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The case for universal basic income UBI

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Prof David West

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

The web of "economic relations" among human beings extends far beyond those that involve money. In some portions of that larger economy, the use of money is insulting (at best), often proscribed, and definitely debasing. Think love, friendship, marriage, sex, .... Would it be possible for a multi-disciplinary team (psychologists, anthropologists, mystics/alchemists) to study those realms of the 'economy' and devise a 'system' of roles and relationships that could comprise a 'system' useful in other aspects of the economy? Don't know.

Sometime ago I mentioned that anthropologists have identified three forms of exchange used by humans/cultures/societies: general, balanced, and negative. Market economies are, almost always, a subset of negative but can/have been based on balanced reciprocity.

Even a utopian non-monetary economy that remains at its core an instance of negative reciprocity will suffer from the exact same problems, and over time to the exact same degree, as capitalism using abstract money. Money is a technology, block chain is a technology and simply substituting one for the other will resolve no fundamental issue.

Money IS NOT the root of all evil. Evil IS the root of all money. Evil equals a combination of human individual venality and a system of negative reciprocity.

Could it be otherwise? I doubt it. Examples of economies that are based on general and balanced reciprocity, internally at least, do not seem to have scaled above a ceiling of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of participants. Could they grow larger, or be "nourished" in some fashion to enable scale? Don't know, but might be worth exploring.

The biggest impediment to change is, in my opinion, the individual human being.To illustrate: consider that almost every 'religion', and certainly every 'major religion'', (Islam, Buddhism, Vedism, Christianity), incorporate and extol principles of general and balanced reciprocity and yet those principles are absent from the the vast majority of practitioners of those religions.

If every adherent of of those religions was a true believer who both embodied and practiced those principles it probably would not matter if the world economic system was capitalist, socialist, or other in format, because, in substance, it would be grounded on general and balanced reciprocity.

davew

On Mon, May 10, 2021, at 1:58 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

> On 5/10/21 12:10 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

> >

> > • civilization is already a cooperative enterprise, it's just a matter of cooperation's extent/ubiquity

> >

> > Agree. That's one of the reasons Trump's norm-breaking was so destructive.

> >

> > • there's nothing supernatural, so all solutions have to be built on science

> >

> > Agree there is no supernatural. I don't see that implies that "all solutions have to be built on science." Most of our norms are not science-based.

> That's a reasonable point, as was Dave's w.r.t. belief in the

> supernatural being an encoding for norms. But norms aren't good enough.

> What's needed is more like what EricS invoked way back when in the

> context of economic mobility. We need an (maybe more than a few) error

> correcting mechanisms for when the norms are shown inadequate or

> obsolete. And it seems to me that scientific knowledge is the most

> stable kind of knowledge. Not "stable" in the sense of never changing,

> but stable in the sense of being *founded* ... on solid ground. A

> constitution is pretty good. But, again, our current problems with

> "originalism" and "living document"-ism show explicitly how that can

> fail.

> > • innovation, technology, culture, etc. are limited only by nature; so in principle the things we build (including governments) can be as big and complex as the natural world

> >

> > Is this controversial?

> Yes. On the one hand, there are credible arguments that the technology

> "stack", as it were, increases degrees of freedom versus decreases

> degrees of freedom. So, perhaps in the vein of von Hayek (and Pieter),

> any bureaucracy we put in place might be, necessarily, a limiting

> structure rather than a freeing structure. It would be arrogant to

> assume an engineered structure does a better job at some objective than

> a "natural" structure. This principle takes the stance that our

> structures can increase the degrees of freedom.

> > • class is a cultural construct; we create it; hence we can eliminate it

> >

> > Is this controversial?

> Yes. There is a significant number of us who believe in meritocracy,

> where poverty can be an *indicator* for something you deserve ... even

> to the extent that some people seem to believe you might have done that

> in a *past life* or somesuch nonsense. This principle attempts a kind

> of "blank slate" or "universally capable" conception of initial

> conditions. The principle isn't well-worded, though, like the rest of

> these. It partly implies that, e.g., if you're born blind, the world

> and our society are complex enough so that you can be just as, if not

> more, productive and meritorious as a sighted person.

> > • the spectral signature of organization sizes is present in nature and should be mirrored in society (e.g. power laws for org sizes, small-world networks, etc)

> >

> > Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean that it's important to be aware of advances in our understanding of complex organizations, I certainly agree.

> Yeah, I don't like the wording of that, either. What I'm going for is a

> generalization of "to each according to need, from each according to

> ability", which I don't like at all. I'd like to formulate more like

> the definition of an "ecology", where the waste of one is the food for

> another ... or along the lines of the eukaryotic perspective on trees

> Roger forwarded.

> --

> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

This post was updated on .

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Russ Abbott

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by Prof David West

I think davew is right.

Almost certainly Money IS NOT the root of all evil. Evil IS the root of all EVIL -- although it's not clear to me that Evil IS the root of all money.

The biggest impediment to change is, in my opinion, the individual human being. To illustrate: consider that almost every 'religion', and certainly every 'major religion'', (Islam, Buddhism, Vedism, Christianity), incorporate and extol principles of general and balanced reciprocity and yet those principles are absent from the vast majority of practitioners of those religions.

If every adherent of those religions was a true believer who both embodied and practiced those principles it probably would not matter if the world economic system was capitalist, socialist, or other in format, because, in substance, it would be grounded on general and balanced reciprocity.

Yet, even in a utopian society of people who all embodied and practiced the principles of balanced reciprocity, it would still be a challenge to allocate goods, resources, and human effort in a way that satisfies everyone.

It's unlikely that everyone would agree even with good-faith decisions made by davew's ideal people about what balances what. How would such disagreements be resolved?

It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity.

