Re: Programmable Distributed Governance

On 1/29/14 6:40 PM, Andrew Mackie wrote:
> To date my focus has been on the economic/theoretical side of the
> problem - it needs more thinking on the technology side, particularly
> on how it might be integrated with existing/upcoming projects. What
> I've written so far, however, can be found here:
>
> http://www.supplydemand.info/blog/the-problem-of-attention/

> http://www.supplydemand.info/blog/the-concept/


Thank you for this fascinating high-level analysis of the trading 
space post-Internet.

I agree with your interpretation of advertising and how reliance on it 
is a distortion.

I like how you've formulated how in our current logistical and 
regulatory framework small corporations, with little control over the 
demand/supply loop, naturally progress into large ones that control 
both what we know and what we can do -- Google being the preeminent 
example, among many others -- and how this limits our ability to 
express our own individual demand.

I'm intrigued by the idea you present that there are in fact two sets 
of demand/supply information in any transaction -- and that these are 
not being well served by the current framework.

I believe a deeper discussion of your work might merit its own thread, 
but FWIW I'd like to note here three things that came to mind:

    1. You presuppose the continuance, essentially unchanged, of the 
bottom-line legal definition of corporation, which does not allow it 
to consider the public good in its decisions. But what about the 
growth of legislation of the Benefit Corporation (or Company, or LLC, 
in different legislations)? These have been created in many US states. 
There are also many states with pending legislation to create this 
form. A Benefit Corporation explicitly *must* consider both governance 
and the environment -- create social good -- in all decisions. Thus 
the problem of the corporation's bottom-line is not monolithic and 
unchanging. Which leads me to...

    2. In your "the concept" essay you suggest a radical, large-scale, 
and I'd have to say Utopian solution to the problem, by creating a 
public corporation for the common good which will handle agents which 
will allow all of us, as individuals, to express our own demand and 
supply needs, unfiltered by corporations. But to use an old analogy, 
our economic system is like an airplane that has to keep flying, in 
the air, -- we can only make those changes in the airplane that will 
still allow it to keep flying during the repair process. So a gradual 
move in society towards more Benefit Corporations, by legislation 
(such as is already underway) might be a more likely scenario than 
trying to do it all with one new large pubic corporation.

    3. I feel your analysis might have overlooked a way that society 
has recently evolved to counterbalance the narrowing and filtering of 
our experience that the information-control of the corporations has 
allowed: and that is reviews. The concept of the review (on Amazon, 
Ebay, etc., and more recently to Facebook's 'like') has taken hold in 
what I'll suggest was an unexpected way, and serves to allow the 
filtering and distortions of the corporations to be balanced. Speaking 
personally, I often find I use what other individuals say, in reviews, 
to find new information, new links, and new solutions to problems, as 
well as merely to check whether the claims made in advertising are 
valid. I know this answers only part of the problem of the narrowing 
of the filter, but where it applies it can work.


Steven Rowat

Received on Thursday, 30 January 2014 20:32:32 UTC