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Criticism of the New Economy

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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:51
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Alkahest wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
We're not discussing a fictional utopia. We're discussing reputation economy. You have yet to explain why people wouldn't use a cost-free method of behavior correction if it was handed to them.
Because it is NOT handed to them. The rep system as described does not have such a method. You have decided the rep system should be handled differently than the official guide lines for them. You do that, but stop blaming EP for the flaws in your private system. I personally think that your proposed rep system is extremely unrealistic. If people were to design a rep economy, I can't imagine why they would include something like popularity as a major factor. What makes you think they'd do that?
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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:54
Alkahest Alkahest's picture
Smokeskin wrote:Because it is
Smokeskin wrote:
Because it is NOT handed to them. The rep system as described does not have such a method. You have decided the rep system should be handled differently than the official guide lines for them. You do that, but stop blaming EP for the flaws in your private system. I personally think that your proposed rep system is extremely unrealistic. If people were to design a rep economy, I can't imagine why they would include something like popularity as a major factor. What makes you think they'd do that?
"Why should I not use dinging as a way to change people's behavior? What prevents me from doing it?" It seems that pretty much everyone who has written anything about the potential problems of a reputation economy has arrived at the conclusion that popularity would be a major factor, and that unpopular opinions would be punished. That's because it's an incredibly obvious, inherent, emergent property of any reputation economy. If you hand me a gun with the text "ONLY USE TO SHOOT MUGGERS" on it, I can still use it to mug people.
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President of PETE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Exhumans.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:54
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
Quote:You can't ideology your
Quote:
You can't ideology your way out of [b]scarcity.[/b]
The setting is post-scarcity. Even the Inner System's Transitional Economies are post-scarcity when it comes to basic amenities. Bank accounts and poverty are issues for scarcity. In a world where there is enough food due to technological macguffins like the Fabbers, there isn't the same issues. You don't starve because you are unpopular, you just don't get community support (in the form of jumping ahead to fabricate whatever you want).
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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 12:57
Alkahest Alkahest's picture
uwtartarus wrote:The setting
uwtartarus wrote:
The setting is post-scarcity.
Uh. No.
—
President of PETE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Exhumans.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:05
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
Alkahest wrote:uwtartarus
Alkahest wrote:
uwtartarus wrote:
The setting is post-scarcity.
Uh. No.
And therein lies the issue, you're playing a different game than some of us.
—
Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:25
Alkahest Alkahest's picture
uwtartarus wrote:And therein
uwtartarus wrote:
And therein lies the issue, you're playing a different game than some of us.
Gimme a spaceship. Now plz. Or are you saying that spaceships are... scarce around these parts? If only there was a system that would allow me to, say, "trade" for stuff I want that I can't get by simply asking nicely. Some way of... giving a person with a spaceship the ability to get an apartment in a certain habitat in return for his spaceship, which I want more than I want the ability to have an apartment in the habitat he has an interest in and I don't. I shall call it... "menoy". Myneo? Neyom? Eh, I'll figure something out.
—
President of PETE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Exhumans.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:33
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
Scarcity isn't an issue of
Scarcity isn't an issue of time. You can fabricate your spaceship piece by piece, and assemble it on your own. But in the meantime, if you pull your weight in the community, you can eat and breath the community's supplies. That's what a rep system is for. Stateless communities, not taxes, you help out your neighbors, you enjoy collective benefits of the community, otherwise, sit down on an asteroid with your fabricator and hab-tent with life support, all of which are negligible in cost, and spend your time rendering the raw material into a spaceship. Do you waste this much time pestering Paramount because Star Trek is unrealistic or utopian? Are you so caught up on some nitpicks that you can't enjoy a game set in a fictional universe?
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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:35
Alkahest Alkahest's picture
It seems that this
It seems that this discussions has devolved into me being forced to explain very, very simple things. Like the fact that a system of punishing assholes can be used to punish non-assholes. Or the fact that if there's scarcity of something someone wants, you're not in a post-scarcity society. These are not arcane, strange facts. They are pretty frikkin obvious. Why do I have to waste time explaining them?
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President of PETE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Exhumans.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:43
Alkahest Alkahest's picture
uwtartarus wrote:Scarcity isn
uwtartarus wrote:
Scarcity isn't an issue of time. You can fabricate your spaceship piece by piece, and assemble it on your own. But in the meantime, if you pull your weight in the community, you can eat and breath the community's supplies. That's what a rep system is for. Stateless communities, not taxes, you help out your neighbors, you enjoy collective benefits of the community, otherwise, sit down on an asteroid with your fabricator and hab-tent with life support, all of which are negligible in cost, and spend your time rendering the raw material into a spaceship.
No. I want a spaceship. Now. I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row. And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me. I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here. I can't have it? Then this is not a post-scarcity society. I'll stick to my capitalistic dystopia, where I can actually have the things I want, when I want them.
—
President of PETE: People for the Ethical Treatment of Exhumans.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 13:54
uwtartarus uwtartarus's picture
Alkahest wrote:No. I want a
Alkahest wrote:
No. I want a spaceship. Now. I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row. And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me. I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here. I can't have it? Then this is not a post-scarcity society. I'll stick to my capitalistic dystopia, where I can actually have the things I want, when I want them.
You can't have those when you want them in the market economies unless you're rich. In the rep economy you can if you have a high rep. They're basically equivalent. A million credits or level 5 (80+) rep. The only difference is that in communities lacking states and banks, they use an IDEOLOGY wide and thus one community of assholes can't punish a single non-asshole, as the entire rep network has to think of that person as an asshole, and frankly if the entire rep thinks you suck, than that's just how it is, don't spend time with that faction(s). You're taking the author's biases and treating them like they are claiming the New Economy is superior. It isn't, it's entirely predicated on disparate, isolated communities that have no use or interest in using the Old Economy. Again, if the New Economy is so bogus and unrealistic, than don't bother with it? Run it differently or play a different game? I am failing to see why you are so offended by the fictional setting.
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Exhuman, and Humanitarian.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 14:39
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
uwtartarus wrote:Alkahest
uwtartarus wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
No. I want a spaceship. Now. I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row. And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me. I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here. I can't have it? Then this is not a post-scarcity society. I'll stick to my capitalistic dystopia, where I can actually have the things I want, when I want them.
You can't have those when you want them in the market economies unless you're rich. In the rep economy you can if you have a high rep. They're basically equivalent. A million credits or level 5 (80+) rep. The only difference is that in communities lacking states and banks, they use an IDEOLOGY wide and thus one community of assholes can't punish a single non-asshole, as the entire rep network has to think of that person as an asshole, and frankly if the entire rep thinks you suck, than that's just how it is, don't spend time with that faction(s). You're taking the author's biases and treating them like they are claiming the New Economy is superior. It isn't, it's entirely predicated on disparate, isolated communities that have no use or interest in using the Old Economy. Again, if the New Economy is so bogus and unrealistic, than don't bother with it? [b]Run it differently[/b] or play a different game? I am failing to see why you are so offended by the fictional setting.
