[p2p-research] Project Cybersyn

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Do you think you could explain, to non-mathematicians, where this continuum
> starts and end? So when peer production, when market, when both and in what
> proportions?


The continuum starts at one individual, the variability is in where it
makes sense to switch modes, and even then it is context dependent.
That said, you can make some good guesses for an average case based on
sociological literature.  What constitutes a "population" is also
somewhat context dependent.

Most people I know of that are familiar with this assume that
something like Dunbar's number (100-230 individuals) is a fairly
strong approximation of the threshold value arrived at by evolutionary
processes under most real-world parameters.  With the strong
application of information technology, you might be able to extend
that to 1000 individuals. There is quite a bit of academic evidence
that there is an interesting threshold for decision processes for
populations in this range even without considering algorithmic
information theory arguments.


Even assuming everyone has identical intelligence and making certain
distributions simple to simplify the math, it is essentially
noncomputable in its pure form though you can approximate it in
theory. Even though the precise cut-off point is highly context
dependent, it does not move as much as you might expect because there
is a log relationship. I do not think anyone has ever tried to
directly compute it and I am not aware of a practical solution for a
typical case because the system of equations is too complex and it is
too hard to measure the parameters in a specific case. It is an
interesting mathematical result preceded by sociological literature
that suggests values under common real-world parameters.


-- 
J. Andrew Rogers
realityminer.blogspot.com