27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
Social Class in Online Gaming
...in the “freemium” economy, one’s expendable income really does determine whether one can join certain “Clash” clans, because many only accept members who have advanced to a level that can only be achieved through the in-app purchase of “gems.” On Twitch, income divides social communities into haves and have-nots who must constantly hustle for the former’s patronage. And in an AI-driven setting – as on social media – one can never be too sure where the fun stops and the ...Folksonomies: gaming economics game economics
Folksonomies: gaming economics game economics
1 
notes
notesWe see this in collectible card and dice games as well.
30 MAY 2016 by ideonexus
Rebuking the "Good Old Days"
When you hear someone longing for the "good old days," take it with a grain of salt. (Laughter and applause.) Take it with a grain of salt. We live in a great nation and we are rightly proud of our history. We are beneficiaries of the labor and the grit and the courage of generations who came before. But I guess it's part of human nature, especially in times of change and uncertainty, to want to look backwards and long for some imaginary past when everything worked, and the economy humme... 1 notes
notes12 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Spelling is an Invention, and May be Modified
Spelling was invented by man and, like other human
inventions, is capable of development and improve-
ment by man in the direction of simplicity, economy,
and efficiency. Its true function is to represent as
accurately as possible by means of simbols (letters)
the sounds of the spoken (i. e. the living) language,
and thus incidentally to record its history. Its prov-
ince is not, as is often mistakenly supposed, to indicate
the derivations of words from sources that ar in-
accessible...
1 Note the intentional use of simplified spelling in the text.
19 DEC 2014 by ideonexus
How the Finance Industry Hurts the Economy
In perhaps the starkest illustration, economists from Harvard University and the University of Chicago wrote in a recent paper that every dollar a worker earns in a research field spills over to make the economy $5 better off. Every dollar a similar worker earns in finance comes with a drain, making the economy 60 cents worse off.
[...]
...the growth of complex financial products has served primarily to boost income for the firms themselves, Philippon said. A new paper from researchers in t... 1 notes
notes21 OCT 2014 by ideonexus
Future Troubadour
The minister sighs abruptly. "You are very unusual. You earn no money, do you? But you are rich, because grateful people who have benefited from your work give you everything you need. You are like a medieval troubadour who has found favor with the aristocracy. Your labor is not alienated – it is given freely, and your means of production is with you always, inside your head." Manfred blinks; the jargon is weirdly technical-sounding but orthogonal to his experience, offering him a disquieti... 1 notes
notes08 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Economics Uses Magical Language
A common feature in systems of magic is animism — attributing to inanimate objects the functions of life, assuming things to possess will, purpose, and power.
It is significant (though quite in keeping) that "Economists" and "Financiers" have this characteristic at- titude of mind towards, and employ animistic forms of expression in writing and talking about "Money" and "Capital."
Whether this is due to unconscious belief in magic or is mere metaphor, the result, in either case, is befo...It's use of animism in describing the economy is suspect, but the same metaphors are used in real science as well.
08 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
New Money is Created with Promises
Ordinary people can help create new money by making promises. You constrain the future by making a plan, and a promise to keep to it. Money is created in response, because in making that promise you have created value. New money is created to represent that value. This is why it is possible for banks to fall apart when people don’t pay their mortgages back. Banks sell assets that are partially made of the future intents of borrowers. When borrowers do something other than promised, those as... 1 notes
notesPromises of the future grow the economy and create new wealth, making the economy an expanding universe.
14 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
Prediction Errors for the Information Age
Perhaps the best way to describe the flawed vision of fin de siecle futurists is to say that, with few exceptions, they expected the coming of an ''immaculate'' economy -- one in which people would be largely emancipated from any grubby involvement with the physical world. The future, everyone insisted, would bring an ''information economy'' that would mainly produce intangibles. The good jobs would go to ''symbolic analysts,'' who would push icons around on computer screens; knowledge, rathe...Economists misunderstood the value of information and material goods in the information revolutions.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Richer is Greener
Overpopulation is a problem we can handle most effectively by targeting foreign aid and encouragement for emerging democracies wi± a stable rule of law and growing economies. Poverty and population explosions are highly correlated. We have learned much in the past four decades about the relationship between increased wealth and decreased family size and about the many ways we can reduce our environmental impact. As the "green" economist John Baden has argued, as people become better educated...Folksonomies: environmentalism
Folksonomies: environmentalism
1 notes
notesThe higher a society's quality of life, the more environmentally conscious they become.
04 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Workers Are Being Perpetually Displaced by Technology
The third explanation for America’s current job creation problems flips the stagnation argument on its head, seeing not too little recent technological progress, but instead too much. We’ll call this the “end of work” argument, after Jeremy Rifkin’s 1995 book of the same title. In it, Rifkin laid out a bold and disturbing hypothesis: that “we are entering a new phase in world history—one in which fewer and fewer workers will be needed to produce the goods and services for the gl... 1 notes
notesWe are innovating ourselves out of jobs for everyday people.