That's probably what I'm going to do, partly for my own sake. I know these players and they're honestly going to be constantly asking questions about the rep economy, what it's good for, what it's bad for, vs. the mixed economy of the inner system. I can't just say "read the books" because 1) unfortunately the books tend to have a bit of a bias for the new economy and the autonomists in general (although, and I have to repeat this, the bias was almost entirely absent in Gatecrashing. Neither the hypercorps nor the autonomists were given preferential treatment, which I liked), and 2) most of the group (except for the one) prefers learning the setting by just playing it rather than reading its books all day. As for me, well: just reading the Autonomist Alliance section of Rimward was hard to stomach to be honest, even if it was supposed to be from an in-character perspective.
—
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address
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Thu, 2014-01-30 14:54
bibliophile20 bibliophile20's picture
Alkahest wrote:No. I want a
Alkahest wrote:
No. I want a spaceship. Now.
Okay. *loads Alkahest as an infomorph into a Sphere morph with a rocket engine*
Quote:
I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a ghostrider module in a morph with a bunch of ego modules and everyone loaded in is going to be sharing the sensorium of the enhanced hearing and sight*
Quote:
And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a non-Euclidian simulspace where all apartments are less than a block away from each other and loads his friend in there too*
Quote:
I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here.
Okay. *heads to fabber, prints out digitized copy of the Gutenburg Bible that was transmitted away from Earth by the Titanian Autonomous University before the Fall*
Quote:
I can't have it? Then this is not a post-scarcity society.
Well, I just gave you everything you asked for! ^_^ If you want to keep moving the goalposts, that's your business. But the rep networks are not Facebook. They are not Reddit. They are what those systems are evolving towards, with another century-plus of innovation and adaptation. Making those comparisons is disingenuous and doesn't add anything to the discussion. I could make the same comparisons about the internal combustion engine when it was still an experimental proposition and alot of the kinks hadn't been worked out yet--that it's absurd and will never work. This setting is post-singularity, where all of the rules have changed from what they were before. It takes a little while to get the perspective shift, but the core concept is, for all of the day to day needs, and for many of the more extraordinary needs, they can be met with technology.
Quote:
I'll stick to my capitalistic dystopia, where I can actually have the things I want, when I want them.
And that's a valid desire in the setting. Venus, and Mars to a lesser extent, are perfectly valid places to live in the setting, and the majority of the population of the setting agrees with you in that regard. And, if you somehow, by chance, ended up on an autonomist hab with that particular desire expressed as vocally as you have during the course of this thread, it's highly likely that the locals would help you arrange an egocast to the "capitalist dystopia" of your choice. First, you aren't contributing anything, so that helps reduce their own population overhead. Second, because you would apparently be happier there, and at least one person would see that you are in evident distress here and would want to help you be as happy as possible, so would expend the favor to get you sent elsewhere, where you could be happier. Thirdly, it reduces their own stress--nobody likes dissonant sounds in their echo chambers :). So that's two selfish reasons and one altruistic reason to expend their own resources and send you off elsewhere. Then again, this is coming from my own perspective, and I'm a big proponent of voting with one's own feet and finding a place where you're comfortable. Freedom of choice and freedom of association are important to my own philosophy, and that influences the setting as I run it.
—

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." -Benjamin Franklin

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Thu, 2014-01-30 15:28
thebluespectre thebluespectre's picture
The moral is…
I think this thread demonstrates the problem pretty well- it doesn't matter what form of economy your nation runs on, there will always be someone who wants to make you suffer. Way I see it, life is suffering, so the least we can do is try to help other people suffer less. While still living, of course.
—
"Still and transfixed, the el/ ectric sheep are dreaming of your face..." -Talk Shows on Mute
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Thu, 2014-01-30 16:27
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Alkahest wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
"Why should I not use dinging as a way to change people's behavior? What prevents me from doing it?" It seems that pretty much everyone who has written anything about the potential problems of a reputation economy has arrived at the conclusion that popularity would be a major factor, and that unpopular opinions would be punished. That's because it's an incredibly obvious, inherent, emergent property of any reputation economy.
Yes, that is an easily identifiable problem with the primitive, one-number rep system you think the reputation economies in the EP setting use. And as an easily, identifiable problem, could you imagine that people would actually adress the problem when designing a rep economy? I googled "reputation economy", and in the top 5 there is this article in Wired http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/09/features/welcome-to-the-... And it mentions nothing of the problem - what it does mention instead is the exact mechanism that I've been talking about that gets around the problem: And there's a challenge beyond that: reputation is largely contextual, so it's tricky to transport it to other situations. Sure, you might be an impeccable Airbnb host, but does that mean I would trust you with my car? "When you build reputation in a specific system," explains Coye Cheshire, an associate professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, whose work focuses on trust dynamics in online interactions, "it must be seen in light of the social dynamics, the population and the unique characteristics of that system." Many of the ventures starting to make strides in the reputation economy are measuring different dimensions of reputation. On Stack Overflow, for instance, reputation is a measure of knowledge; on Airbnb it's a measure of trust; on Wonga it's a measure of propensity to pay; on Klout and PeerIndex it's a measure of influence. Reputation capital is not about combining a selection of different measures into a single number -- people are too nuanced and complex to be distilled into single digits or binary ratings. It's the culmination of many layers of reputation you build in different places that genuinely reflect who you are as a person and figuring out exactly how that carries value in a variety of contexts. [...] These multifaceted sources of reputation will not be a single algorithm: we will be able to perform a Google- or Facebook-like search and see a picture of a person's behaviour in many different contexts, over a length of time. [...] The whole package will come together in your personal reputation dashboard, painting a comprehensive, definitive picture of your intentions, capabilities and values. That is how it could work. It would not have your problem of getting dinged for popular opinion - people can see that you deliver good products, take part in the community, but you have starnge views on rep economy design. They're probably not going to care - I'm sure all of us regularly interact with people even though we have wildly differing views on religion, politics or whatever. I think what happened is that you didn't understand the rep mechanic for what it is - a game mechanic that is an abstraction of something much more complex. When we talk about the real system, you refer to the game mechanic with only one score. When we talk about the game mechanic (how it explicitly doesn't list "popularity" as something that affects your rep score, but mostly meaningful contribution or harm) you refer to how a real system wouldn't be able to differentiate. If we're going to debate this further, you need to get the differences between the proposed real system, and the simplified game mechanic, and not mix and match properties as it suits your argument.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 17:12
LatwPIAT LatwPIAT's picture
uwtartarus wrote:And therein
uwtartarus wrote:
And therein lies the issue, you're playing a different game than some of us.
If people are interpreting the book differently, there can be no common ground for discussion. I'd like to add to this that the EP books are [i]notoriously[/i] vague on exactly how much you can get for free with nanofabbers, claiming in one paragraph there is no scarcity and in the next that scarce items are handed out on a rotational basis. Personally, I lean in the direction that scarcity is a very real issue, given that I can find examples of water scarcity, morph scarcity, habitat space scarcity, computation scarcity, metal scarcity, labour scarcity, volatile scarcity, and the general fact that unless nanofactories are [i]space wizardry[/i], they're not going to get rid of scarcity issues.
uwtartarus wrote:
Do you waste this much time pestering Paramount because Star Trek is unrealistic or utopian? Are you so caught up on some nitpicks that you can't enjoy a game set in a fictional universe?