-- Russ

On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 6:46 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The web of "economic relations" among human beings extends far beyond those that involve money. In some portions of that larger economy, the use of money is insulting (at best), often proscribed, and definitely debasing. Think love, friendship, marriage, sex, .... Would it be possible for a multi-disciplinary team (psychologists, anthropologists, mystics/alchemists) to study those realms of the 'economy' and devise a 'system' of roles and relationships that could comprise a 'system' useful in other aspects of the economy? Don't know.

Sometime ago I mentioned that anthropologists have identified three forms of exchange used by humans/cultures/societies: general, balanced, and negative. Market economies are, almost always, a subset of negative but can/have been based on balanced reciprocity.

Even a utopian non-monetary economy that remains at its core an instance of negative reciprocity will suffer from the exact same problems, and over time to the exact same degree, as capitalism using abstract money. Money is a technology, block chain is a technology and simply substituting one for the other will resolve no fundamental issue.

Money IS NOT the root of all evil. Evil IS the root of all money. Evil equals a combination of human individual venality and a system of negative reciprocity.

Could it be otherwise? I doubt it. Examples of economies that are based on general and balanced reciprocity, internally at least, do not seem to have scaled above a ceiling of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of participants. Could they grow larger, or be "nourished" in some fashion to enable scale? Don't know, but might be worth exploring.

The biggest impediment to change is, in my opinion, the individual human being.To illustrate: consider that almost every 'religion', and certainly every 'major religion'', (Islam, Buddhism, Vedism, Christianity), incorporate and extol principles of general and balanced reciprocity and yet those principles are absent from the the vast majority of practitioners of those religions.

If every adherent of of those religions was a true believer who both embodied and practiced those principles it probably would not matter if the world economic system was capitalist, socialist, or other in format, because, in substance, it would be grounded on general and balanced reciprocity.

davew

On Mon, May 10, 2021, at 1:58 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:
>
>
> On 5/10/21 12:10 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:
> >
> >     • civilization is already a cooperative enterprise, it's just a matter of cooperation's extent/ubiquity
> >
> >         Agree. That's one of the reasons Trump's norm-breaking was so destructive.
> >
> >     • there's nothing supernatural, so all solutions have to be built on science
> >
> >         Agree there is no supernatural. I don't see that implies that "all solutions have to be built on science." Most of our norms are not science-based.
>
> That's a reasonable point, as was Dave's w.r.t. belief in the
> supernatural being an encoding for norms. But norms aren't good enough.
> What's needed is more like what EricS invoked way back when in the
> context of economic mobility. We need an (maybe more than a few) error
> correcting mechanisms for when the norms are shown inadequate or
> obsolete. And it seems to me that scientific knowledge is the most
> stable kind of knowledge. Not "stable" in the sense of never changing,
> but stable in the sense of being *founded* ... on solid ground. A
> constitution is pretty good. But, again, our current problems with
> "originalism" and "living document"-ism show explicitly how that can
> fail.
>
> >     • innovation, technology, culture, etc. are limited only by nature; so in principle the things we build (including governments) can be as big and complex as the natural world
> >
> >         Is this controversial?
>
> Yes. On the one hand, there are credible arguments that the technology
> "stack", as it were, increases degrees of freedom versus decreases
> degrees of freedom. So, perhaps in the vein of von Hayek (and Pieter),
> any bureaucracy we put in place might be, necessarily, a limiting
> structure rather than a freeing structure. It would be arrogant to
> assume an engineered structure does a better job at some objective than
> a "natural" structure. This principle takes the stance that our
> structures can increase the degrees of freedom.
>
> >     • class is a cultural construct; we create it; hence we can eliminate it
> >
> >         Is this controversial?
>
> Yes. There is a significant number of us who believe in meritocracy,
> where poverty can be an *indicator* for something you deserve ... even
> to the extent that some people seem to believe you might have done that
> in a *past life* or somesuch nonsense. This principle attempts a kind
> of "blank slate" or "universally capable" conception of initial
> conditions. The principle isn't well-worded, though, like the rest of
> these. It partly implies that, e.g., if you're born blind, the world
> and our society are complex enough so that you can be just as, if not
> more, productive and meritorious as a sighted person.
>
> >     • the spectral signature of organization sizes is present in nature and should be mirrored in society (e.g. power laws for org sizes, small-world networks, etc)
> >
> >         Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean that it's important to be aware of advances in our understanding of complex organizations, I certainly agree.
>
> Yeah, I don't like the wording of that, either. What I'm going for is a
> generalization of "to each according to need, from each according to
> ability", which I don't like at all. I'd like to formulate more like
> the definition of an "ecology", where the waste of one is the food for
> another ... or along the lines of the eukaryotic perspective on trees
> Roger forwarded.
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
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> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>

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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

Marcus

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 9:29 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

I think davew is right.

Almost certainly Money IS NOT the root of all evil. Evil IS the root of all EVIL -- although it's not clear to me that Evil IS the root of all money.

The biggest impediment to change is, in my opinion, the individual human being. To illustrate: consider that almost every 'religion', and certainly every 'major religion'', (Islam, Buddhism, Vedism, Christianity), incorporate and extol principles of general and balanced reciprocity and yet those principles are absent from the vast majority of practitioners of those religions.

If every adherent of those religions was a true believer who both embodied and practiced those principles it probably would not matter if the world economic system was capitalist, socialist, or other in format, because, in substance, it would be grounded on general and balanced reciprocity.

It's unlikely that everyone would agree even with good-faith decisions made by davew's ideal people about what balances what. How would such disagreements be resolved?

-- Russ

On Tue, May 11, 2021 at 6:46 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

The web of "economic relations" among human beings extends far beyond those that involve money. In some portions of that larger economy, the use of money is insulting (at best), often proscribed, and definitely debasing. Think love, friendship, marriage, sex, .... Would it be possible for a multi-disciplinary team (psychologists, anthropologists, mystics/alchemists) to study those realms of the 'economy' and devise a 'system' of roles and relationships that could comprise a 'system' useful in other aspects of the economy? Don't know.

