Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere and Exchange Stylistics
Discussion of the relationship between Eric S. Raymond's Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere and Yukito Emaya's [interchange format
from Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere
Most methods of organization that humans have are adaptive behaviors to scarcity and desire. Each method has a separate means of acquiring social status.
Means of obtaining social status.
The easiest way is the command hierarchy... The distribution of scarce goods is done by a central authority, backed up by a military force... Social status is determined primarily by the ability to access extortion power.
This is [interchange format B
Our society is solely an exchange economy... The distribution of scarce goods is de-centered by exchange and voluntary cooperation... Social status is determined primarily by the control of things (not necessarily material things).
This is exchange form C.
... There is a third model that is quite different from both of these and is not widely recognized except by anthropologists. This is the culture of giving.
Giving culture is an adaptation to excess, not scarcity... Social status is not determined by what a person controls, but by what he or she gives away.
Original English: Gift cultures are adaptations not to scarcity but to abundance. ... In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control but by what you give away.
Related: Wealth is not how much you have, but how much you can give (Larry Wall)
Would this be exchange form A?
Strongly related to exchange style A in terms of gift culture
But to equate this with Exchange Form A seems like a low resolution representation.
It is important to point out that "adaptation to excess, not scarcity" is the key.
In the era when exchange style A was born, exchange was the exchange of tangible objects.
Technological advances have created [digital goods
Digital goods are cheap replication cost, so they become excessive as soon as they are created
Progress from the invention of letterpress to the invention of the Internet has lowered the cost of reproducing and transporting the written word.
First, this generated a community of knowledge exchange called academia.
Knowledge exchange is another kind of exchange
Reproducible nature is similar to digital goods
These are the birth of New Exchange Style.
I have reservations about whether to call this an exchange form D, because there is no clarity regarding the boundary between A and D.
It seems that Yukito Emaya sees more meaning in the exchange style D, so he puts together a big concept in a small way.
Personally, I don't believe that the wide variety of exchange activities should fit into the four classification frameworks A-D.
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