Yes, how dare people care about things like their own suspension of disbelief!
bibliophile20 wrote:
If you want to keep moving the goalposts, that's your business. But the rep networks are not Facebook. They are not Reddit. They are what those systems are evolving towards, with another century-plus of innovation and adaptation. Making those comparisons is disingenuous and doesn't add anything to the discussion. I could make the same comparisons about the internal combustion engine when it was still an experimental proposition and alot of the kinks hadn't been worked out yet--that it's absurd and will never work. This setting is post-singularity, where all of the rules have changed from what they were before. It takes a little while to get the perspective shift, but the core concept is, for all of the day to day needs, and for many of the more extraordinary needs, they can be met with technology.
This is not a convincing argument. You cannot claim that because sometimes some things have their kinks removed through development over time, something that has kinks [i]will[/i] have those kinks removed over time (as with the early combustion engines); just claiming that it's "in the future with advanced technology" doesn't actually explain away the problems raised with the reputation economy except through invoking space wizards. Lots of things have been called unworkable over the years - and quite a lot of them turned out to actually be unworkable/impractical, like flying tanks, nuclear-powered aircraft, propeller-driven trains, and flying aircraft carriers. The problem with the reputation economy is that it seems fraught with problems, and no satisfactory/believable solutions have been provided. Like how the @-Rep (which is, Smokeskin, a single unified network, not an amalgamation of smaller ones) has anonymous voting yet somehow isn't supposed to be punishing to dissenters to popular though (unless, of course, those dissenters are capitalists, in which case they're [i]supposed[/i] to be punished with low reputations for pushing their dissenting ideas) - this gets pertubingly odd when @-Rep ties together state-socialist Barsoomians, anarcho-capitalist Extropians who practice legal slavery, Space Scandinavia and several kinds of anarcho-communist, who all have very good reasons to disagree with each other on a lot of things. It's really hard to buy that the reputation economy is supposed to be "better" than money when the reputation economy has features like taking your body when your Rep is too low and/or putting you in jail and isolating you from the community when your Rep is too low.
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@-rep +2 C-rep +1
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Thu, 2014-01-30 18:08
Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture
uwtartarus wrote:But abusing
uwtartarus wrote:
But abusing the rep system is something that lowers YOUR rep. So if you go around dinging people who you disagree with over something petty, it damages your rep. It isn't zero-cost. Petty gossip isn't zero-cost nor limited to rep economies. Market economies have gossip and being known as a gossip is harmful. If I slander someone or act petty, than people don't do business with me. Not zero-cost.
Rimward page 178, pings and dings are anonymous in most networks (including @-rep). So, no, you can't ding someone for being trigger happy with their dings. It is truly zero cost. Hell, your muse can do it for you.
Smokeskin wrote:
Because it is NOT handed to them. The rep system as described does not have such a method. You have decided the rep system should be handled differently than the official guide lines for them. You do that, but stop blaming EP for the flaws in your private system.
I would note page 385 of the core book also lists being involved in professional disputes and ruining someone's day as both worth a 1-2 point rep hit. Now take hypothetical gay guy in homophobiahab, when he talks to his BF in public, how many people feel that his PDAs 'ruin their day'? I suppose he could avoid the rep hits by staying in the closet. Also the professional disputes bit? A.K.A. being on the losing side of a work forum flamewar.
Smokeskin wrote:
Yes, that is an easily identifiable problem with the primitive, one-number rep system you think the reputation economies in the EP setting use. And as an easily, identifiable problem, could you imagine that people would actually address the problem when designing a rep economy?
Core book page 285 shows an example of an AR overlay when looking at someone. Notably their Fame rep is shown... as a single number.
uwtartarus wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
uwtartarus wrote:
The setting is post-scarcity.
Uh. No.
And therein lies the issue, you're playing a different game than some of us.
Rimward page 177 notes that the AA is not yet a post scarcity economy. It has achieved partial post scarcity status in some areas, but still has scarcity in many others. Including morphs, living space, spaceships, exotic matter, and some artistic things.
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Thu, 2014-01-30 18:21
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
LatwPIAT wrote: Like how the
LatwPIAT wrote:
Like how the @-Rep (which is, Smokeskin, a single unified network, not an amalgamation of smaller ones)
As far as I can tell, nowhere in the books does it say that in game your rep is represented by a single number. That is your interpretation. Do you also think that a morph's Duration isn't actually an abstract representation of something much more complex? Secondly, the books explicitly state many things that modify your rep, and popularity isn't one of them. I've made exact page references, and your side has provided none for your idea that popularity is major factor in rep. Even if you want to stick to the in game single rep score, it still won't be determined by popularity.
Quote:
has anonymous voting yet somehow isn't supposed to be punishing to dissenters to popular though (unless, of course, those dissenters are capitalists, in which case they're [i]supposed[/i] to be punished with low reputations for pushing their dissenting ideas) - this gets pertubingly odd when @-Rep ties together state-socialist Barsoomians, anarcho-capitalist Extropians who practice legal slavery, Space Scandinavia and several kinds of anarcho-communist, who all have very good reasons to disagree with each other on a lot of things.
Maybe this perceived "oddness" is because that's not really how the rep system works? We could also take c-rep. That's a single score game mechanic. Do you think that anyone really has the same amount of connections and clout in all industries? That they're not more deeply involved in those industries that they've worked in, with hypercorps active in the same region as the person, and so on? That a CEO with really high c-rep would have the same chances of getting help from his toughest rival as a favored supplier?
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Thu, 2014-01-30 18:44
Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture
Smokeskin wrote:LatwPIAT
Smokeskin wrote:
LatwPIAT wrote:
Like how the @-Rep (which is, Smokeskin, a single unified network, not an amalgamation of smaller ones)
As far as I can tell, nowhere in the books does it say that in game your rep is represented by a single number. That is your interpretation. Do you also think that a morph's Duration isn't actually an abstract representation of something much more complex? Secondly, the books explicitly state many things that modify your rep, and popularity isn't one of them. I've made exact page references, and your side has provided none for your idea that popularity is major factor in rep. Even if you want to stick to the in game single rep score, it still won't be determined by popularity.
Hi, I'm Kremlin K.O.A. I am kinda new here, but you might want to note my post, immediately above yours, which provides specific page numbers for such things as anonymous dings, Rep as a single score in universe, rep losses from people not liking what you are doing, and AA habs as places which still have scarcity.
Quote:
That a CEO with really high c-rep would have the same chances of getting help from his toughest rival as a favored supplier?
How did you think Oligopolies, or the PC, form?
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Thu, 2014-01-30 19:00
LatwPIAT LatwPIAT's picture
Smokeskin wrote:As far as I
Smokeskin wrote:
As far as I can tell, nowhere in the books does it say that in game your rep is represented by a single number. That is your interpretation.
[i]I’ll mostly be talking about @-rep since many, if not most, of the habs out past the Belt use it for determining privileges. A lot of what I have to say applies to other rep networks too, though.[/i] [i]Almost all social networks will quantify your reputation as a fluctuating numerical value.[/i] Rimward, p. 176 The rep Networks, which are an in-universe thing, have your reputation represented by a single number, as an in-universe thing.
Smokeskin wrote:
We could also take c-rep. That's a single score game mechanic. Do you think that anyone really has the same amount of connections and clout in all industries? That they're not more deeply involved in those industries that they've worked in, with hypercorps active in the same region as the person, and so on? That a CEO with really high c-rep would have the same chances of getting help from his toughest rival as a favored supplier?