Sometime ago I mentioned that anthropologists have identified three forms of exchange used by humans/cultures/societies: general, balanced, and negative. Market economies are, almost always, a subset of negative but can/have been based on balanced reciprocity.

Even a utopian non-monetary economy that remains at its core an instance of negative reciprocity will suffer from the exact same problems, and over time to the exact same degree, as capitalism using abstract money. Money is a technology, block chain is a technology and simply substituting one for the other will resolve no fundamental issue.

Money IS NOT the root of all evil. Evil IS the root of all money. Evil equals a combination of human individual venality and a system of negative reciprocity.

Could it be otherwise? I doubt it. Examples of economies that are based on general and balanced reciprocity, internally at least, do not seem to have scaled above a ceiling of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of participants. Could they grow larger, or be "nourished" in some fashion to enable scale? Don't know, but might be worth exploring.

The biggest impediment to change is, in my opinion, the individual human being.To illustrate: consider that almost every 'religion', and certainly every 'major religion'', (Islam, Buddhism, Vedism, Christianity), incorporate and extol principles of general and balanced reciprocity and yet those principles are absent from the the vast majority of practitioners of those religions.

If every adherent of of those religions was a true believer who both embodied and practiced those principles it probably would not matter if the world economic system was capitalist, socialist, or other in format, because, in substance, it would be grounded on general and balanced reciprocity.

davew

On Mon, May 10, 2021, at 1:58 PM, uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ wrote:

>

>

> On 5/10/21 12:10 PM, Russ Abbott wrote:

> >

> >     • civilization is already a cooperative enterprise, it's just a matter of cooperation's extent/ubiquity

> >

> >         Agree. That's one of the reasons Trump's norm-breaking was so destructive.

> >

> >     • there's nothing supernatural, so all solutions have to be built on science

> >

> >         Agree there is no supernatural. I don't see that implies that "all solutions have to be built on science." Most of our norms are not science-based.

>

> That's a reasonable point, as was Dave's w.r.t. belief in the

> supernatural being an encoding for norms. But norms aren't good enough.

> What's needed is more like what EricS invoked way back when in the

> context of economic mobility. We need an (maybe more than a few) error

> correcting mechanisms for when the norms are shown inadequate or

> obsolete. And it seems to me that scientific knowledge is the most

> stable kind of knowledge. Not "stable" in the sense of never changing,

> but stable in the sense of being *founded* ... on solid ground. A

> constitution is pretty good. But, again, our current problems with

> "originalism" and "living document"-ism show explicitly how that can

> fail.

>

> >     • innovation, technology, culture, etc. are limited only by nature; so in principle the things we build (including governments) can be as big and complex as the natural world

> >

> >         Is this controversial?

>

> Yes. On the one hand, there are credible arguments that the technology

> "stack", as it were, increases degrees of freedom versus decreases

> degrees of freedom. So, perhaps in the vein of von Hayek (and Pieter),

> any bureaucracy we put in place might be, necessarily, a limiting

> structure rather than a freeing structure. It would be arrogant to

> assume an engineered structure does a better job at some objective than

> a "natural" structure. This principle takes the stance that our

> structures can increase the degrees of freedom.

>

> >     • class is a cultural construct; we create it; hence we can eliminate it

> >

> >         Is this controversial?

>

> Yes. There is a significant number of us who believe in meritocracy,

> where poverty can be an *indicator* for something you deserve ... even

> to the extent that some people seem to believe you might have done that

> in a *past life* or somesuch nonsense. This principle attempts a kind

> of "blank slate" or "universally capable" conception of initial

> conditions. The principle isn't well-worded, though, like the rest of

> these. It partly implies that, e.g., if you're born blind, the world

> and our society are complex enough so that you can be just as, if not

> more, productive and meritorious as a sighted person.

>

> >     • the spectral signature of organization sizes is present in nature and should be mirrored in society (e.g. power laws for org sizes, small-world networks, etc)

> >

> >         Not sure what you mean by this. If you mean that it's important to be aware of advances in our understanding of complex organizations, I certainly agree.

>

> Yeah, I don't like the wording of that, either. What I'm going for is a

> generalization of "to each according to need, from each according to

> ability", which I don't like at all. I'd like to formulate more like

> the definition of an "ecology", where the waste of one is the food for

> another ... or along the lines of the eukaryotic perspective on trees

> Roger forwarded.

>

> --

> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ

>

> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .

> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv

> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam

> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/

> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/

>

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Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

I can't remember, does that imply "taking the red pill or the blue pill"?

Marcus G. Daniels

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

You will take the red pill or blue pill, there’s no question about it.

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:38 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

I can't remember, does that imply "taking the red pill or the blue pill"?

Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

>You will take the red pill or blue pill, there’s no question about it.

Every time I take one, I doubt myself and take double the dose of the other...

and then doubt myself....

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:38 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

I can't remember, does that imply "taking the red pill or the blue pill"?
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Marcus G. Daniels

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Just the universe doing its thing, nothing to worry about.

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:51 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

>You will take the red pill or blue pill, there’s no question about it.

Every time I take one, I doubt myself and take double the dose of the other...

and then doubt myself....

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:38 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

I can't remember, does that imply "taking the red pill or the blue pill"?
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Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus

Just the universe doing its thing, nothing to worry about.

worry and doubt are just the universe doing their thing...

"the universe is flux; all else is opinion" - Marcus (Aurelius)

From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:51 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

>You will take the red pill or blue pill, there’s no question about it.

Every time I take one, I doubt myself and take double the dose of the other...

and then doubt myself....
From: Friam [hidden email] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2021 10:38 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for universal basic income UBI

Marcus Daniels wrote:

Russ writes:

< It seems that the only solution might be to forgo even balanced reciprocity and build a society of people who appreciate and are satisfied with whatever they get. This would be a world based on gratitude and selflessness rather than reciprocity. >

Easier if people stop believing in their agency.

