Engineering Generosity
Collection to inspire the book
Engineering Generosity
Over time, plenitude is a process in which more and more goods and services are provided to more and more people, as technologies advance and costs come down to grant new free ‘indulgences’ every year.
noemamag.com • Will AI Bring Plentitude or Further Imperil the Planet? | NOEMA
I love this idea
While computing power grows in exponential leaps, the pace of transition to a green economy that would cleanly fuel that growth lags far behind.
noemamag.com • Will AI Bring Plentitude or Further Imperil the Planet? | NOEMA
Incentive structures don’t map to ultimate high-value results
In a gift economy, wealth is understood as having enough to share, and the practice for dealing with abundance is to give it away. In fact, status is determined not by how much one accumulates, but by how much one gives away. The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles
... See moreRobin Wall Kimmerer • The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance – Robin Wall Kimmerer
Ultimately, the non-transactional thing works on the basis of trust. You have to have trust first, before you can get that virtuous cycle going, because you have to start by giving and not knowing what you'll get back. It's something like an abundance mindset, trust in the community. But at the same time, if you give and you don't get meaningful... See more
Divya Siddarth • Building Capacity for Exit to Community
Trust
What is the value of work in a world on the cusp of automation, and how will humans redefine their relationship with it?
Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report
Work isn’t valuable. People are. People can set a value on the work that is done, therefore, they are the most valuable piece of the equation. Work for the sake of work has no value.
Each technology not only unlocks a new state of expanded acceleration (that will be hardcoded into our lives as the new basis for our survival), but will also be used as the basis for new technologies to continue that process. The vast majority of people do not experience this technology as ‘liberating’ them. Rather, they experience it as something... See more
Our Centaur Future - A RADAR Report
Because we don’t think about valuing the work to be done in the future, only the work to be done now, we don’t give people space to explore what the future holds. Instead, we stress people out by giving them vague possibilities of an uncertain future with no time to explore them. By giving people the time, space, and freedom to explore what the future might hold, they will find abundant futures that are bright and exciting. Those are the futures they will work to actively create.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.
Kevin Kelly • 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice
None of us are saints, but we can all try to be better. Each time you do something generous, you're shaping yourself into someone who's more likely to be generous next time, and that matters.
Ted Chiang • Exhalation: Stories
Generosity is self-perpetuating
The principle here is reciprocity, but notice that it is not simultaneous. Unlike the notion of barter, time is allowed to elapse before one deed is repaid by another. Trust is required to bridge that gap. Unlike barter, the exchange is not mechanistic in that it does not place a concrete value on one deed versus another. Rather it is inherently... See more
Richard Pickering • Reciprocity as a Business Model
Time gap requires trust