No, I don't believe this, for two reasons. Firstly, to the best of my recollection, there are no game mechanics that allow you to lean on specific persons with your rep to gain a favour out of them. Hence, the situation where a hypercorp CEO uses their C-Rep to get help from someone who are their toughest rival is not something that is not a situation the game intends to describe. As is, the mechanics describe searching for someone, unspecified, who are willing to help out. Having that someone turn out to be your toughest rival would fall squarely within the realms of the GM's volition. Secondly, I don't believe that the Reputation Networks as they are written actually make sense. I believe that a larger number of much smaller, more local reputation networks would make more sense, as you describe, but this is not how the setting is described. My complaint is that the Reputation Networks, [i]as described in the books[/i], has certain problems that make them unworkable. If you can solve these problems by contradicting the books, you still haven't explained how the rep networks in the book are supposed to work.
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@-rep +2 C-rep +1
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Thu, 2014-01-30 19:29
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
bibliophile20 wrote:Alkahest
bibliophile20 wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
No. I want a spaceship. Now.
Okay. *loads Alkahest as an infomorph into a Sphere morph with a rocket engine*
Quote:
I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a ghostrider module in a morph with a bunch of ego modules and everyone loaded in is going to be sharing the sensorium of the enhanced hearing and sight*
Quote:
And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a non-Euclidian simulspace where all apartments are less than a block away from each other and loads his friend in there too*
Quote:
I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here.
Okay. *heads to fabber, prints out digitized copy of the Gutenburg Bible that was transmitted away from Earth by the Titanian Autonomous University before the Fall* Well, I just gave you everything you asked for! ^_^
Call me a biocon, but if I wanted all of those things and was given the things you listed in response I'd probably call you a dirty frankenfreak scum relying on fantasy virtual sensations and pseudo-books crafted from nanomachines. I want a real gig goddamnit, none of that virtual shit. Not arguing for or against Alkahest but I'd imagine there's some people who prefer the real thing. Real concerts, that is. Man, I'd play as a Jovian damn welll.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address
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Fri, 2014-01-31 05:12
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
I would note page 385 of the core book also lists being involved in professional disputes and ruining someone's day as both worth a 1-2 point rep hit. Now take hypothetical gay guy in homophobiahab, when he talks to his BF in public, how many people feel that his PDAs 'ruin their day'? I suppose he could avoid the rep hits by staying in the closet. Also the professional disputes bit? A.K.A. being on the losing side of a work forum flamewar.
First, I'm not saying that a gay person would do well in a homophobic anarchistic hab. I've been saying that a gay person in a homophobic hab would do poorly in all systems - one example I brought up was that the UK was homophobic enough that you had to stay in the closet there in recent times, and 60 years ago they even drove one of their greatest war heroes to suicide with public ridicule and forced chemical castration because his homosexuality was revealed. If you were in a homophobic anarchistic hab, having your rep dinged but otherwise left alone because initiation of aggression is not allowed and you have free basic fabber access, that's pretty mild compared to that. But I'm not suggesting that a rep economy would solve all the problems that stem from being surrounded by people who hate and despise you. Second, in a normal hab where people respect each other's rights and hate people for their consensual sexuality, sure you get minor dings from ruining someone's day and professional disputes. If you only do that and never do anything positive from the rep gain side, then I think you deserve it. The stuff on the rep gains table is much easier to do than holding a job in a traditional economy, and if you don't work in a traditional economy, you would be broke too. In the rep economy, you do need to chip in too. It's less than in other economies, but you're not free to just sit on your ass all day except for when you're out ruining people's days.
Quote:
Smokeskin wrote:
Yes, that is an easily identifiable problem with the primitive, one-number rep system you think the reputation economies in the EP setting use. And as an easily, identifiable problem, could you imagine that people would actually address the problem when designing a rep economy?
Core book page 285 shows an example of an AR overlay when looking at someone. Notably their Fame rep is shown... as a single number.
Sure. Representing it as a single number is typically fine at a glance. That doesn't mean you can't get more detailed info for when you need to make a decision. On Amazon today, a book's score is shown as a number of stars, but you can get the score broken down on distribution of votes for each star and read user reviews (and those reviews are individually rated on helpfulness and the author's score too). A tacnet might also show an enemy tagged with "Badly Damaged", even though the reality is more complex - and if you expanded the tag, you might see "Broken femur, max speed <2 m/s. Severed minor artery, estimated blood loss 230ml/min, expected incapacitation in 150-220 seconds". And even if all you actually can get is a single number from a network (which would make it more primitive than current e-trade and social media platforms), the way the rules say rep is calculated shows that popularity isn't a major factor.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 05:37
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Noble Pigeon wrote:
Noble Pigeon wrote:
Call me a biocon, but if I wanted all of those things and was given the things you listed in response I'd probably call you a dirty frankenfreak scum relying on fantasy virtual sensations and pseudo-books crafted from nanomachines. I want a real gig goddamnit, none of that virtual shit. Not arguing for or against Alkahest but I'd imagine there's some people who prefer the real thing. Real concerts, that is. Man, I'd play as a Jovian damn welll.
I think bibliophile's point was that Alkahest was asking for stuff without wanting to put value into the rep economy, so he gave him the free versions of that. Autonomists can pretty much do that, do extremely little work of any kind and still get something decent. If you want actual good and rare stuff, of course you have to pull your weight, just like you have to work in a capitalistic system (inheritance and extreme investment luck notwithstanding). On page 385 it lists some of the things you can do to increase your rep: Moderate Award (5–6 points): Do a Level 3 favor, make a serious business score, lead the winning side in a decisive engagement, create the meme everyone talks about for a week and then forgets, make the news for something positive, risk serious injury. Major Award (7–8 points): Do a Level 4 favor, design the new tool everyone wants, throw an impressive planetoid-scale event, complete an extensive project (1 month work or 1 week of difficult/specialized work), risk death. Extreme Award (9–10 points): Do a Level 5 favor, start this year’s hot fashion trend, make a major scientific discovery, close the deal on a major corporate acquisition, start (or put down) a revolution, complete a major project (1 year work or 1 month difficult/specialized work), risk true death. Is that really too much to ask? Is that so unreasonable compared to job descriptions in a traditional economy? It seems that the standard the rep economy has to meet is "if I can't lead a life in luxury, getting anything I want without doing any work and while I go out of my way to ruin other people's days, then rep economies suck". Is bitchy billionaire heiress really the yard stick?
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Fri, 2014-01-31 07:33
Noble Pigeon Noble Pigeon's picture
Smokeskin wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
It seems that the standard the rep economy has to meet is "if I can't lead a life in luxury, getting anything I want without doing any work and while I go out of my way to ruin other people's days, then rep economies suck". Is bitchy billionaire heiress really the yard stick?
I would certainly hope not. If all I can tell my players is "the rep economy is mostly criticized by evil corrupt capitalist pigdogs or selfish people", not sure that's really gonna fly. I'd like to give [i]objective[/i] pros and cons of both economies. And I refuse to believe, even with my really bad knowledge at economics, that the rep economy is literally so perfect that it's only hated by rich and/or selfish people.