I can't remember, does that imply "taking the red pill or the blue pill"?
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jon zingale

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by gepr

I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?

* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.

Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Steve Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):

1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to): My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.

2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation. In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through. For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that. Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!", there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits. In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.

3) I knew "at least" would come in handy. My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation. SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think. By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").

The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.

Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still. His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.

- Steve

On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:

I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?
* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.

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Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

I just want to share two stories with you regarding reciprocity.

1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but million miles to help us with everything that she possibly could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us to do to others what she has done to us.

2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo had a similar experience in his life. His family was very poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the businessman, but in Zondo's own words:
“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own small way I try to do that,” said the judge.
Taken from https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/

On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 23:56, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):

1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to):   My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.

2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation.   In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through.   For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that.   Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!",   there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits.   In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.

3) I knew "at least" would come in handy.   My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation.   SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think.    By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").

The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.

Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still.   His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.

- Steve

On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:
I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?
* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.

Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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Prof David West

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

I find anthropology to be fascinating because it is complex, interpretative, dynamic, highly contextual, and, ultimately anecdotal. "The ways of humans" are not reducible to formulae, rules, laws, or algorithms. There are 'patterns' and it is possible to establish cultural 'norms' to which — always with exceptions — individual behavior conforms.

"Thinking Anthropologically" means constantly juggling hundreds of variables, trying to find the "familiar in the strange" and the "strange in the familiar" and, at best, discovering that your "understanding" is just a "thick description."

In contrast, from my point of view, science cherry picks the easy shit; that which is reducible to answers, laws, principles, and algorithms. Make no mistake, I love science, but only at the fringes where it remains "metaphor and story and philosophy."

It is difficult to introduce anthropological ideas, like the three categories of reciprocity, into discussions on this list. Readers come up with questions, framed with too much specificity to be easily answered — like glen's question of transitivity in balanced reciprocity.

The answers to such questions are almost always: yes ....but ....

When Jesus (supposedly) said, "if you do it to the least among you you have done it to me," that is transitive as I understand glen was asking.

"Balanced" is highly contextualized. For example the group of workers that had lunch together every Friday. Restaurants varied in price, everyone ordered what they wished, and the check was always evenly split. At the end of a year of study, the anthropologist observing the group added up the numbers. The total spent by the group and the amounts spent by each individual. Individual expenditures were within ten-cents of the amount calculated by dividing total expenditure by number of people in the group.

A Bill Mauldin cartoon: two GIs in WWII are talking and one says to the other, "I want to thank you for saving my life today, here's my last pair of dry socks."

Both cases exhibit balanced reciprocity.

Most examples of general reciprocity are situated in small, tight, groups like a family and few point a path to a "scaled application." Bot others, like Pieters, "pay it forward" or numerous instances of altruism benefiting large, "anonymous," groups contain no obvious constraints on scale.

Anyway - just something I wanted to share.

davew

On Wed, May 12, 2021, at 1:46 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:

I just want to share two stories with you regarding reciprocity.

1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but million miles to help us with everything that she possibly could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us to do to others what she has done to us.

2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo had a similar experience in his life. His family was very poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the businessman, but in Zondo's own words:
“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own small way I try to do that,” said the judge.
Taken from https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/
On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 23:56, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):
1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to):   My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.
2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation.   In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through.   For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that.   Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!",   there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits.   In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.
3) I knew "at least" would come in handy.   My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation.   SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think.    By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").
The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.
Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still.   His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.
- Steve
On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:
I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?
* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.
Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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Gary Schiltz-4

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

A very insightful and humane comment, David.

On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 8:50 AM Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

I find anthropology to be fascinating because it is complex, interpretative, dynamic, highly contextual, and, ultimately anecdotal. "The ways of humans" are not reducible to formulae, rules, laws, or algorithms. There are 'patterns' and it is possible to establish cultural 'norms' to which — always with exceptions — individual behavior conforms.

"Thinking Anthropologically" means constantly juggling hundreds of variables, trying to find the "familiar in the strange" and the "strange in the familiar" and, at best, discovering that your "understanding" is just a "thick description."

In contrast, from my point of view, science cherry picks the easy shit; that which is reducible to answers, laws, principles, and algorithms. Make no mistake, I love science, but only at the fringes where it remains "metaphor and story and philosophy."

It is difficult to introduce anthropological ideas, like the three categories of reciprocity, into discussions on this list. Readers come up with questions, framed with too much specificity to be easily answered — like glen's question of transitivity in balanced reciprocity.

The answers to such questions are almost always: yes ....but ....

When Jesus (supposedly) said, "if you do it to the least among you you have done it to me," that is transitive as I understand glen was asking.

"Balanced" is highly contextualized. For example the group of workers that had lunch together every Friday. Restaurants varied in price, everyone ordered what they wished, and the check was always evenly split. At the end of a year of study, the anthropologist observing the group added up the numbers. The total spent by the group and the amounts spent by each individual. Individual expenditures were within ten-cents of the amount calculated by dividing total expenditure by number of people in the group.

A Bill Mauldin cartoon: two GIs in WWII are talking and one says to the other, "I want to thank you for saving my life today, here's my last pair of dry socks."

Both cases exhibit balanced reciprocity.

Most examples of general reciprocity are situated in small, tight, groups like a family and few point a path to a "scaled application." Bot others, like Pieters, "pay it forward" or numerous instances of altruism benefiting large, "anonymous," groups contain no obvious constraints on scale.

Anyway - just something I wanted to share.

davew

On Wed, May 12, 2021, at 1:46 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
I just want to share two stories with you regarding reciprocity.

1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but million miles to help us with everything that she possibly could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us to do to others what she has done to us.

