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Superstruct: Wikidiploma
Nov. 12th, 2008 06:15 pmA learning game built on Wikipedia and Wikibooks.
It could be that our problems will only be solved by education. We have unprecedented access to the world’s knowledge, so how can we promote its use? Some argue that one of the biggest motivators of the human race is “Prestige Needs”. The Wikidiploma game provides public recognition for using a public knowledge repository.
A browser plugin records which pages a player has surfed to on Wikipedia and Wikibooks. Each player’s record of Wikipedia pages form a profile of their interests, within a declared plus-or-minus margin of error. The system matches them to each other for which Featured Portal on Wikipedia they seem to be the most interested in.
Then there is Question Match. The game shows you a page that your match read, which you have proven your knowledge of during a previous Question Match. It assigns you to ask that person a question about a random fact on that page, to prove that they familiarized themselves with the content. Your match is shown a page that you read, which they have previously proven their knowledge of during a previous Question Match. Your match is assigned to ask you a question about it to prove your knowledge of that page.
You are required to answer within the limit of a timer, and the plugin detects if you open up the Wikipedia page to cheat.
Players get progress bars that measure proven completion of entire Portals of Wikipedia that cover content areas.
It could be that our problems will only be solved by education. We have unprecedented access to the world’s knowledge, so how can we promote its use? Some argue that one of the biggest motivators of the human race is “Prestige Needs”. The Wikidiploma game provides public recognition for using a public knowledge repository.
A browser plugin records which pages a player has surfed to on Wikipedia and Wikibooks. Each player’s record of Wikipedia pages form a profile of their interests, within a declared plus-or-minus margin of error. The system matches them to each other for which Featured Portal on Wikipedia they seem to be the most interested in.
Then there is Question Match. The game shows you a page that your match read, which you have proven your knowledge of during a previous Question Match. It assigns you to ask that person a question about a random fact on that page, to prove that they familiarized themselves with the content. Your match is shown a page that you read, which they have previously proven their knowledge of during a previous Question Match. Your match is assigned to ask you a question about it to prove your knowledge of that page.
You are required to answer within the limit of a timer, and the plugin detects if you open up the Wikipedia page to cheat.
Players get progress bars that measure proven completion of entire Portals of Wikipedia that cover content areas.
Superstruct: Commonweal
Nov. 5th, 2008 04:46 pmWikipedia’s page on commonwealth says: “The original phrase "common-wealth" or "the common weal" comes from the old meaning of "wealth," which is "well-being". The term literally meant "common well-being". Thus commonwealth originally meant a state or nation-state governed for the common good as opposed to an authoritarian state governed for the benefit of a given class of owners... Today the term is more general and means a political community.” We should take back the earlier meaning, giving it new twenty-first century overtones.
In this paper, I’ll attempt to flesh out a concept for a new political entity with these traits:
Teams compete to improve the common well-being of the society as a whole-- the Common Weal. Teams differentiate by prioritizing different well-being factors, and by the industriousness and talent of their members.
Prediction Markets determine the laws binding on different teams by predicting what will increase their metric of the common weal. Bets on predictions are placed with points, and track Weal factors.
Citizens earn points with tasks assigned them by the Prediction Market, and spend points to purchase benefits from competing civil service agencies.
( Read more... )
In this paper, I’ll attempt to flesh out a concept for a new political entity with these traits:
Teams compete to improve the common well-being of the society as a whole-- the Common Weal. Teams differentiate by prioritizing different well-being factors, and by the industriousness and talent of their members.
Prediction Markets determine the laws binding on different teams by predicting what will increase their metric of the common weal. Bets on predictions are placed with points, and track Weal factors.
Citizens earn points with tasks assigned them by the Prediction Market, and spend points to purchase benefits from competing civil service agencies.
( Read more... )
My Superstruct Story
Nov. 3rd, 2008 03:34 pmWhat can I say about my circumstances, that might not be outdated before the knowledge can be applied? Constant change is the new normality.
I live in a modest basement flat, in someone else's home. In the suburbs. Just outside a major city. In America.
(What's that you say? ... on Earth, of course. Very cute, but the year is 2019, not 2091. I turned forty-five in June, and I do not expect to leave this planet.)
I don't know how long I'll be living there. My furniture has built-in handles. My vehicle is far too tiny to be a recreational vehicle, but its storage is ingeniously set up so I can couch-surf from whatever home it's parked near. I have a personal P.O. box. I have carried a catalog case wherever I go, for decades.
I'm eating dinner at a coffee shop. While eating, I am staring at a napkin, on which I browse for a capacious and nimble suitcase-robot that I cannot afford.