—
"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.” -Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union address
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Fri, 2014-01-31 09:29
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
The rep economy is worse in
The rep economy is worse in many ways - lower productivity, lower growth, less capability for large projects, less direction and drive in almost everything. But most people in a rep economy enjoy a much higher standard of living because they have free access to blueprints, their fabbers aren't restricted, and the system rewards people more for helping and giving resources to many people instead of most stuff going to the rich.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 09:59
sysop sysop's picture
FWIW: The single-point =
FWIW: The single-point = popularity contest. Is exactly why the forums here don't have a reputation system. It's been suggested multiple times, and the site owners went "mmmno. We can't do it right." You can build such things, and people have for other forums. I have for another RPG site even. There are many post-karma systems and approaches used to assist moderation, and the exact details of managing that to encourage certain user behaviors is a pages long technical discussion not to get into here. I've found about the only one that really works is to value specific behaviors (on an RPG site perhaps, running sessions, or updating wiki information) and giving points - from the *computer* for those. In fact, our spam-catcher is based on the same principles. Mollom uses spam reports from all sites that use the service to construct patterns for specific spam-host IPs to prevent them. It's a Real World reputation system - if a bot gets marked as spam here - it's more likely to be detected as spam elsewhere. Akismet does the exact same thing. So that's just one real world example of dodging the popularity contest aspects. Now real-world variations of setting one of these up - there's a *lot* of threads pounding out the ins-and-outs of karma systems for users over on Hacker News. It's a complicated issue and mostly needs to be customized to your specific environment and intended goals. Which is to say - I expect attempting to replicate EPs system in the real world would mean customizing deeply to contextualize the information per hab. So single values are certainly vulnerable and are unlikely to be anything more than a prototype quickly abandoned. In fact, in an EP context I could see the -rep builders skipping right over that step - it's a lesson the programmers already learned. But for a game you've just got to accept some level of abstraction. We also abstract education, gun maintenance, space flight and medical care. ;)
—
I fix broken things. If you need something fixed, mention it [url=/forums/suggestions/website-and-forum-suggestions]on the suggestions board[/url]. [color=red]I also sometimes speak as website administrator and/ moderator.[/color]
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Fri, 2014-01-31 17:47
Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture
The counter point is how many
The counter point is how many people's days do you ruin at once? We could use our hypothetical gay guy. Consider this guy, and his BF, having a walk in the park, hand in hand. They even kiss a few dozen times. Now the various neighbours are talking to each other on the mesh. Basically the consensus is that "We don't have a problem with them being that way, but do they have to shove it in our faces?"* End result, a couple hundred people feel that their day is ruined. and out couple get enough dings to lose 100 rep each. Welcome to rep 0 every time you** and your lover go out in public. The same could be said about someone who finds religion while on a strongly atheist hab. In this case it is someone who changed slightly, or discovered something new about themself. They update their mesh profile and get dinged to 0 rep in a day. Also, another thought on the 'why not help them move?' angle. Keeping them there, as an example of what being 'anti-social' does, lets you*** feel superior to the 'psycho' who so obviously goes out of their way to make life worse for everyone... While making said 'psycho' do all the squicky jobs you*** don't want to do, just to keep their rep high enough to not have their morph repossessed. *The usual complaint I see made about male gay couples. **You in this sentence referring to hypothetical gay guy. ***You in this paragraph refers to the generalized you, not a specific you.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 17:57
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:The
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
The counter point is how many people's days do you ruin at once? We could use our hypothetical gay guy. Consider this guy, and his BF, having a walk in the park, hand in hand. They even kiss a few dozen times. Now the various neighbours are talking to each other on the mesh. Basically the consensus is that "We don't have a problem with them being that way, but do they have to shove it in our faces?"* End result, a couple hundred people feel that their day is ruined. and out couple get enough dings to lose 100 rep each. Welcome to rep 0 every time you** and your lover go out in public.
That could be a problem, yes. But in a democratic, traditional economy hab with such homophobic tendencies, you'd probably be fined or jailed for homosexual signs of affection in public. Maybe being homesexual at all would require you to undergo psychosurgery to "fix it". You'd cost customers, so no one would hire you - and these places have restrictions on fabbers, so you're really hosed now. PS: English is so strange with how they use "you" for everything. Here in Denmark we have separate words for the singular you, the plural you, and the generalized you. It is A LOT more practical.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 18:12
Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture
Smokeskin wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
That could be a problem, yes. But in a democratic, traditional economy hab with such homophobic tendencies, you'd probably be fined or jailed for homosexual signs of affection in public. Maybe being homesexual at all would require you to undergo psychosurgery to "fix it". You'd cost customers, so no one would hire you - and these places have restrictions on fabbers, so you're really hosed now.
Given that we already have examples of homophobic, money based, corrupt, democracies today. We can look in to see what is used there. 1950s UK is a good example of the extreme kind, but I was going for the moderate kind (certain US states today) After all, they are doing nothing more than dings. You aren't seeing them use the 'repossess morph' as a first resort. So looking at a moderate homophobic community, job opportunities are somewhat limited, but pandering to the stereotypes can aid your career. You face ridicule and scorn everywhere you go, but your business will only be impacted by the most homophobic members refusing to do business with you. After all, "I may not like it when he shoves his boyfriend in my face, but it might even make him a better bike mechanic... after all he has experience with lube and oil jobs, heh heh."*** is likely the response given by the more moderate homophobes. Long story, short version, Rep economies reward and encourage homogeneity in the same way that money economies reward and encourage greed.
Quote:
PS: English is so strange with how they use "you" for everything. Here in Denmark we have separate words for the singular you, the plural you, and the generalized you. It is A LOT more practical.
Poorly evolved language expanded through theft of words from other languages. Short version of what is wrong with english. ***example homophobic slur not intended to reflect opinions of Kremlin K.O.A. or any subsidiaries or affiliates.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 18:20
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
Smokeskin wrote:
That could be a problem, yes. But in a democratic, traditional economy hab with such homophobic tendencies, you'd probably be fined or jailed for homosexual signs of affection in public. Maybe being homesexual at all would require you to undergo psychosurgery to "fix it". You'd cost customers, so no one would hire you - and these places have restrictions on fabbers, so you're really hosed now.
Given that we already have examples of homophobic, money based, corrupt, democracies today. We can look in to see what is used there. 1950s UK is a good example of the extreme kind, but I was going for the moderate kind (certain US states today) After all, they are doing nothing more than dings. You aren't seeing them use the 'repossess morph' as a first resort. So looking at a moderate homophobic community, job opportunities are somewhat limited, but pandering to the stereotypes can aid your career. You face ridicule and scorn everywhere you go, but your business will only be impacted by the most homophobic members refusing to do business with you. [...] Long story, short version, Rep economies reward and encourage homogeneity in the same way that money economies reward and encourage greed.
I admit that the version I like best is where your rep score isn't a single number but a more complex size, and people use the relevant parts of your network score. So people aren't going to take walks in the park with the openly gay because wow do they get dinged a lot for their inappropriate behavior, but his profile also clearly shows that many people appreciate the work he's done for them as a bike mechanic, and that's what you'll look at when he asks you for help.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 20:10
LatwPIAT LatwPIAT's picture
Smokeskin wrote:I admit that
Smokeskin wrote:
I admit that the version I like best is where your rep score isn't a single number but a more complex size, and people use the relevant parts of your network score. So people aren't going to take walks in the park with the openly gay because wow do they get dinged a lot for their inappropriate behavior, but his profile also clearly shows that many people appreciate the work he's done for them as a bike mechanic, and that's what you'll look at when he asks you for help.