2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo had a similar experience in his life. His family was very poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the businessman, but in Zondo's own words:
“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own small way I try to do that,” said the judge.
Taken from https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/
On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 23:56, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):
1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to):   My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.
2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation.   In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through.   For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that.   Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!",   there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits.   In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.
3) I knew "at least" would come in handy.   My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation.   SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think.    By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").
The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.
Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still.   His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.
- Steve
On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:
I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?
* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.
Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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gepr

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

This post was updated on .

In reply to this post by jon zingale

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uǝʃƃ ⊥ glen

Steve Smith

The Joy of Anthropology

In reply to this post by Prof David West

DaveW-

Very well articulated from start to finish Dave.

I bailed after my first Anthro class, either because of some bad chemistry with the prof, or a need by *many* profs to "haze" aspiring students. In my case, it was because the class (and prof) was structured around regurgitating rendered factoids from the text. I'm no worse at rote memorization (more aptly, I was then) than the next yokel, but that was not my interest. My interest was in seeking the patterns which you speak of. This lead me to the harder sciences where there was a more structured/predictable extant suite of patterns (e.g. Periodic Table, Newton's Laws, E&M, Relativity, (even) QM) but I had a hint then that I was wading past a rich and fecund pattern-space seeking a place where the views felt more spacious (like mucking through an estuary, across foothills to begin climbing to higher reaches).

Your and my shared fascination with Metaphor (though in somewhat different modes I think) and Christopher Alexander's Pattern and Form Languages grew out of my latent interest in all that which cannot be easily/well reduced the way the laws of mechanics seem to yield.

I enjoyed a limited friendship with Edward (Ned) Hall during my 30's and his last years (80s). The relevance of his work to contemporary and first world cultures (everyday to my experience) was fascinating to me because I didn't need a university host or big grants to travel to other places to do primary observation. I could indulge in my own observations and studies the same way I can throw pebbles off of a cliff or into a pond and observe the cascade of behaviours. FriAM is an Anthropological/Ethnographic hotbed.

I never knew Mike Agar well, but his Ethnographer's ear and voice was always inspirational to me.

I could rattle on about the value and role of Metaphor, Anecdote, Narrative in Science (Narrating Complexity, Stepney et al) and Model Theory, but it would just be more rattling.

Carry On!

- Steve

On 5/12/21 7:46 AM, Prof David West wrote:

I find anthropology to be fascinating because it is complex, interpretative, dynamic, highly contextual, and, ultimately anecdotal. "The ways of humans" are not reducible to formulae, rules, laws, or algorithms. There are 'patterns' and it is possible to establish cultural 'norms' to which — always with exceptions — individual behavior conforms.

"Thinking Anthropologically" means constantly juggling hundreds of variables, trying to find the "familiar in the strange" and the "strange in the familiar" and, at best, discovering that your "understanding" is just a "thick description."

In contrast, from my point of view, science cherry picks the easy shit; that which is reducible to answers, laws, principles, and algorithms. Make no mistake, I love science, but only at the fringes where it remains "metaphor and story and philosophy."

It is difficult to introduce anthropological ideas, like the three categories of reciprocity, into discussions on this list. Readers come up with questions, framed with too much specificity to be easily answered — like glen's question of transitivity in balanced reciprocity.

The answers to such questions are almost always: yes ....but ....

When Jesus (supposedly) said, "if you do it to the least among you you have done it to me," that is transitive as I understand glen was asking.

"Balanced" is highly contextualized. For example the group of workers that had lunch together every Friday. Restaurants varied in price, everyone ordered what they wished, and the check was always evenly split. At the end of a year of study, the anthropologist observing the group added up the numbers. The total spent by the group and the amounts spent by each individual. Individual expenditures were within ten-cents of the amount calculated by dividing total expenditure by number of people in the group.

A Bill Mauldin cartoon: two GIs in WWII are talking and one says to the other, "I want to thank you for saving my life today, here's my last pair of dry socks."

Both cases exhibit balanced reciprocity.

Most examples of general reciprocity are situated in small, tight, groups like a family and few point a path to a "scaled application." Bot others, like Pieters, "pay it forward" or numerous instances of altruism benefiting large, "anonymous," groups contain no obvious constraints on scale.

Anyway - just something I wanted to share.

davew

On Wed, May 12, 2021, at 1:46 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
I just want to share two stories with you regarding reciprocity.

1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but million miles to help us with everything that she possibly could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us to do to others what she has done to us.

2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo had a similar experience in his life. His family was very poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the businessman, but in Zondo's own words:

“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own small way I try to do that,” said the judge.

Taken from https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/
On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 23:56, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):

1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to):   My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.

2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation.   In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through.   For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that.   Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!",   there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits.   In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.

3) I knew "at least" would come in handy.   My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation.   SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think.    By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").

The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.

Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still.   His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.

- Steve

On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:
I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?

* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.

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thompnickson2

Re: The Joy of Anthropology

Great thread, Guys!

Nick Thompson

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2021 9:21 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] The Joy of Anthropology

DaveW-

Very well articulated from start to finish Dave.

I never knew Mike Agar well, but his Ethnographer's ear and voice was always inspirational to me.

I could rattle on about the value and role of Metaphor, Anecdote, Narrative in Science (Narrating Complexity, Stepney et al) and Model Theory, but it would just be more rattling.

Carry On!

- Steve

On 5/12/21 7:46 AM, Prof David West wrote:

I find anthropology to be fascinating because it is complex, interpretative, dynamic, highly contextual, and, ultimately anecdotal. "The ways of humans" are not reducible to formulae, rules, laws, or algorithms. There are 'patterns' and it is possible to establish cultural 'norms' to which — always with exceptions — individual behavior conforms.

"Thinking Anthropologically" means constantly juggling hundreds of variables, trying to find the "familiar in the strange" and the "strange in the familiar" and, at best, discovering that your "understanding" is just a "thick description."

