11.5 The Secrets of Self-Organization
233
Besides negative compliance mechanisms such as peer punishment, money is
an important reward mechanism in our society, but not the only one. Indeed, social
reward mechanisms can be even more effective than money. The weakness of today’s
financial system is that money is de facto one-dimensional. In future, we will need a
more diverse, multi-dimensional incentive and exchange system to manage complex
dynamical systems. These can now be created, because the virtual world offers
novel ways to create incentive mechanisms. Rating and reputation systems are good
examples.
Finally, self-organization requires suitable sets of rules to work well. But how
to foster self-organization and the emergence of societally beneficial interaction
rules? Over time, top-down regulation has produced over-regulation and inequality.
21
A self-organization approach, in contrast, may overcome such problems (at least
to some extent), as it aims at maximizing opportunities rather than hampering
them through standardization and unsatisfactory compromises (see Appendix 11.2).
Proper self-rule achieves the goals set while fostering socio-economic diversity,
innovation, happiness and the resilience of the overall system. Local experimentation supports socio-economic and cultural evolution. However, favorable selforganization requires an active endeavor to find and implement suitable sets of rules.
This is not trivial and its importance should not be underestimated.
11.6 Cultures as Collections of Invisible Success Principles
In the past, humans haven’t been very good at identifying suitable interaction
rules, which has impeded self-organized and decentralized governance approaches.
Fortunately, recently developed tools can help us to identify suitable institutional
settings and interaction rules (“rules of the game”) that can produce favorable selforganization. For example, one can perform experiments more easily than ever before.
In fact, we can test out different permutations and combinations of various new rules
in advance with the aid of computer simulations, lab or web experiments, interactive multi-player online games, or Virtual Worlds.
22 We can also try to identify
the hidden mechanisms on which the cultures of the world are based. These cultural
mechanisms, in fact, are highly important for the success of well-functioning societies
and their resilience to disruptions. Surprisingly, most of these success principles are
not explicitly known, but are “internalized” subconsciously while we grow up. This
situation may be compared with the time when we didn’t have alphabets to express
our knowledge in writing. However, if we managed to explicate and formalize the
success principles of the world’s cultures, we could combine them in entirely new
21 The issue is that each new rule implies costs to adjust, but these are very uneven. For some, the
costs are lower than average and they benefit from the new rule. In the case of many rules, however,
only a few players benefit while others are placed at a relative disadvantage. As a consequence,
overregulation implies a large degree of inequality.
22 Helbing and Yu [4].
233
Besides negative compliance mechanisms such as peer punishment, money is
an important reward mechanism in our society, but not the only one. Indeed, social
reward mechanisms can be even more effective than money. The weakness of today’s
financial system is that money is de facto one-dimensional. In future, we will need a
more diverse, multi-dimensional incentive and exchange system to manage complex
dynamical systems. These can now be created, because the virtual world offers
novel ways to create incentive mechanisms. Rating and reputation systems are good
examples.
Finally, self-organization requires suitable sets of rules to work well. But how
to foster self-organization and the emergence of societally beneficial interaction
rules? Over time, top-down regulation has produced over-regulation and inequality.
21
A self-organization approach, in contrast, may overcome such problems (at least
to some extent), as it aims at maximizing opportunities rather than hampering
them through standardization and unsatisfactory compromises (see Appendix 11.2).
Proper self-rule achieves the goals set while fostering socio-economic diversity,
innovation, happiness and the resilience of the overall system. Local experimentation supports socio-economic and cultural evolution. However, favorable selforganization requires an active endeavor to find and implement suitable sets of rules.
This is not trivial and its importance should not be underestimated.
11.6 Cultures as Collections of Invisible Success Principles
In the past, humans haven’t been very good at identifying suitable interaction
rules, which has impeded self-organized and decentralized governance approaches.
Fortunately, recently developed tools can help us to identify suitable institutional
settings and interaction rules (“rules of the game”) that can produce favorable selforganization. For example, one can perform experiments more easily than ever before.
In fact, we can test out different permutations and combinations of various new rules
in advance with the aid of computer simulations, lab or web experiments, interactive multi-player online games, or Virtual Worlds.
22 We can also try to identify
the hidden mechanisms on which the cultures of the world are based. These cultural
mechanisms, in fact, are highly important for the success of well-functioning societies
and their resilience to disruptions. Surprisingly, most of these success principles are
not explicitly known, but are “internalized” subconsciously while we grow up. This
situation may be compared with the time when we didn’t have alphabets to express
our knowledge in writing. However, if we managed to explicate and formalize the
success principles of the world’s cultures, we could combine them in entirely new
21 The issue is that each new rule implies costs to adjust, but these are very uneven. For some, the
costs are lower than average and they benefit from the new rule. In the case of many rules, however,
only a few players benefit while others are placed at a relative disadvantage. As a consequence,
overregulation implies a large degree of inequality.
22 Helbing and Yu [4].