You'd still need to deal with problems such as: a) Homophobes ding Mr Gay Bike Mechanic's bicycle-repairman-rep because he's gay. b) Homophobes in need of Mr Gay Bike Mechanic's services as a bike mechanic don't ping him, because he's gay. c) If a bike mechanic is described as "Creepy guy who leers constantly, comes with inappropriate come-ons, likes touching other people too much, and has a strange look and behaviour when around children", then that's something most people will take into account when choosing their bike mechanic. d) a) and b) lead to reduced customers for Mr GBM, so he doesn't get any bicycle-repairman-rep anyway.
—
@-rep +2 C-rep +1
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Fri, 2014-01-31 22:45
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
bibliophile20 wrote:Alkahest
bibliophile20 wrote:
Alkahest wrote:
No. I want a spaceship. Now.
Okay. *loads Alkahest as an infomorph into a Sphere morph with a rocket engine*
Quote:
I also want concert tickets to my favorite band's concert. Good ones. Front row.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a ghostrider module in a morph with a bunch of ego modules and everyone loaded in is going to be sharing the sensorium of the enhanced hearing and sight*
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And I'd like an apartment less than a block away from my friend's apartment. Give it to me.
Okay. *loads Alkahest's ego into a non-Euclidian simulspace where all apartments are less than a block away from each other and loads his friend in there too*
Quote:
I'd also like a Gutenberg Bible. Give here.
Okay. *heads to fabber, prints out digitized copy of the Gutenburg Bible that was transmitted away from Earth by the Titanian Autonomous University before the Fall*
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I can't have it? Then this is not a post-scarcity society.
Well, I just gave you everything you asked for! ^_^ If you want to keep moving the goalposts, that's your business. But the rep networks are not Facebook. They are not Reddit. They are what those systems are evolving towards, with another century-plus of innovation and adaptation. Making those comparisons is disingenuous and doesn't add anything to the discussion. I could make the same comparisons about the internal combustion engine when it was still an experimental proposition and alot of the kinks hadn't been worked out yet--that it's absurd and will never work. This setting is post-singularity, where all of the rules have changed from what they were before. It takes a little while to get the perspective shift, but the core concept is, for all of the day to day needs, and for many of the more extraordinary needs, they can be met with technology.
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I'll stick to my capitalistic dystopia, where I can actually have the things I want, when I want them.
And that's a valid desire in the setting. Venus, and Mars to a lesser extent, are perfectly valid places to live in the setting, and the majority of the population of the setting agrees with you in that regard. And, if you somehow, by chance, ended up on an autonomist hab with that particular desire expressed as vocally as you have during the course of this thread, it's highly likely that the locals would help you arrange an egocast to the "capitalist dystopia" of your choice. First, you aren't contributing anything, so that helps reduce their own population overhead. Second, because you would apparently be happier there, and at least one person would see that you are in evident distress here and would want to help you be as happy as possible, so would expend the favor to get you sent elsewhere, where you could be happier. Thirdly, it reduces their own stress--nobody likes dissonant sounds in their echo chambers :). So that's two selfish reasons and one altruistic reason to expend their own resources and send you off elsewhere. Then again, this is coming from my own perspective, and I'm a big proponent of voting with one's own feet and finding a place where you're comfortable. Freedom of choice and freedom of association are important to my own philosophy, and that influences the setting as I run it.
but he doesn't have the rep to get an ego cast done. the cost category is expensive. as well as tying up hardware in limited supply many hours operator time will be needed to ensure a successful ego cast and there are productive high rep members of the community who have need of ego casting. the titanian commonwealth has many re-instanced people who are in that exact situation, they are permitted to leave but lack the means to do so.
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Fri, 2014-01-31 22:56
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
Smokeskin wrote:thezombiekat
Smokeskin wrote:
thezombiekat wrote:
and if a gay person moved into a homophobic town in a democratic country, the country will do something to protect him, including enforce laws against assault and theft of his property. in many places businesses are not permitted to discriminate against homosexuals ether in hiring practices or refusing there custom. only a small number of hard luck cases will get the network wide profile to be rescued by pings from other habs
You're confusing the premises. The premise is NOT "a gay person moves to an area with generally open minded people". That would work out fine in both democratic and anarchistic habitats. The premise is "a gay person moves to an area full of homophobic people". That's what some people are using to demonstrate how horrible anarchism will be. Well, the track record for gay rights in democracies full of homophobes is absolutely horrible. It tends be illegal, with punishment ranging from death to forced treatment. Check out how an otherwise civilized place like the UK in the 1950s treated the man who broke the Nazi codes for them in WWII: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_indecency . Obviously I could find much more horrible examples. Democracy is no guarantee of minorities being treated well, at all.
in my example the town was analogues to the habitat, and the nation (and i was thinking of modern democracies such as Australia where i live) to the autonomous alliance. both the autonomous alliance and modern Australia say homosexuality is ok and you should not be punished for it. but in Australia there are many individual homophobes, particularly in small country towns. if a gay man moves into the worst homophobic small town in Australia everybody will dislike him but he still has the protection of the law. assault against him is a crime. theft from him is a crime. he can not even be fired for being gay. he will probably have an unpleasant life until he is ready to leave but he can finish a contract or save up a deposit for a home somewhere else. now the equivalent situation in EP is the gay person arriving in an autonomous habitat (not necessarily anarchist, just somewhere @rep is used) where homosexuality is not tolerated. the rep system will soon list his nabours and coworkers as close associates and put great trust in there negative testimonials. he will be unable to contribute enough to get his rep above level 1 even if there is a strong bias towards the positive when at very low rep. he could try to appeal to the wider autonomous community but he would need word to get to huge numbers of people and there is no reliable way to do this. for the most part i just suspend disbelefe on the functioning of the rep system. somehow they make it work just like the nanofabers. but in a thread asking for problems with the new economy we discuss the problems
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Fri, 2014-01-31 23:25
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
Smokeskin wrote:Noble Pigeon
Smokeskin wrote:
Noble Pigeon wrote:
Call me a biocon, but if I wanted all of those things and was given the things you listed in response I'd probably call you a dirty frankenfreak scum relying on fantasy virtual sensations and pseudo-books crafted from nanomachines. I want a real gig goddamnit, none of that virtual shit. Not arguing for or against Alkahest but I'd imagine there's some people who prefer the real thing. Real concerts, that is. Man, I'd play as a Jovian damn welll.