In contrast, from my point of view, science cherry picks the easy shit; that which is reducible to answers, laws, principles, and algorithms. Make no mistake, I love science, but only at the fringes where it remains "metaphor and story and philosophy."

It is difficult to introduce anthropological ideas, like the three categories of reciprocity, into discussions on this list. Readers come up with questions, framed with too much specificity to be easily answered — like glen's question of transitivity in balanced reciprocity.

The answers to such questions are almost always: yes ....but ....

When Jesus (supposedly) said, "if you do it to the least among you you have done it to me," that is transitive as I understand glen was asking.

"Balanced" is highly contextualized. For example the group of workers that had lunch together every Friday. Restaurants varied in price, everyone ordered what they wished, and the check was always evenly split. At the end of a year of study, the anthropologist observing the group added up the numbers. The total spent by the group and the amounts spent by each individual. Individual expenditures were within ten-cents of the amount calculated by dividing total expenditure by number of people in the group.

A Bill Mauldin cartoon: two GIs in WWII are talking and one says to the other, "I want to thank you for saving my life today, here's my last pair of dry socks."

Both cases exhibit balanced reciprocity.

Most examples of general reciprocity are situated in small, tight, groups like a family and few point a path to a "scaled application." Bot others, like Pieters, "pay it forward" or numerous instances of altruism benefiting large, "anonymous," groups contain no obvious constraints on scale.

Anyway - just something I wanted to share.

davew

On Wed, May 12, 2021, at 1:46 AM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
I just want to share two stories with you regarding reciprocity.

1 Years ago I had to be in Miami for a couple of months for business and my family joined me. My one son was ill and got treatment at the Jackson Memorial Hospital. There was one nurse in particular that went not the extra mile but million miles to help us with everything that she possibly could. When it was time for us to return home we obviously wanted to express our gratitude. Her reply was to request us to do to others what she has done to us.

2 The deputy chief justice of South Africa Raymond Zondo had a similar experience in his life. His family was very poor and a local businessman helped so that he could study law. After completed his studies he wanted to repay the businessman, but in Zondo's own words:
“When I asked him what arrangements we could make so I repay him, he said don’t worry. Do to others what I have done to you. I thought that was very important and in my own small way I try to do that,” said the judge.
Taken from https://www.goodthingsguy.com/people/judge-raymond-zondo/
On Tue, 11 May 2021 at 23:56, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Lazily composing at least two upshots of this conversation (and the smart-contract parallel one):
1) I think Russ brought up what *I* thought was implicit in Reciprocity (though I understand why it is not since I borrowed my use of the term from gift economies, not adhering to the (obvious) mathematical meaning that most here would jump to):   My intended connotation of Reciprocity included both "spirit of generosity and gratitude", so it is excellent that those were called out as possibly essential (or at least efficient?) in improving the state of our relations.
2) Glen opened the question of "transitivity" which I think you (Jon) are addressing here with good motivation.   In my smart-contract considerations, the point would be that the values one attached to "raw value" (money/crypto¢) in their transactions would propogate through.   For example, food stamps cannot (directly) be redeemed for non-food items (specifically alcohol, tobacco, pet food, sunglasses) and if I paid a 500% surcharge on the few gallons of petrol I run through my Extended Range EV as a way to decline to participate in A) blood for oil wars and B) clubbing baby seals in the arctic, those crypto¢ would *avoid* the pockets of the warmongers and seal-clubbers and settle in the pockets of those who went to the effort to get their oil without that.   Of course, just like there can be black/grey markets in food stamps "hey buddy, I'll give ya $.50 on the dollar for those food stamps!",   there would surely appear money-changers/launderers who would *try* to cross-connect the drinking water with the black water for their own profits.   In principle, pervasive use of smart contracts *could* make that vanishingly harder and harder with adoption.
3) I knew "at least" would come in handy.   My intuitive conception of Reciprocity is that it is as much about back as forward propogation.   SteveG will love the opportunity for a Dual Field encoding I think.    By taking Renee to dinner for Mother's Day, he not only acts as a proxy for her own children in some sense, I would like to believe he did it *because* Renee's motherhood has already been her gift to him... whatever benefits he gets from a step-role, from Renee being a better partner having raised children, etc. and that dinner is to honor and reciprocate for something he has *already received* from her (see 1 above, "gratitude").
The spectral graph and circuit analysis Jon points to may well be useful/important for measurement/analysis of how well a system is working. Ideally the implementation is entirely local in the sense of agents on networks of transactions.
Smart contracts are an implementation of distributed computation where computation (complex decision making) is deferred to the last (or most appropriate) place in the network. For example, the fueling depot that accepts my anti-war/anti-ANWR crypto¢ for petrol passes it to his wholesale source which passes it through the "circuit".... the gas pump owner doesn't need to know (or share or even have an opinion on) what "values" are embedded in my crypto¢, he simply takes his "service cut" on the transaction as does each other middleman right up to the guy gently scooping teaspoons of bubbling crude out of an artesian well to run through his handmade still.   His still produces no better (maybe worse) heptane/octane than BP or ARCO but he *still* gets paid (ultimately by me) for so gently milking the dino juice from the earth for me.
- Steve
On 5/11/21 3:21 PM, jon zingale wrote:
I have failed to follow this discussion very closely. That said, to what extent could frameworks like those that underlie spring rank or gauge-theoretic price as curvature give reasonable characterizations of reciprocity over circuits? To what extent does Levine's (painfully straightforward) solving for eigenstates?
* Apologies for any paywalls, I am often stymied to find better access.
Sent from the Friam mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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jon zingale

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

In reply to this post by jon zingale

Each of the three citations was meant to evoke, distinct though related,
approaches to assigning quantities to qualities of networks. The Levine
paper[1] focuses on a technique for flattening a food web onto a chain
(trophic level). What I find novel is that the technique appears robust
to loops (cannibalism like breastfeeding) as well as larger circuits or
cliques (scavengers of all types and colors). I am also impressed by the
straightforward nature of the calculation familiar to all that work with
absorbing Markov chains[KS]: Reorder the transition matrix so that pure
source components come first, partition the position vector similarly,
find the fundamental matrix and then solve for position. Levine then
goes on to point out that the variance of path lengths gives a nice
measure of trophic specialization.

