interesting to study the result though. What I do argue is that there probably are some interesting, and worthwhile, ways to put more capital in the hands of more organizations that produce things of value for its own sake.