I think bibliophile's point was that Alkahest was asking for stuff without wanting to put value into the rep economy, so he gave him the free versions of that. Autonomists can pretty much do that, do extremely little work of any kind and still get something decent. If you want actual good and rare stuff, of course you have to pull your weight, just like you have to work in a capitalistic system (inheritance and extreme investment luck notwithstanding). On page 385 it lists some of the things you can do to increase your rep: Moderate Award (5–6 points): Do a Level 3 favor, make a serious business score, lead the winning side in a decisive engagement, create the meme everyone talks about for a week and then forgets, make the news for something positive, risk serious injury. Major Award (7–8 points): Do a Level 4 favor, design the new tool everyone wants, throw an impressive planetoid-scale event, complete an extensive project (1 month work or 1 week of difficult/specialized work), risk death. Extreme Award (9–10 points): Do a Level 5 favor, start this year’s hot fashion trend, make a major scientific discovery, close the deal on a major corporate acquisition, start (or put down) a revolution, complete a major project (1 year work or 1 month difficult/specialized work), risk true death. Is that really too much to ask? Is that so unreasonable compared to job descriptions in a traditional economy? It seems that the standard the rep economy has to meet is "if I can't lead a life in luxury, getting anything I want without doing any work and while I go out of my way to ruin other people's days, then rep economies suck". Is bitchy billionaire heiress really the yard stick?
all those things actually sound very difficult to achieve. at least if your in a community that dosn't want to associate with you. who is going to ask you for a favor. who is going to make a major business deal with you. who is going to pay attention to you enough to repeat your memes, wear your fasions (making fun of you threw them wont get you rep) will the station reporters portray you in a positive light. risking injury/death probably only counts if you do it for a purpose people approve of. so no repeatedly jumping of buildings to gain rep. will people show up to your huge party (or give you the supplies to throw it) are you going to be on major project teams. about the easiest is the design a new tool or make scientific discovery. these require both skill, unusual insight and luck. most people never in there lives get ether of those.
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Sat, 2014-02-01 06:11
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
I don't see how we can get
I don't see how we can get any further on this, we're just repeating the same arguments. The core of it seems to be this: Everyone seems to agree that stuff like popularity and taking offense at innoncent behavior that doesn't hurt anything but someone's sensibilities would be very harmful if it played a major role in reputation economies. Those who support rep economies insist that the rep economy could be designed (with the aid of with EP-level AIs and computing power) so these things wouldn't be significant in your "effective rep score". Those who argue against rep economies insist that those things would have to play a major part. What it really boils down to is a technical argument. Could panoptican data collection and clever AIs make a reputation system that distinguished relevant ccontribution and harm from irrelevant popularity and offense? I say yes. Any muse could do that.
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Sat, 2014-02-01 06:26
Kremlin K.O.A. Kremlin K.O.A.'s picture
That just passes the problem
That just passes the problem on to those whose behaviour violates the AIs' consensus.
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Sat, 2014-02-01 07:42
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:That
Kremlin K.O.A. wrote:
That just passes the problem on to those whose behaviour violates the AIs' consensus.
Isn't the real question here: "Would that unfairly hurt people more than the cracks in a traditional economic system hurts people?" Could we agree that in a sousveillanced world and with AI assistance, the problems a rep network would suffer from "popularity effects" could be reduced 100-fold or more compared to the simplistic rep system the opponents described previously? Does this drastic improvement change your opinion on the feasibility of a rep economy?
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Sat, 2014-02-01 12:04
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
Could an AI access the
Could an AI access the sousveillanced panopticon and work out whether a report that a mechanic is "Creepy guy who leers constantly, comes with inappropriate come-ons, likes touching other people too much, and has a strange look and behaviour when around children" (thankyou LatwPIAT) is in fact a reaction of a homophobic customer to a homosexual mechanic. No. it would take many AIs but the rep system can easily have that. The problem is trust in the system. The customer doesn’t think of himself as a bad person. He truly believes the mechanic is creepy. If he notices that his comment has been interpreted differently to how he intended it will damage his faith in the system. And just like money the rep economy can only work if it is trusted.
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Sun, 2014-02-02 18:16
Micah_Hakubi Micah_Hakubi's picture
bibliophile20 wrote:The new
bibliophile20 wrote:
The new economy works best for extroverts or socially aware people that are most skilled at leveraging Friend-of-a-Friend connections. Introverts, loners and socially inept people will have a harder time, because they find it more difficult to get out there, meet people, and find people willing to do them favors for the things they want beyond basic sustenance. That being said, the rep economy is set up to acknowledge the efforts of people that contribute, so the quiet, socially awkward engineer who does alot of the janitorial level work? He'll have a high rep score, but he won't be able to do as much with it as someone who works as an entertainer, has a lower rep score, but really knows how to leverage their contributions and their reputation.
Muses are a Thing. The Rep system has problems, but social anxiety and/or popularity shouldn't be one of them. In fact, it might have been a problem at one point up until some Autonomist whom hates everyone said 'Fuck it, I hate dealing with these idiots. I'm making an AI to manage this for me.' This probably doesn't sync up well, rules-wise, but still. Also, the homophobic argument isn't a good example, IMHO; a more Eclipse Phase-relevant argument is a gender-normative Ego(with relevant gendered Morph) on a Gender-neutral habitat. The gender-normative ego shouldn't be forced to resleeve or undergo healing vat time to become gender-neutral, but others would point out the gender-normative is disrupting the social fabric of said gender-neutral habitat. Cue various extenuating circumstance. That said, Rep Economy does suffer from two things that are never really touched upon; One, is the corresponding small population of Autonomists conforming to said Rep system. The largest group among the Autonomist Alliance is, surprise surprise, Titan, which is a mix of the two systems. Gee, it's almost like the writers realized scaling the Rep System up might produce problems... (Wether it would or no, I don't know. I'm just saying, this is a Thing.) Two, self-selecting bias. Anarchist are Anarchists because they want to be Anarchists - we never see someone from the PC forced to join the @-rep system or else. This is a fair criticism, I think, when mixing PC and Anarchist types(or Anarchists and Jovians). I can't help but recall an EP game that had a Jovian join an Autonomist Alliance group, only to have a large number of private ruminations on the Anarchists side skirt uncomfortably close to bigotry just because the new PC was a Jovian. So, this could be a Thing. Just throwing this out.
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Mon, 2014-02-03 03:26
thezombiekat thezombiekat's picture
Micah_Hakubi wrote:
Micah_Hakubi wrote:
Two, self-selecting bias. Anarchist are Anarchists because they want to be Anarchists - we never see someone from the PC forced to join the @-rep system or else. This is a fair criticism, I think, when mixing PC and Anarchist types(or Anarchists and Jovians). I can't help but recall an EP game that had a Jovian join an Autonomist Alliance group, only to have a large number of private ruminations on the Anarchists side skirt uncomfortably close to bigotry just because the new PC was a Jovian. So, this could be a Thing.
The books do deal with this briefly.
Rimward page 100 REBOOT GANGS wrote:
Not everyone resleeved under the One Body per Mind policy wants to integrate into Commonwealth society. Nyhavn in particular has a large underclass of working people who haven’t resolved themselves to the loss of Earth, don’t wish to participate in the Plurality, and won’t adapt to the reputation economy. Some of these people turn to crime, joining reinstanced gangs such as the Wipes, the Freebeers, and the Jokers.
Rimward page 100 sidebar REBOOTED wrote:
So I have to vote every six hours, I’m expected to clean recycling vats in the name of ‘commu-nity,’ and I live in a cold dark hell hole at the ass end of the solar system? And that’s the good life? The fuck is wrong with these people? I’d rather spend sixteen years as a robot slave on Mars. Then I could work off my indenture, get rich, and own a bunch of pleasure pods with big tits. That’d be the life. This is a bunch of shit. —Nils Högarn, Rebooted gang leader
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Wed, 2014-02-12 18:03
Libertad Libertad's picture
An interesting thing to note
An interesting thing to note is that somewhere in Rimward it suggested that people with lower Rep get less privileges, up to and including loss of physical morph rights. One habitat in particular keeps zero and low @-Rep individuals confined to cyberspace, and even that space is cut off from the main network. So the greatest flaw for Autonomists is that the Reputation Economy can and [i]does[/i] lead to a hierarchal society, even one more fluid and less feudal than the money-based economies. And this is a huge problem for any genuine anarchist, as the whole point of the ideology is to be anti-hierarchy.
