Examples of Memetic Propagation

Memetic Propagation in a sample Neighbourhood: Economikit

Assume the example of a neighbourhood, such as Economikit.

- Economikit is a collective of a few hundred members. There is high priority given to 'quality conversations' i.e. the highest rated individuals receive the voices most often.

- Economikit validates contributions in the form of comments/articles/blogs from its members through '[likes]()'. The overall ranking of community members is derived by weighting the number of likes by the existing rank of he member that offered the like (*maybe even the number of contributions in a given period*); and later applying an exponential distribution curve

- The exponential distribution curve allows Economikit governance to specifically control what percentage of members occupy the top percentiles of the community.

- The ranks define the order in which members articles/comments show up in feeds, which members receive invitations to be part of the governance and shape the direction of Economikit, and even other benefits (monetary, more access to tools in the community etc.).

- When a new member joins the collective, they are invited to contribute to the collective. As they contribute to the network, existing members validate their work through 'likes'. Through the weighting of likes with existing ranks, the collective ensures that contributions that resonate most with the specified objectives of Economikit find themselves amplified the most.

In other words, Members that resonate closest with Economikit culture, are rewarded with the highest ranks

- By articulating the culture so specifically, Economikit creates a formal system for amplifying voices. This ensures anyone can join the network without the need for 'vouches' (which can be very monolithic moat-like systems).

The Benefits of Memetic Mediation

Let's assume a scenario where Economikit has grown to a collective of a few hundred members, and is confident of its articulated culture serving its purpose.

They now have the option of building Memetic Bridges to a few allied collectives, who share similar objectives. Here are examples of what is possible with a combination of Memetic Bridging and Propagation

1. Broadening the pool of members

Assume there is a related collective called Ecoi-kittens that have similar conversations about economic tool-kits. Some members of Economikit have also been active in Eco-Kittens.

Steps Involved:

- Establish a bridge with Kittens.

- Ask members if they have any existing presence with kittens. If so, they may port their reputation data from Kittens to Economikit.

- Kittens also uses likes to validate members (Other metrics like claps/upvotes etc. would need to be translated into Economikit language)

- When members from Kittens enter, their existing likes are converted, but weighted by existing ranks within Economikit. So if a member received 1000 likes within kittens, but from Non-Economikit members, it doesn't count as much as someone receiving 100 likes from high ranked Economikit members.

- The Adjoining chart showcases how a broader number of members can be invited while ensuring culture isn’t diluted.

- The bridge also introduces a dependency on Kittens. Kittens may choose to reciprocate, but either way, the bridge could be considered a collaborative feedback loop between the two collectives. These loops are critical in developing mutually beneficial patterns between communities. We will later explore how this loop can also unlock monetary transactions for either.

A new member enters the Economikit community with a relatively high rank from day 1.

2. Adding new flavours to the culture

Assume the leadership of Economikit feel the need to be grounded in more VF-style values, by amplifying VF conversations more.

Economikit introduces a bridge from VF, with a 0.3x weightage from their community.

An Economikit member, who also possesses a high VF rating receives a ‘bump-up’ in their EK rating due to the import

3. Bridging done wrong

Economikit decides to bridge from a community that doesn’t share the same values. Perhaps it’s a ‘sensationalist community’ that values high-frequency, low quality content on a twitter-like platform. Economikit still weights all likes with the rank of who voted, but because it's a sensationalist platform, their own members vote quite recklessly. This results in a dilution of their own culture.

A member from the Sensationalist collective receives a high rating in the EK community (Bridging gone wrong)

4. Forking Economikit-Asia out of Economikit

An existing Economikit member loves the community, and it’s culture, but decides to introduce a ‘fork’. They create a related community that is dedicated to Economikit conversations in the Asian context.

EK-Asia has the same reputation architecture and governance structure. However, their discussions center around projects and systems in South-Asia. They invite existing Economikit members to participate in their collective, and can place at stake reputation from the original collective. Economikit may choose to reciprocate by importing Economikit-Asia reputation data to set up a bi-directional bridge.

The use of reputational rewards while forking is an interesting way in which new cultures can be spawned off without existing members having to make a trade-off. Technically, a member could contribute to either collective, and continue to receive recognition without being excluded.

<Chart Not included: similar to #1>

5. Constructing complex cultures:

Economikit members wish to meet each other for conversations over coffee with members in the same locality. Economikit constructs a complex reputation, to suggest what they think would be a ‘good person to catch up with’. They construct a complex culture by importing reputation data from ValueFlows, Couch-surfing and Hypergroove Seedshare as indicators.

6. Safety Ratings for members

Economikit attempts to generate a safety rating for offline interactions, but through an alternative approach i.e. through the use of ‘safety flags’. (Trying to capture negative behaviour)

Different communities maintain a ‘safety flag’ that is triggered every time an inappropriate incident about a member is reported. A reputation flag is generated through an 'Or' function, with a minimum of 'n' other contexts involved. In other words, Economikit chooses to import the safety flag from a number of other communities.

Comments: This approach can be gamed (a user can refuse to port safety flags from communities where they have inappropriate incidents reported. Building a metric as a 'good person to catch up with’ is more relevant than a ‘safety rating’ in the distributed economy. (at least in the initial days).

In distributed environments, it’s easier to gauge behaviour from what an individual ‘voluntarily shares about some contexts' as opposed to trying to force them to share ‘what they did in all contexts’.

A Safety flag when triggered in one context, ripples into other contexts as well.

7. Input to other complex cultures:

Economikit plugging into a gaming-design collective

(Ratings plug into a complex pool of reputations)

8. Monetary benefits:

H-REA kicks in for things like barter, couch-surfing transactions, supply chain, sharing of resources etc.

9. P2P Lending

More likes and ranking means more monetary generation ability (depends on whether economikit has monetary footprint)