I've had been having many discussions regarding gift economics with a fellow reddit user (see below).
I want to start seriously exploring how this might work. Currently, (as of 2021/03) Basis is set up as a system with wages paid in what amounts to labor vouchers. The primary economy itself is effectively a cost-tracking gift economy, but with signals determined through what's effectively a moneyed supply/demand market. So the economy is somewhat shielded by the decoupling of cost and price, but only somewhat, as supply and demand will still drive costs of products and ultimately labor. Obviously a lot of mechanisms change when you remove profit from the equation and pay for everyone's living expenses but it still smells a lot like a market.
So I'm making this issue to start exploring the idea of a value system not based on money/credits but some form of individual perception of merit.
The general idea is that a person has some amount of buying power. This buying power is not a single value, but is the buying power they have in relation to another person. In other words, if you save someone's cat, your buying power with them might be much higher than your buying power with someone who you bullied in high school. So the cost of a thing is a mixture of its observed production costs and the relationship between the producer/provider and consumer.
Dunbar's number effectively makes this impossible for a global economy, so the interesting and difficult part of this is exploring how to offload the idea of familiarity that would normally be limited to the real social connections you have to some form of electronic tracking. In other words, you could form an instant buying power with someone you've never met, based on their observed activities or relationships within the system.
If there is a fine line to walk between a perfect utopia and a surveillance hellhole, we've been plumetting into hellhole since I opened this issue. So there have to be some tradeoffs to preserve privacy that don't destroy the entire mechanism of the gift economy.
What aspects should we track about products?
We can just track resources and labor (hours), but that's not complete. If a disabled person orders a new wheelchair, it makes sense that anyone who observed that transaction would see it as a need. If an able-bodied person orders one, the cost might be higher because they don't need it. So if the wheelchair is (N hours labor, X kg steel, Y kg rubber) then observations about the object itself cannot be systematized.
We can track down to the product level itself, but this is an insanely costly undertaking. Now you're teaching a computer what a wheelchair is and how it relates to a disabled person and how it relates to an able bodied person. Quantifying objects is difficult enough, but doing their relationships to different people is astronomically complex. I won't say impossible, but I certainly can't figure that shit out.
Can we subjectively determine a person's need in relation to a product without having expert domain of that person or that object? Perhaps simply by looking at their occupation and the known tools/inputs they need to do their job? To a carpenter, a new hammer might be cheap. To a race car driver, a lambo might be cheap, but only if we know her last lambo was destroyed in a race and she needs a new one.
How do we reconcile privacy with observed knowledge?
In Basis, consumer transactions are private. In the gift economy, some measure of privacy is lost. What things are moved into the public sphere, and what are kept private? I always come back to the classic example: a 10-piece graduated dildo set. How many people would order this if they had a reasonable expectation of privacy? How many of those people would still order it if the purchase was shown to anybody transacting with them? (I would still order it)
Can we use ZKPs for some part of this or all? I need to do more research on what their capabilities are in terms of codifying data (as opposed to just numbers).
The big question: how do gift economics interface with capitalism? With the credit system, there's a bunch of song and dance, but it at least defines the mechanism. With gift economics, how do people and companies buy/sell things from/to the market? There would need to be some translation system (like there is with credits) but it becomes much more ...weird.
I have more concerns but it's late and I need sleep. Will edit this as more things flow into my head.
Previous inspirational discussions with shapeshifter83 (seriously, anybody with an interest in gift economics beyond "everything should, like, be free and people will, like, just take what they need you know maan???" should give these a read):
I've had been having many discussions regarding gift economics with a fellow reddit user (see below).
I want to start seriously exploring how this might work. Currently, (as of 2021/03) Basis is set up as a system with wages paid in what amounts to labor vouchers. The primary economy itself is effectively a cost-tracking gift economy, but with signals determined through what's effectively a moneyed supply/demand market. So the economy is somewhat shielded by the decoupling of cost and price, but only somewhat, as supply and demand will still drive costs of products and ultimately labor. Obviously a lot of mechanisms change when you remove profit from the equation and pay for everyone's living expenses but it still smells a lot like a market.
So I'm making this issue to start exploring the idea of a value system not based on money/credits but some form of individual perception of merit.
The general idea is that a person has some amount of buying power. This buying power is not a single value, but is the buying power they have in relation to another person. In other words, if you save someone's cat, your buying power with them might be much higher than your buying power with someone who you bullied in high school. So the cost of a thing is a mixture of its observed production costs and the relationship between the producer/provider and consumer.
Dunbar's number effectively makes this impossible for a global economy, so the interesting and difficult part of this is exploring how to offload the idea of familiarity that would normally be limited to the real social connections you have to some form of electronic tracking. In other words, you could form an instant buying power with someone you've never met, based on their observed activities or relationships within the system.
If there is a fine line to walk between a perfect utopia and a surveillance hellhole, we've been plumetting into hellhole since I opened this issue. So there have to be some tradeoffs to preserve privacy that don't destroy the entire mechanism of the gift economy.
(N hours labor, X kg steel, Y kg rubber)then observations about the object itself cannot be systematized.I have more concerns but it's late and I need sleep. Will edit this as more things flow into my head.
Previous inspirational discussions with shapeshifter83 (seriously, anybody with an interest in gift economics beyond "everything should, like, be free and people will, like, just take what they need you know maan???" should give these a read):