NFTs have garnered massive global media attention recently, and I believe justifiably so. Are NFTs in a speculative price bubble, in some respects and corners of the market? Absolutely so. But is everything that gets caught up in speculative price bubbles intrinsically meaningless BS? Certainly not – Internet stock prices in the dot-com boom being the classical counterexample.
I really enjoyed this post, having been considering these issues recently myself. I just wanted to post a few relevant links, which you may already be familiar with. They come from the IMF, a Deputy Director, Andrew Berg, primarily. He is an applied mathematician and macroeconomist who has modeled the automation scenario extensively. The papers are:
His outlook is not necessarily grim, but it's not as rosy as yours either.
"NFTs highlight and exploit the extent to which economic value is based on symbols assigned social meaning within social networks, rather than to practical or even aesthetic value of the substantive referents of the symbols."
Some are actually pretty good art, in my opinion, albeit well overpriced! I would get in on it, but it's impossible for me to engage in this type of Gamification; my Quora answers rarely top 100 views!
"One question in this regard is whether the same mechanisms underlying NFTS – tokenization, decentralized networks and so forth – can be differently leveraged toward the end of human and transhuman consciousness expansion."
I don't know about that, but Virtual Reality is already being exploited to develop empathy, although the empathy generated is not equivalent to that generated by, say, meditational experiences; see, for instance, Virtual Reality Improves Emotional but not Cognitive Empathy: A Meta-analysis (https://tmb.apaopen.org/pub/vr-improves-emotional-empathy-only/release/2?readingCollection=545bdd55). You may recall that I told you in an email a long time ago my idea about Ritual Reality and that's where I see benefits from Virtual Reality. I've engaged with some Vajrayana Buddhists on this, suggesting the very complex visualizations utilized in deity yoga be rendered in VR, just to facilitate one's ability to generate these visualizations at will. They normally use artworks, thangkas and such; I'm simply suggesting VR could be more time-efficient.
Ben, you wrote, "(One thing we’re aiming to do with Jam Galaxy is use well designed tokenomics to subvert this a bit, creating a novel variation of music ecosystem economy that incentivizes creation and discovery of innovative new music.)" I'm interested in how, specifically, Jam Galaxy will incentivize creation (eg where does the money come from & how much does the artist get) and assist in the "discovery" of new music. (I put "discovery" in quotes because all music is already discovered by someone, and what is needed is not discovery, but personalized recommendations.)
I read the only web page google could find me about Jam Galaxy, and it said nothing about any of these things. I'm not gonna watch a video or read a twitter stream, but if you have something written somewhere about the *mechanisms*, I'd be interested. I think there are a lot of obvious mechanisms for doing these things which have never been used--basic obvious stuff like building recommenders using information theory and linear models, micropayments, and sharing ad revenue with creators and recommenders--and the reasons for not using them aren't obvious to me.
Good one, Ben. We should catch up. I like your thinking here.
Hey Ben,
I really enjoyed this post, having been considering these issues recently myself. I just wanted to post a few relevant links, which you may already be familiar with. They come from the IMF, a Deputy Director, Andrew Berg, primarily. He is an applied mathematician and macroeconomist who has modeled the automation scenario extensively. The papers are:
Robots, Growth, and Inequality (2016): https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/09/berg.htm
Should we fear the robot revolution? (the correct answer is yes) (2018): https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2018/05/21/Should-We-Fear-the-Robot-Revolution-The-Correct-Answer-is-Yes-44923
For the Benefit of All: Fiscal Policies and Equity - Efficiency Tradeoffs in the Age of Automation (2021): https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/187/001.2021.issue-187-en.xml
His outlook is not necessarily grim, but it's not as rosy as yours either.
"NFTs highlight and exploit the extent to which economic value is based on symbols assigned social meaning within social networks, rather than to practical or even aesthetic value of the substantive referents of the symbols."
Some are actually pretty good art, in my opinion, albeit well overpriced! I would get in on it, but it's impossible for me to engage in this type of Gamification; my Quora answers rarely top 100 views!
"One question in this regard is whether the same mechanisms underlying NFTS – tokenization, decentralized networks and so forth – can be differently leveraged toward the end of human and transhuman consciousness expansion."
I don't know about that, but Virtual Reality is already being exploited to develop empathy, although the empathy generated is not equivalent to that generated by, say, meditational experiences; see, for instance, Virtual Reality Improves Emotional but not Cognitive Empathy: A Meta-analysis (https://tmb.apaopen.org/pub/vr-improves-emotional-empathy-only/release/2?readingCollection=545bdd55). You may recall that I told you in an email a long time ago my idea about Ritual Reality and that's where I see benefits from Virtual Reality. I've engaged with some Vajrayana Buddhists on this, suggesting the very complex visualizations utilized in deity yoga be rendered in VR, just to facilitate one's ability to generate these visualizations at will. They normally use artworks, thangkas and such; I'm simply suggesting VR could be more time-efficient.
Anyway, nice post, thanks!
Ben, you wrote, "(One thing we’re aiming to do with Jam Galaxy is use well designed tokenomics to subvert this a bit, creating a novel variation of music ecosystem economy that incentivizes creation and discovery of innovative new music.)" I'm interested in how, specifically, Jam Galaxy will incentivize creation (eg where does the money come from & how much does the artist get) and assist in the "discovery" of new music. (I put "discovery" in quotes because all music is already discovered by someone, and what is needed is not discovery, but personalized recommendations.)
I read the only web page google could find me about Jam Galaxy, and it said nothing about any of these things. I'm not gonna watch a video or read a twitter stream, but if you have something written somewhere about the *mechanisms*, I'd be interested. I think there are a lot of obvious mechanisms for doing these things which have never been used--basic obvious stuff like building recommenders using information theory and linear models, micropayments, and sharing ad revenue with creators and recommenders--and the reasons for not using them aren't obvious to me.