The coffee shop can afford disposable advertising-supported computer napkins, but cannot afford a good cook. Dinner is a pile of meat pieces on a soggy bun, only remotely associated to each other and attempting to escape. It occurs to me that "Small pieces, loosely joined" works better in contexts other than sandwiches. That'll teach me to order what's on special. At least the latte is good, but I could have made it at home. Or in my car.
I am a small piece, loosely joined. My card bears only my name and, instead of a company or job description, the URI to my node on the Social Graph. That's where I record my affiliations from day-to-day, week-to-week. I'd get my business cards as e-ink screens, but I think the scrolling feed is annoying on a small card. Let them wave my URI and they'll have it in their format of choice-- but now I'm rambling. It's time to give up on this sandwich. I reach for a napkin to wipe off its remains.
I live in a modest basement flat, in someone else's home. In the suburbs. Just outside a major city. In America.
(What's that you say? ... on Earth, of course. Very cute, but the year is 2019, not 2091. I turned forty-five in June, and I do not expect to leave this planet.)
I don't know how long I'll be living there. My furniture has built-in handles. My vehicle is far too tiny to be a recreational vehicle, but its storage is ingeniously set up so I can couch-surf from whatever home it's parked near. I have a personal P.O. box. I have carried a catalog case wherever I go, for decades.
I'm eating dinner at a coffee shop. While eating, I am staring at a napkin, on which I browse for a capacious and nimble suitcase-robot that I cannot afford.
The coffee shop can afford disposable advertising-supported computer napkins, but cannot afford a good cook. Dinner is a pile of meat pieces on a soggy bun, only remotely associated to each other and attempting to escape. It occurs to me that "Small pieces, loosely joined" works better in contexts other than sandwiches. That'll teach me to order what's on special. At least the latte is good, but I could have made it at home. Or in my car.
I am a small piece, loosely joined. My card bears only my name and, instead of a company or job description, the URI to my node on the Social Graph. That's where I record my affiliations from day-to-day, week-to-week. I'd get my business cards as e-ink screens, but I think the scrolling feed is annoying on a small card. Let them wave my URI and they'll have it in their format of choice-- but now I'm rambling. It's time to give up on this sandwich. I reach for a napkin to wipe off its remains.
Superstruct: Botboss
Nov. 1st, 2008 02:03 pmI am motivated by rewards, not punishment; by attainment of hopes, not avoidance of fears; by promise, not threat; by thriving, not surviving. So, it has been deeply difficult and emotional. After weeks of agonizing, I have finally contributed something to Superstruct. Here it is.
Botboss
The Botboss strategy combines Prediction Markets with near-mindless games like the Google Image Labeler. Prediction Markets give cunning, wealthy, powerful sociopaths a larger incentive to tell us the truth, than their incentive to trick us into voting and spending against our own interests. But actual work is needed. For that purpose, mindless games can be used to motivate apathetic, unqualified slackers to get off their butts and save the world, or at least stop destroying it, by entertaining them while they follow orders and measure outcomes.
Bad news, then good news.
The bad news is, no plan for saving the world can succeed without reworking the incentives of driven sociopaths and apathetic slackers. All Superthreats stem from their interactions of deceit and laziness, respectively.
The good news is that a world in which both of them are productive, through ignoble means such as gambling and goofing off, would be a much more attractive world to live in than a world of miserable self-sacrifice!
Part 1 of 3: Prediction Market
( Read more... )
Part 2 of 3: Doing the Actual Work and Measurement
( Read more... )
Part 3 of 3: Issues
( Read more... )
Botboss
The Botboss strategy combines Prediction Markets with near-mindless games like the Google Image Labeler. Prediction Markets give cunning, wealthy, powerful sociopaths a larger incentive to tell us the truth, than their incentive to trick us into voting and spending against our own interests. But actual work is needed. For that purpose, mindless games can be used to motivate apathetic, unqualified slackers to get off their butts and save the world, or at least stop destroying it, by entertaining them while they follow orders and measure outcomes.
Bad news, then good news.
The bad news is, no plan for saving the world can succeed without reworking the incentives of driven sociopaths and apathetic slackers. All Superthreats stem from their interactions of deceit and laziness, respectively.
The good news is that a world in which both of them are productive, through ignoble means such as gambling and goofing off, would be a much more attractive world to live in than a world of miserable self-sacrifice!
Part 1 of 3: Prediction Market
( Read more... )
Part 2 of 3: Doing the Actual Work and Measurement
( Read more... )
Part 3 of 3: Issues
( Read more... )
