Re: Dynamist Rules (Thoughts on Improving Our Community)

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Jun 18 1999 - 08:33:06 MDT


Terry Donaghe <tdonaghe@yahoo.com> writes:

> Here are Virginia Postrel's suggestions for forming rules for Dynamic
> Societies. These are from her book, "The Future and It's Enemies."
> BTW, it's an excellent book, and one that I think all Extropians could
> profit from.

Interesting. Compare this to Kevin Kelly's "Nine Laws of God" for
creating complex systems (in _Out of Control_,
http://www.well.com/user/kk/OutOfControl/ch24-a.html)

      Distribute being
      Control from the bottom up
      Cultivate increasing returns
      Grow by chunking
      Maximize the fringes
      Honor your errors
      Pursue no optima; have multiple goals
      Seek persistent disequilibrium
      Change changes itself.

Postrel's 1 seems to correspond to Control from the bottom up,
Postrel's 2 seems to correspond to Grow by chunking.
Postrel's 3 seems to correspond to Cultivate increasing returns
Postrel's 4 seems to correspond to Maximize the fringes
Postrel's 5 seems to correspond to Distribute being and a bit of chunking

Just a rough comparision, I don't have the time to be more careful.

> She suggests that Dynamist Rules:
>
> 1. Allow individuals (including groups of individuals) to act on their
> own knowledge.
>
> 2. Apply to simple, generic units and allow them to combine in many
> different ways.
>
> 3. Permit credible, understandable, enduring, and enforceable
> commitments.
>
> 4. Protect criticism, competition, and feedback.
>
> 5. Establish a framework within which people can create nested,
> competing frameworks of more specific rules.
>

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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