ABE Pilot Launch 🚀

[countvajhula]

Dear Symex friends, 🐿️ We recently concluded the process of DIA for Symex, and the results include the list of people who are eligible to receive shares of financial contributions made to the Symex project, in accordance with Attribution Based Economics.

I'm pleased to report that we are getting close on the initial launch of the accounting prototype, Old Abe, which will manage accounting for projects according to the ABE financial model. In order to give you your share, I will need your payment information. So please email me at skasivaj at gmail dot com with your preferred way to receive payment, for example:

• Venmo id
• Paypal email
• anything else

Here are some contributors for whom I do not have payment information:

@polaris64 @jefftrull @tommy-mor @markgdawson @riscy @j-shilling @doyougnu @pepperblue @anonimitoraf @dcostaras

Please send me this information by Thursday, if possible, as that is the day on which we are planning to execute initial payments.

It has been a lot of work to get to this initial stage and it's easy to miss the forest for the trees, so I'd like to take this moment to say: Your contributions have been valuable. They are appreciated by many. Thank you.

Learn more about Attribution Based Economics:

The talk introducing it at EmacsConf The Extended Q&A covering a lot of questions about the implementation and goals The ABE Financial Model

See also the companion issues on the other repos in the pilot:

ABE Pilot Launch (Old Abe) ABE Pilot Launch (Qi)

[tommy-mor]

sent you an email with my venmo

[countvajhula]

@tommy-mor Got it, thanks!

[doyougnu]

Hello! I've sent you an email

[riscy]

Hi @countvajhula - I'm surprised and honored to be on this list! I realize I am a little late in my response here, but whatever share you intended on sending my way I would be happy to see spread among the other contributors and/or passed along to other projects.

[pepperblue]

Good morning @countvajhula - I'm also surprised and a little late :innocent: Please use my part of the share to do whatever makes sense to you ... Sunny greetings :sun_with_face:

[countvajhula]

UPDATE: We are pulling a SpaceX and are going to have to push launch 🚀 back until tomorrow. It turns out that we were missing a necessary component of the accounting in Old Abe. We've added the necessary support and will launch once we've had time to test it -- likely tomorrow evening.

@riscy 'Appreciate the kind words! Well, if we don't have your payment information or if you are not accepting payments for any reason, then redistributing your share over other, payable, contributors (including other, "upstream" projects), is already how it would work! But note that your entitlement to your share is immutable and even though other contributors receive your share, the project records "debt" in your favor that, someday, if you become payable, will be paid to you*.

Thus, in ABE, a true "donation" is rarely needed, because it is typically superfluous and in conflict with globally good outcomes. In ABE, you receive payment because it's deemed to be in the collective interest, not just your own interest. Given this, I don't advise intentionally triggering the debt mechanism as that is considered less optimal from a global value standpoint than you accepting the payment, if that makes any sense (not because it's "debt" but because ABE in principle allocates funds optimally, so a deviation from this is non-optimal). Said another way, it is considered better for everyone if you accept payment than if you don't, even though, paradoxically, others receive your payment if you don't! Your sentiment to give away your share is certainly gracious and appreciated, of course. That goes for you too @pepperblue ! Of course, the larger point is that you should do what you wish to, and whatever you decide is totally fine :)

* Note that there are many nuances to these financial details and terms that I'm glossing over because they are probably more than you care to know about right now (as one example, "debt" is an analogue of the traditional notion of debt that has different semantics in ABE). But if you'd like to learn more, please take a look at the financial model, and I'm also happy to answer any questions ☺️

[dcostaras]

Hi @countvajhula, apologies I've also only just seen this now. If you don't mind I'm going to pause engaging with this for a bit as I'm interested in what you're doing here (even though I don't think my contributions have been valuable) but am pressed for time at the moment.

[countvajhula]

Hey everyone - another update. It's been a bit more work than we anticipated to iron out all the kinks for launch. We're looking at sometime next week, and I'll keep you updated. Take care!

[countvajhula]

We successfully launched recently, see this announcement for the full update (and join the mailing list if you'd like to follow further updates).

Thanks all!