I became familiar with the Spring Rank algorithm through conversations
with its authors, and became more intimately familiar through recent work
applying the algorithm to networks of exchange. The central idea, there,
is that we can imagine an exchange network as a mechanical system of
weights (individuals) and springs (whose tensions correspond in some
way to transactions between individuals). There (and maybe this is how
it might correspond to Marcus' criticism) we write the Hamiltonian and
solve for position. In the work, my collaborators and I were (are?) doing,
we researched how such a model can be used as a suggestion engine for
*giving* exactly because one could suggest non-trivial ways to *balance*
one's exchange network.

Lastly, the reference to gauge-theoretic economic models is one where we
can apply an abstract notion of curvature or (cohomologically) measure
the distance from *exactness* flows experience on a given circuit. I would
not be surprised if this relatively new approach is already finding itself
useful in applied economics. My feeling is that the tools already exist
(to an extent more than we know, though less than we really want) and
that application is where things go awry. Also, I am unsure to what extent
these approaches land within the already stated criticism put forth by
Marcus. I haven't looked at the Kirkley paper. I suppose I wanted to
ground the models in some calculations so that we can more clearly argue
their merits.

To my mind, assigning qualities to graphs, like assigning qualities to
numbers, comes with a certain hermeneutic burden. OTOH, there is a
continued effort to discover sensible properties that graphs may have,
that is, the field is as rich as any[2]. I am not entirely sure why I feel
compelled to highlight this distinction, so please excuse the pedantry.

Ultimately, I am probing the group to see what kinds of frameworks each
of us has in mind. There are the graphic-theoretic (presently, my
favorite to think about) approaches, lawyer-theoretic(?) approaches that
ask, "For the benefit of whom?", as well as some axiomatic approaches.
Also, we appear to be discussing questions of reciprocity and asking,
"Economy, what is it good for"?[$]

[1] Reading about Eric's approach to his recent work, I was reminded
about the Levine paper. It has been several years since I had thought
about the details and attempts to reconstitute the idea for that context
have it on my mind for this one.

[2] Here, I suppose that I am not only thinking about more recent work
like that of Mark Newman or Lovasz or whomever, but also of the rich
history (summarized so playfully by Lokatos) going back to Euler and
Gauss and ...

[$] There is also the question of Evil, money, and their arborescent
relationship. I will leave this one alone for now ;)

[KS] Kemeny and Snell, 1960

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Pieter Steenekamp

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

Re Ultimately, I am probing the group to see what kinds of frameworks each
of us has in mind.

My choice is a self-regulating participatory market society.

I quote from Dirk Helbing's Economics 2.0: The Natural Step towards A Self-Regulating, Participatory Market Society https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4078

"I argue that, as the complexity of socio-economic systems increases, networked decisionmaking and bottom-up self-regulation will be more and more important features. It will be
explained why, besides the “homo economicus” with strictly self-regarding preferences, natural selection has also created a “homo socialis” with other-regarding preferences. While the “homo
economicus” optimizes the own prospects in separation, the decisions of the “homo socialis” are self-determined, but interconnected, a fact that may be characterized by the term “networked minds”. Notably, the “homo socialis” manages to earn higher payoffs than the “homo economicus”."

Interesting is the youtube presentation by Dirk Helbing about his new book Next Civilisation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TtSNNaNZTc&t=26s

On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 19:55, jon zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:

Each of the three citations was meant to evoke, distinct though related,
approaches to assigning quantities to qualities of networks. The Levine
paper[1] focuses on a technique for flattening a food web onto a chain
(trophic level). What I find novel is that the technique appears robust
to loops (cannibalism like breastfeeding) as well as larger circuits or
cliques (scavengers of all types and colors). I am also impressed by the
straightforward nature of the calculation familiar to all that work with
absorbing Markov chains[KS]: Reorder the transition matrix so that pure
source components come first, partition the position vector similarly,
find the fundamental matrix and then solve for position. Levine then
goes on to point out that the variance of path lengths gives a nice
measure of trophic specialization.

I became familiar with the Spring Rank algorithm through conversations
with its authors, and became more intimately familiar through recent work
applying the algorithm to networks of exchange. The central idea, there,
is that we can imagine an exchange network as a mechanical system of
weights (individuals) and springs (whose tensions correspond in some
way to transactions between individuals). There (and maybe this is how
it might correspond to Marcus' criticism) we write the Hamiltonian and
solve for position. In the work, my collaborators and I were (are?) doing,
we researched how such a model can be used as a suggestion engine for
*giving* exactly because one could suggest non-trivial ways to *balance*
one's exchange network.

Lastly, the reference to gauge-theoretic economic models is one where we
can apply an abstract notion of curvature or (cohomologically) measure
the distance from *exactness* flows experience on a given circuit. I would
not be surprised if this relatively new approach is already finding itself
useful in applied economics. My feeling is that the tools already exist
(to an extent more than we know, though less than we really want) and
that application is where things go awry. Also, I am unsure to what extent
these approaches land within the already stated criticism put forth by
Marcus. I haven't looked at the Kirkley paper. I suppose I wanted to
ground the models in some calculations so that we can more clearly argue
their merits.

To my mind, assigning qualities to graphs, like assigning qualities to
numbers, comes with a certain hermeneutic burden. OTOH, there is a
continued effort to discover sensible properties that graphs may have,
that is, the field is as rich as any[2]. I am not entirely sure why I feel
compelled to highlight this distinction, so please excuse the pedantry.

Ultimately, I am probing the group to see what kinds of frameworks each
of us has in mind. There are the graphic-theoretic (presently, my
favorite to think about) approaches, lawyer-theoretic(?) approaches that
ask, "For the benefit of whom?", as well as some axiomatic approaches.
Also, we appear to be discussing questions of reciprocity and asking,
"Economy, what is it good for"?[$]

[1] Reading about Eric's approach to his recent work, I was reminded
about the Levine paper. It has been several years since I had thought
about the details and attempts to reconstitute the idea for that context
have it on my mind for this one.

[2] Here, I suppose that I am not only thinking about more recent work
like that of Mark Newman or Lovasz or whomever, but also of the rich
history (summarized so playfully by Lokatos) going back to Euler and
Gauss and ...

[$] There is also the question of Evil, money, and their arborescent
relationship. I will leave this one alone for now ;)

[KS] Kemeny and Snell, 1960

--
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David Eric Smith

Re: The case for universal basic income UBI

I heard a nice story at an annual meeting a long time ago: maybe seven or eight years now; maybe a decade. It was in a side-conversation, told by some high-flying economist who had been in the room where it happened. This was soon after Obama had appointed Tim Geithner to try to repair the mess of the 2007/2008 banking system collapse. Geithner was in one of the relatively early meetings with the bankers for whom he was trying to devise some regulatory scheme. The bankers were reassuring him that no scheme was needed, because they would self-regulate.

As I heard it told, Geithner answered immediately, with an expression that it is easy for me to visualize:

“Right. So self-regulation is to regulation as self-importance is to importance.”

That of course doesn’t purport to be a statement about limits to what could be possible in principle. Just an assessment in the context in situ at the time, of what would be the outcome of immediate decisions.

Eric

On May 14, 2021, at 4:11 AM, Pieter Steenekamp <[hidden email]> wrote:

Re Ultimately, I am probing the group to see what kinds of frameworks each
of us has in mind.

My choice is a self-regulating participatory market society.

I quote from Dirk Helbing's Economics 2.0: The Natural Step towards A Self-Regulating, Participatory Market Society https://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4078
"I argue that, as the complexity of socio-economic systems increases, networked decisionmaking and bottom-up self-regulation will be more and more important features. It will be
explained why, besides the “homo economicus” with strictly self-regarding preferences, natural selection has also created a “homo socialis” with other-regarding preferences. While the “homo
economicus” optimizes the own prospects in separation, the decisions of the “homo socialis” are self-determined, but interconnected, a fact that may be characterized by the term “networked minds”. Notably, the “homo socialis” manages to earn higher payoffs than the “homo economicus”."

Interesting is the youtube presentation by Dirk Helbing about his new book Next Civilisation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TtSNNaNZTc&t=26s

On Thu, 13 May 2021 at 19:55, jon zingale <[hidden email]> wrote:
Each of the three citations was meant to evoke, distinct though related,
approaches to assigning quantities to qualities of networks. The Levine
paper[1] focuses on a technique for flattening a food web onto a chain
(trophic level). What I find novel is that the technique appears robust
to loops (cannibalism like breastfeeding) as well as larger circuits or
cliques (scavengers of all types and colors). I am also impressed by the
straightforward nature of the calculation familiar to all that work with
absorbing Markov chains[KS]: Reorder the transition matrix so that pure
source components come first, partition the position vector similarly,
find the fundamental matrix and then solve for position. Levine then
goes on to point out that the variance of path lengths gives a nice
measure of trophic specialization.

I became familiar with the Spring Rank algorithm through conversations
with its authors, and became more intimately familiar through recent work
applying the algorithm to networks of exchange. The central idea, there,
is that we can imagine an exchange network as a mechanical system of
weights (individuals) and springs (whose tensions correspond in some
way to transactions between individuals). There (and maybe this is how
it might correspond to Marcus' criticism) we write the Hamiltonian and
solve for position. In the work, my collaborators and I were (are?) doing,
we researched how such a model can be used as a suggestion engine for
*giving* exactly because one could suggest non-trivial ways to *balance*
one's exchange network.

Lastly, the reference to gauge-theoretic economic models is one where we
can apply an abstract notion of curvature or (cohomologically) measure
the distance from *exactness* flows experience on a given circuit. I would
not be surprised if this relatively new approach is already finding itself
useful in applied economics. My feeling is that the tools already exist
(to an extent more than we know, though less than we really want) and
that application is where things go awry. Also, I am unsure to what extent
these approaches land within the already stated criticism put forth by
Marcus. I haven't looked at the Kirkley paper. I suppose I wanted to
ground the models in some calculations so that we can more clearly argue
their merits.

To my mind, assigning qualities to graphs, like assigning qualities to
numbers, comes with a certain hermeneutic burden. OTOH, there is a
continued effort to discover sensible properties that graphs may have,
that is, the field is as rich as any[2]. I am not entirely sure why I feel
compelled to highlight this distinction, so please excuse the pedantry.

Ultimately, I am probing the group to see what kinds of frameworks each
of us has in mind. There are the graphic-theoretic (presently, my
favorite to think about) approaches, lawyer-theoretic(?) approaches that
ask, "For the benefit of whom?", as well as some axiomatic approaches.
Also, we appear to be discussing questions of reciprocity and asking,
"Economy, what is it good for"?[$]

[1] Reading about Eric's approach to his recent work, I was reminded
about the Levine paper. It has been several years since I had thought
about the details and attempts to reconstitute the idea for that context
have it on my mind for this one.

[2] Here, I suppose that I am not only thinking about more recent work
like that of Mark Newman or Lovasz or whomever, but also of the rich
history (summarized so playfully by Lokatos) going back to Euler and
Gauss and ...

[$] There is also the question of Evil, money, and their arborescent
relationship. I will leave this one alone for now ;)

[KS] Kemeny and Snell, 1960

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