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RE: Mutual aid societies - The evolution to the current state of the art
They can form in virtual spaces, such as Second Life, in game worlds, around blockchains, or anything really. Holons for example would be a good word to explain where they can form.
It is my opinion that Steemit is a blockchain based mutual aid society. It's disguised as a social media game but if you really study it you can see it has a unique evolutionary trajectory. It can evolve into a mutual aid society at the whims of developers who can simply put in some lines of code and can already in the most basic sense function as a mutual aid society.
When there is a disaster you will see what Steemit can do.
How do you visualize them forming in Steemit? Will they spin off from Steemit into their own existence? Is Steemit perhaps a big cooking pot from which many new societies will arise, and will we be using Steem?
Steem can do sidechains so it might not require Steemit. Steem itself is just like the reputation and identity layer for all of this stuff, if we choose to build it out.
I could come up with an architecture if I work on it but I'm not intimate with the Graphene code base. This would mean only certain people like Dan Larimer and Xeroc can know how best to code it up. I do know sidechains are particularly a powerful feature, I know what Steemit is good at, and how it could bring people into an MAS, but I don't know what Dan and others intend to do with Steemit.
Is Steemit going to be a game or resemble a job? I prefer gamification of Steemit because I think the future of work is play. I currently think the casino feel will work itself out as more people have voting power and I don't support some of the new ideas like putting in reward caps or minimum payouts, as this would be equal to a minimum wage and maximum wage, and would be fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement instead of variable ratio schedule of reinforcement.
The academic literature and studies are clear. Variable ratio schedules of reinforcement make games more sticky, more fun, it's why WoW is so successful. The more job like you make it, the less of a game it feels like, the less of the game oriented crowd you can attract, but if you're after younger demographics then I think fun is an important metric for the user experience. just as secure and ease of use are.
If Steemit evolves more gamification and game like elements then I would say it might be a good idea to build out alternate reality games on top of Steemit. At the same time I do think the win or feeling of win should be spread around more, but I do not think the variable ratio schedule of reinforcement should be sacrificed in order to achieve this.
Fun should not be sacrificed to make it fair. It should remain fun, but everyone should win often enough that it's fun enough to make up for the fact that it's not fair. It's not fun vs fair, but I do think that when people focus on the size of payouts, and start comparing their payouts to others, it creates an atmosphere which over time will be less fun unless voting power is used in such a way that most players get a chance to trend if they consistently create high quality content.
References
Do you know how to build it out?
Are you creating a new spinoff virtual world from Steemit? If you are, please let me know.
I had the idea to build a virtual mutual aid society since before Steemit was invented. Steemit happened to be invented and builds what I blogged about and in ways I hadn't expected even though I knew it could be done with blockchain technology. I've been involved developing a concept for virtual governance, similar to Bitnation, but before Bitnation was founded.
Many futurists and thousands of people have been discussing these ideas in email lists, Facebook and other places. The point is Steemit is a proof of concept showing the economics can work.
I'm not personally creating a virtual world or as I would call it an alternative reality game on top of Steemit. But I did put forth the initial idea so I might investigate the idea if I see more people are interested.
@dana-edwards I believe that humans being social animals have an innate desire to build or form mutual aid societies. You mentioned Wow and the Variable ratio schedules of reinforcement that makes it more fun and is an inducement to continue playing.
As a father of four and an avid Wow player with my children for over eight years, I was amazed at the actual formation of a mutual aid society within our guild over a period of time. It was not uncommon for people to actually help people in the "Real World" with a number of issues from financial help to babysitting, homework and actually helping with work on cars and providing emergency assistance and countless other examples. I believe that this social bonding is why some of these relationships (mutual aid society) are still in effect even after most stopped playing.
I see that ability or propensity happening in the Steemit community. When someone is homeless and people upvote that person regardless of the actual "value" of content in hopes of helping financially isn't that the formation or creation of a mutual aid society ?, I think so, and applaud it.
exactly. I think in some ways, I am already part of a mutual aid loosely organized, though. Some rely on me to help mitigate abusive people, others rely on me for writing mentorship. I guess the thing is that it is not formed into a coherent structure with names, etc.......I do see these things evolving organically, as Steemit can be sort of a meeting place, a central hub where people can see who they trust. There are certainly people I trust on Steemit, and those who I wish to avoid. It's interesting how you can see people's true colors easily through a digital sphere. It's actually much easier than in person....