Towards A Braver New World

Adam Smith's invisible hand seems much better than centralized planning at producing material goods.  Is there reason to suppose that wikis allowing debits and credits could be more effective in markets for professional knowledge?  This is not to suggest that information now available for free should become costly but rather that people with valuable knowledge might be better motivated to learn and earn a living from a global knowledge trust. 

Of course such a global mind will have to be both open and amenable to correction like Wikipedia, but it must also give credit where credit is due and facilitate resolution of disputes with logic and even simple statistics such as the velocity of approval.  Using options on outcomes, one could then make money by correcting factual and logical errors, and misinterpretations due to poor writing and faulty translation. This will lead to conversational machines that maintain truth and exhibit wisdom.  With these and also robots under human control, there will be the potential for much greater hell on Earth.  Or heaven.  Imagine the freedom from drudgery, and the bling.

The age of truly conversational machines will be preceded by social decision making systems that are open to input from all sides, and make resolutions primarily based on merit.  They will be integrated into all organizations.  This will give rise to executives who promise to never make decisions but entertain, inform and engage.  Of course, they will still have make decisions regarding threats to security but the more that corporations and citizens of all nations choose open and principled lives, the less such burdens and the faster humanity's advancement.

Could a US presidential candidate run on such a platform in 2008?  No.  But he should be able to run by the 2020's. 

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Thanks to Bryan Thompson for teaching me about truth maintenance machines.