Sophrosyne Stenvaag ([info]sophrosyne_sl) wrote,
@ 2007-09-19 09:54:00
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Entry tags:business, news, other worlds

Good Sense - and a Shocking Proposition
The publisher of the teen-oriented virtual world Gaia Online announced Monday that it is bringing on celebrated economist Michael Boskin to lead its new Council of Economic Advisors.

If you're *at all* interested in this stuff - or find yourself forced to be because of its impact on your digital life - read this interview.  This might be the single most reasonable, informed, unhyped, *responsible* set of statements I've ever read from an atomic world expert commenting on the digital world.

I was about to jokingly suggest that we pass a hat to hire someone like this to advise the Lindens... but...

Why *don't* we hire a consultant/lobbyist? 

Vanni, Argent and I all commented in the post below that one of our fundamental problems is that we as Residents *don't* have basic rights and the protection of reasonable and clear laws, and Argent, London and I all responded with some degree of feelings of powerlessness.

But, in the atomic, when some group feels like it's getting a raw deal, they organize. They hire professionals to work the system on their behalf, to get changes made.

Why don't *we*?


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[info]argent_bury
2007-09-19 05:38 pm UTC (link)
Wow...I don't know how practical or effective it would be, but it would certainly be a first. I like the idea. Mostly I'd just want to be there to see the look on the Linden's faces when some guy in a suit walks into their office and lays a set of demands from his clients on the table, clients who exist only in SL. Priceless!

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[info]sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:03 pm UTC (link)
*grins*

Isn't that a fun image? I've been picturing Richard Gere from "Chicago" ever since... :)

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[info]argent_bury
2007-09-19 08:36 pm UTC (link)
I know this isn't the humor thread...but I couldn't resist...

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[info]sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:38 pm UTC (link)
OH! MY! GODS!

*dies laughing*

You and Gala are both perfect pricelessness today!

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[info]argent_bury
2007-09-19 08:48 pm UTC (link)
You and Gala are both perfect pricelessness today

I'm glad we're doing our jobs. Gala is acting as the voice of reason, and I'm just trying to tickle your funnybone and distract you from the latest world-shaking crisis. ;D

Love,
Argent

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[info]centrasian_wise
2007-09-19 07:27 pm UTC (link)
I find the very fact of Gaya recruiting such a top-notch economist as Boskin quite remarkable (and thank you for sharing the link with us - I keep forgetting to ask *how* do you manage to get these high-qual (or high-IQual) links so rapidly?

However, I found the text itself is not *so* rich (partly because they don't ask right questions. No doubt, he talks sense, lot of it.. but I assume we want *more*, and deeper things.

I like his idea of 'time-investment', and I don't like this narrowing 'economy' to only 'goods & services'. Sure, sure, he says that there are more things happening there than just economy, but he somehow keeps the 'economy' separate from all that. 'Networking' is as economy as 'selling goods' (consider reputation as a new currency) ; playful RP-ing is as economy as health-care or education (and will succeed them, because of its *huge* transofrmative power.

But all these 'new things' require somehow slightly different mindset; but let's hope it will evolve in due course of his work with Gaya, and best luck to him of course.

====

Btw, I am somehow not quite sure if you 'counted me' in your team, so I can't really comment on 'why don't *you* hire etc' Having *you* changed to *we* in the previous sentence, *I* would consider hiring not an economist, but a 'practitioner in a complexity theory field'...

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[info]sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:10 pm UTC (link)
Good points! I think my standards for outside-expert commentary are so low, I'm surprised someone of his background could say anything coherent, let alone have a *pretty good* sense of what's going on.

A practitioner in a complexity theory field? Explain? :)

I confess, the image I've had is of some well-connected San Francisco lawyer-politician willing to work for the media exposure - and, as I told Argent above, I've been picturing Richard Gere in "Chicago," and have "Give 'Em The Old Razzle-Dazzle" stuck in my head.... :P

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[info]centrasian_wise
2007-09-19 08:32 pm UTC (link)
Good points!

Ah, there was such a chance to (timely) through one or two *specific* criticisms :))

Explain?

Well, for example in this paper they talk about the 'sixth sense' (or networks) emerging in all us, *digital people*. I guess, we are sensing that, as well as many other related phenomena - like the a wild, turbulent, chaotic dynamics of these worlds, somehow magically transforming, self-organizing into new patterns and modes - of thinking, of doing, of living.

*Some* of these things are being explored in the area I described as 'complexity theory' (to be understood here veeery broadly). But theorizing is not enough already, and we need somewhat a more practical take (that's why the word 'practitioner' poped up).

Feeling helplessly dumb, I can only through the metaphor of psychology vs psychotherapy: we sense the emergence of new creatures, with new psychos, but we need not so much -logists, but -therapist, or better even psycho-technicians, psycho-trans-formers.

===
This, of course, does not exclude the great benefits that a well-connected, CA-based schmooze can bring; quite the opposite, in fact.


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[info]sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-19 08:36 pm UTC (link)
*timely placeholder*

I promise reasonably intelligent and specific commentary, um, Real Soon. :)

After processing 20-some posts on each of my and dandellion's blogs today, all in stolen time... I'm shot. No brains left today. Maybe brains tomorrow. :)

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[info]centrasian_wise
2007-09-19 08:40 pm UTC (link)
A timely quote from the well-known
guru of the virtual worlds:

Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today!

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Economics
(Anonymous)
2007-09-21 05:14 pm UTC (link)
When I was a child -- do I remember? I sat with my teacher on the grass. I heard a bluejay squawk. There was a book I was reading, and it was delicious.

"I am ugly, but I can buy the most beautiful woman. Which means to say that I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness, its repelling power, is destroyed by money. As an individual, I am lame, but money procurs me 24 legs. Consequently, I am not lame. I am a wicked, dishonest, unscrupulous and stupid individual, but money is respected, and so also is its owner. Money is the highest good, and consequently its owner is also good. Moreover, money spares me the trouble of being dishonest, and I am therefore presumed to be honest. I am mindless, but if money is the true mind of all things, how can its owner be mindless? What is more, he can buy clever people for himself, and is not he who has power over clever people cleverer than them? Through money, I can have anything the human heart desires. Do I not possess all human abilities? Does not money therefore transform all my incapacities into their opposite?"

Love,

Esteban
http://mygdala.com/category/esteban/

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Re: Economics
[info]sophrosyne_sl
2007-09-21 05:39 pm UTC (link)
... and thus it follows:

- beauty without money is ugliness
- grace without money is lame
- honesty without money is crooked
- wisdom without money is folly

Look around at the truth of Esteban's words....

Galatea would say, "it's not that bad."
I would say, and I think dandellion would to, "I'm afraid it's that bad, and we should prepare to fight on the terms they set us."
London, Natsumi, and Anony would say, "It's at least that bad, and we must fight twice as hard."

I think Esteban is saying, "Their terms are the chitterings of a bluejay on a lovely fall day. We are beautiful, graceful, honest and wise, and always have been."

*bows to Esteban*

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