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[img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v606/Erdrick/anarc_userbar.jpg[/img] "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
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Thu, 2014-02-13 01:57
Smokeskin Smokeskin's picture
Libertad wrote:An interesting
Libertad wrote:
An interesting thing to note is that somewhere in Rimward it suggested that people with lower Rep get less privileges, up to and including loss of physical morph rights. One habitat in particular keeps zero and low @-Rep individuals confined to cyberspace, and even that space is cut off from the main network. So the greatest flaw for Autonomists is that the Reputation Economy can and [i]does[/i] lead to a hierarchal society, even one more fluid and less feudal than the money-based economies. And this is a huge problem for any genuine anarchist, as the whole point of the ideology is to be anti-hierarchy.
That's not entirely true, even if we count out ancap. Many forms have a labor economy where hard workers would get more stuff than others. Even the anarcho-communists have a gift economy where your reputation (not that they'd be likely to quantify it) would seem to make you more likely to get more stuff, and they explicitly want the needier to get more stuff and the more able to work more. Anarchists want to get rid of involuntary hierarchies, sure. Some get rid of private property and economy to various degrees because they think that promotes hierarchies too. But being completely free of hierarchies even those that form naturally, I'm not sure that's an anarchist issue.
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Wed, 2014-02-19 22:35
kigmatzomat kigmatzomat's picture
uwtartarus wrote:But abusing
uwtartarus wrote:
But abusing the rep system is something that lowers YOUR rep. So if you go around dinging people who you disagree with over something petty, it damages your rep. It isn't zero-cost. Petty gossip isn't zero-cost nor limited to rep economies.
The problem there is the phrase "abuse". Abuse is a matter of social norms. Look at Russia right now. 30% of the populace could ding gays and and virtually all of the rest would consider that appropriate behavior. (See the Jon Stewart interviews of people on the streets.)
uwtartarus wrote:
Market economies have gossip and being known as a gossip is harmful. If I slander someone or act petty, than people don't do business with me. Not zero-cost.
Except that's not true. There was an episode of Freakonomics recently that discussed gossip. Gossip is one of those things that everyone says they don't like and then do it anyway. Kind of like how lying is bad and yet everyone is a liar. People state they don't like gossip but the truth is the rich and powerful gossip, they just don't call it that. When Barak Obama dishes on Vladimir Putin to Francois Hollande no one calls it gossip. When a tech journalist has drinks with a couple engineers and hears about how there are conflicts between the CEO and the lead product designer, it's news. Do the same for a neighborhood association and it becomes gossip. Gossip can be useful and functional. It helps to provide social norms, provide warnings, and can foster social interaction.
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I'm not rules lawyer, I'm a rules engineer.
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Wed, 2014-02-19 22:46
kigmatzomat kigmatzomat's picture
uwtartarus wrote:Quote:You
uwtartarus wrote:
Quote:
You can't ideology your way out of [b]scarcity.[/b]
The setting is post-scarcity. Even the Inner System's Transitional Economies are post-scarcity when it comes to basic amenities.
Basic amenities like, I dunno, a pressurized compartment? Because I seem to recall many egos trapped in synthmorphs at least in part because there's no space for a meat-morph to live even if there is enough rep for a biomorph. And the fact is that "basic amenities" are based on cultural norms. Almost everyone living at the poverty line in modern America are "post-scarcity when it comes to basic amenities" from 1950.
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I'm not rules lawyer, I'm a rules engineer.
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Wed, 2014-02-19 23:53
kigmatzomat kigmatzomat's picture
Smokeskin wrote:Could we
Smokeskin wrote:
Could we agree that in a sousveillanced world and with AI assistance, the problems a rep network would suffer from "popularity effects" could be reduced 100-fold or more compared to the simplistic rep system the opponents described previously? Does this drastic improvement change your opinion on the feasibility of a rep economy?
Not really. At the point of relying on the panopticon to assign rep, it is no longer a "reputation" system and is instead a network-based micropayment system. Or micro-credit system, if you dislike the idea of "spending" resources. Anything that is a real "reputation" economy has to be based on feedback from egos. Which requires you to have interaction with people. That's a problem for vital roles that are low visibility, high necessity and have inherent negatives, like A fusion reactor engineer. Every orbital hab absolutely needs a couple of them to back each other up and debug problems that one of them can't but it is always a high stress job since failure can doom the whole hab. If you need to get a reactor engineer to immigrate to your hab, how do you entice them to take the risk of hating life on your hab? "Hey, we have basic amenities for all! Now c'mere and be reponsible for us all not being turned into a rapidly expanding ball of plasma!" Then you get to asset allocations. The mobs are really bad at managing big tasks. How do you get consensus for a backup fusion reactor without having everybody's constant demand for new yPhones or bling keep derailing those efforts? And how do you manage rep-based payments across network lines? Your @narchist hab (rep 9,000) just had a fusion reactor die and you really, really, really need a new one. All your network allies are 2 billion miles away but within a million miles is a f-rep hab with 2 spare reactors. How do you affect that kind of "favor"? And then you get to the weirdness of system-wide rep networks. The "mega network" doesn't jive with the mostly-autonomous and isolated habitats. Sure, people can respond to online communities with multi-hour delays, but I would expect direct interaction would be more impactful as the people who see you a lot should at least have more opportunities to give rep feedback. In my opinion, the rep system is only good up to a couple thousand people. After that it becomes increasingly less plausible. The Titanian model is a kind of quasi-communism. The government collects a portion of the economic output. That's kind of hard to work with, so let's abstract that to some arbitrary units, which I like to call "money". The rest of the economic output, aka "money", is put in a pool that is mostly administered by uniform distribution to the inhabitants. There is some feedback from the masse to the leaders to provide guidance on the usage of that reserved money, usually via hypercorp.
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I'm not rules lawyer, I'm a rules engineer.
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Thu, 2014-02-20 01:26
consumerdestroyer consumerdestroyer's picture
It seems to me that the
It seems to me that the Autonomist Alliance is a place of experimentation. While I'm sure there are habs that have more (or, in some cases, less) hierarchical ways of handling the reputation economy concept, on a whole it does seem that even at the large scale, there's not much to deal with. 0 @-rep newbies and people reduced to 0 @-rep through passive lazy leeching and people reduced to 0 @-rep through active anti-social disruption (barring hab-endangering shit and the like) [b]alike[/b] are all able to get the basics in most habs (although as was mentioned, in Rimward they talk about more hierarchical autonomist habs who restrict people to simulspace semi-prison, which in my own campaign I'd place in the main belt with more frequency than past Jupiter), and then whatever you want beyond the basics is where you start taxing the rep economy to the point where you actually have to burn favours or burn rep. Unlocked, open source nanofabbers with freely available blueprints are also a thing though, so I imagine even with 0 @-rep, someone with Research and Programming past 60 is probably sitting pretty in most habs solidly under the new economy. And when it comes to positions where there is scarcity, I wonder how often the person fulfilling that role is someone who used their @-rep to get the best hacker in the hab to nab them some skillsofts off the Mesh so they could do the job with someone else's lifetime of experience?
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