[extropy-chat] Politics: Transhumanist Social System

[Emlyn]

On 19/08/05, Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> --- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > In fact, it would be
> > great to find a scientific "model" for economic
> > entities that would lend itself readily to
> > experimentation without violating human rights.
> > Similar to the way that mice are used to "model" human
> > physiology without resorting to Josef Mengele type
> > human experimentation.
> 
> The lack of such is why social sciences are often seen as "soft",
> compared to the "hard" sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics,
> mathematics, and their derivatives.

There is something along these lines in existence now... the various
online worlds. The commercial MMORPGs have there own cultures and
economies. I think there may even be open source equivalents.

It seems to me that if you want to do some experimenting on ways of
organising people and things, an online virtual society would be a
good way to do it. You are expected to tinker in these environments,
people actually enjoy being involved. I believe that people are
beginning to study them more carefully, because they do provide a
social science lab that didn't previously exist.

For anyone doing serious meme work it's time to get in there now. I
think these environments will slowly begin to take on the
characteristics of real polities, and good ones may attract some
serious talent in the years ahead as the internet increasingly becomes
a serious competitor with meatspace for people's alleigences. I think
the friction of dealing with people online will reduce over time, and
as the problems of purely virtual interaction fall away, the benefits
of choosing a cohort from the global pool rather than by geographic
accident will be inescapable.

I'm not sure where you draw the boundary between a social group (like
this list) and a full online interactive world; size of the group, and
whether a group has a currency and economy, are probably a good start.

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *