One of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto provides his selection of thoughts and research from primary and secondary sources on the developing influence of mobile network technology upon society. He speculates about the emergence of self-organized mobile communication networks that may disrupt established economic and political structures. This work from the Howard Dean Reading List is thought provoking and readable, pointing the reader to some seminal original work as well as Rheingold's own predictions. Howard Rheingold, Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (2002). See also the book summary and bibliography at the Smart Mobs website and current information and views on the Smart Mobs Weblog.
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"Technologies of Cooperation"
One area of research mentioned is that into the evolution of cooperation among humans. Studies found that cooperation is most likely to emerge within small groups that interact repeatedly; the ability of the players to monitor behavior leads to the development of reputations and peer sanctions upon uncooperative players. The cumulative selection of cooperative behavior results into it being "hard wired" into our evolutionary makeup, according to one theory of the evolution of social behavior. For further study of the role of cumulative selection in evolutionary theory, Rheingold refers us to the works of Oxford zoologist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins, known for The Selfish Gene (1990) and The Blind Watchmaker (1986 - reissued 1996) (also on the Howard Dean Reading List).
Another reference is to game theory experiments with playing the "Prisoners' Dilemma" repeatedly with the same people. Researchers dubbed the consistently most successful strategy "Tit for Tat": start out cooperating and thereafter do whatever the other player did on the last round (cheat if he had cheated, or if he cooperated, be forgiving and cooperate until he cheated again). Repeated over time, this strategy tended to increase the total incidence of cooperation, thereby optimizing the net outcome for the players as a group.
He points to Robert Axelrod's book The Evolution of Cooperation (1985) for studies evidencing how this strategy can naturally propagate throughout a larger population: "Within a pool of entirely uncooperative strategies, cooperative strategies evolve from small clusters of individuals who reciprocate cooperation, even if the cooperative strategies have only a small proportion of their interactions with each other. Clusters of cooperators amass points for themselves faster than defectors can." Axelrod (1985).
Axelrod's theory, according to Rheingold, is that the early clusters of cooperators came to recognize each other and evolved into the earliest form of social organization: tribes. Rheingold finds the classic tribal characteristics of reciprocity, cooperation and respect for reputation also appear among those virtual tribes that collaborated to create the Internet and open source software like Linux.
Rheingold introduces us to Reed's Law, a corollary of Sarnoff's Law (the utility of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers) and Metcalfe's Law (the utility of an interactive network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes). David P. Reed's theory is that the value of a 'group forming network ("GFN") increases as the exponent of the number of nodes. For a readable presentation of these three laws not found in Rheingold's book, see: David P. Reed,
Context Spring 1999 Issue -- Digital Strategy: Weapon of Math Destruction and his exposition of the math and logic behind them in David P. Reed, Context Spring 1999 Issue -- Digital Strategy Supplement: Reed's Law
"Computational Nations and Swarm Supercomputers"
Rheingold views the power of peer-to-peer computing as "a human social power, not a mechanical one." and points us to the work edited by Andy Oram, Peer-to-Peer, Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technology, (2001). Rheingold notes that Napster's central server was designed so that the system would be commercially viable, but that design also made it vulnerable to targeted legal attack, while Gnutella was designed without a central server, but is challenged by problem of free riders.
"The Evolution of Reputation."
Rheingold shares with us the views of sociologist Paul Resnick, who sees that for reputation systems to function well as a reinforcer of cooperation, both transactors' identities and feedback about past interactions must be persistent, and transactors must afford reputation ratings respect when choosing potential counterparts in transactions. He points to other sociologists who found that people will be more altruistic than predicted by rational self-interest, but will also tend to penalize cheaters, even at their own expense. Combined, these elements of "reciprocal altruism" tend to improve the survival chances of those tribes that exhibit such behavior.
See Paul Resnick's "Sabbatical Musings," a weblog.
"Smart Mobs: The Power of the Mobile Many"
Rheingold points us to the work of John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, RAND Corporation scholars that focus on the emergence of decentralized, self-organized network forms of organization to maneuver, exploit and dominate established institutions. Arquilla and Ronfeldt concentrate on developing theories of "Netwar," which they define as "an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists -- ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side -- use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy and technology attuned to the information age. * * * What all have in common is that they operate in small, dispersed units that can deploy nimbly -- anywhere, anytime."
Reference: Arquilla & Ronfeldt, "Networks, Netwars and the Fight for the Future," First Monday (March 2002). See also: Steven Johnson, Emergence (2001)
"Always-On Panopticon ... or Cooperation Amplifier?"
In 1791, Jeremy Bentham introduced the concept of a prison specially designed so that guards could see all prisoners at all times, without themselves being observed. The prisoners, not knowing when they were under observation, had to assume that they were always observed, enforcing obedience with a minimum of resources expended on actual prisoner observation. Michael Foucault extended the Panopticon concept to theorize that the power derived from this asymmetric knowledge naturally imposes discipline: regularity on behavior and relationships. Rheingold poses the question whether such discipline can evolve as does cooperation.
He points to Non-Zero, The Logic of Human Destiny, in which Robert Wright proposes that new technologies create new chances for humans to engage in win-win (cooperative) transactions, and that social change results when people maneuver to attain the benefits of such transactions. He quotes Wright's observation that "new information technologies in general * * * very often decentralize power, and this fact is not graciously conceded the powers that be. Hence a certain amount of history's turbulence, including some in the current era." Ibid, p. 154.
Of the works in the Howard Dean Reading List compiled by Wired, I found Rheingold's work less substantial and more speculative than Kelly's Out of Control, but potentially more attractive to the general reader interested in the developoment of socially cooperative behavior and the potential effects of mobile communications technology on post-modern society.
Posted by dougsimpson at January 19, 2004 09:32 AM | TrackBack