I'm going to follow on from that last talk about...
they've got a bunch of money, and they're looking for projects.
I'm a project, so... :-)
It's also quite a good follow on from the one about the social web and FOAF...
because if you caught my project from yesterday, then I had this idea...
that everybody has got their own machine that's not a server that's just sending text.
You've actually got data, you're doing operations on your data.
So, then it occurred to me that...
there's one special item of data that's really, really important.
I'm not talking about who's getting invited to which parties...
who's sharing which kind of photos with whom on the social web.
I'm talking about the real stuff, OK? That's money.
If I'm paying someone 10 dollars...
you can say I'm getting a -10, he's getting a +10.
This is between us, beween people.
Currently we have this strange system where there are some 'trusted' 3rd parties...
and they are supposed to be in charge of everything.
So you don't trust sombody's word...
you trust something written with a little bank company logo.
I thought OK, can we offer an alternative system of credit that's person to person?
This is where it becomes very important to have a strong identity.
I apologise that this talk is another hour talk that's compressed into 4 minutes...
or if they're courteous, then a little more.
Now imagine you get a call. It's a friend of yours.
He's says "Can you ring me back please, it's costing me 7 Taka (=units) per minute?"
If you ring him back, it's only going to cost you 3.
Would you ring that guy back?...
It depends on all sorts of things.
The summary is, this is a new form of economics that I have created...
and it's about relationships.
Normal economics is all about what can I get, and I don't care about anyone else.
I'm saying that there is a concept called 'sympathy' and if you have that sympathy...
then you will go without, in order to prevent your friend from losing.
What this means in terms of the relationship, you give it a number.
That's the indifference value.
If you don't know "Should I call, should I not"
It you're at 0, then you never call them back.
If it's your mum and you know...
well, when she dies, you're going to get all her money anyway...
then that's 1, because you're saving your own money.
So, now we've got a friend of a friend...
Does that have a sympathy value?
Well it does, if you do the math,
it turns out that it's a product if there's only one path.
You can make these little axioms, that's what I've made.
What we're making is a social web, that's a network of relationships.
You've heard that "You get what you measure."
We're measuring altruism, how much you care about people.
What we've got here then is a not a market.
because in a market we're looking at prices.
If I go to my price comparison site,
maybe I think about do I trust these guys at all to give me the product...
(but it's only about the price, there's no sympathy)
In a network, everybody is different.
People have sympthy for who they are dealing with, and everybody's position is unique.
With money... you're used to saying "How much is it worth to me".
You express yourself in numbers.
For example, if there are two people working together...
we're hoping that they are having a good day...
they are helping each other, and they both like it.
I'm afraid this is quite a lot to talk. I'm making a criticism of (moneyed) society.
People end up doing the things that are bad for both.
Like we're taking each other to court...
Wouldn't it be easier if we just didn't bother?
Yes it would, but sombody has an idea "I can get some money off of this guy."
Money is forcing people into the lose-lose quadrant that is a sign of a sick society.
We should be in a healthy society, that's the win-win quadrant...
but due to how we score it, then there's the idea...
that we must compensate any kind of value transfer.
I was discussing this yesterday with somebody...
and he was saying that for every winner there must be a loser.
It got as far as OK, so maybe you're having sex with somebody...
and you're having a good time...
you're winning, but... you're losing your time!!
We have this idea that it's all about winners and losers...
and we can't just accept OK life is a gift,
some things you have got just because you are given them.
Because we are always competing for things.
You're selling something, you want to get a bit more money.
Does life have to be like that?
Well if we phrase things in terms of money, yes it does...
because money says "I'm only getting as much as he's losing."
So if I want to get more, then I've got to make him lose more.
You basically learn that life is about fighting...
from the time you realise that Tom is out to get Jerry.
Here is another way that we could do business.
We could just honestly say "This is how much it's worth to me."
Someone else says "This is how much it's worth to me."
If there's a wide gap, they're both saying:
"This is a really good thing. I don't want it, I'll give it to him."
There is an incentive there to be honest.
That is not about one person wins, the other one loses.
We have a cooperative mentality.
We like to cooperate, but we also have to pay the bills...
and it is the money system that forces us to compete with one another.
So another way we could do it...
and if you had a sympathy of 1 with somebody...
this is how you would score it.
This is measuring the (overall) created value.
You would be ready to pick up your friend from the station.
That costs a little of time, but it's worth a lot to them.
You wouldn't do it for a stranger perhaps, but you'd do it for your friend...
because you're seeing life through their eyes.
You're saying "I'm going to be selfish not for just me...
but for me and the people I care about."
Now it seems to me that is missing in our society.
If inter-personal transfers aren't relevant,
is this a way you can run a money system?...
No, because it does actually matter...
if you're giving up all your time to help people...
it would be nice to get something back.
So, what's the solution?
Well we've got 2 people with 2 opinions.
Let's just say they can state their own opinion...
and I don't have a right to tell somebody else what is their opinion.
What have we got...?
We've got a 2-dimensional system.
We can do mathematics, it's not so hard. The computer can do it.
If we are passing around pieces of paper or metal...
we have the zero-sum constraint.
We have to be fighting about who gets to have them.
But we're not.
Because we do computers...
so I can make a record, you can make a record.
We can have an algorithm (to receoncile them).
That's the model, that was an idea from about 5 years ago.
Then I said "How are we going to program this?"
We have some very important things that identity has to be protected...
because we're not talking only about Facebook data, this is economic data.
So let's make a network of XML virtual machines...
with a strong identity so that you know who it is who is helping you out...
and when you are crediting them for what they've done...
you're not giving it to some IP hacker.
So that's what I've been working on.
I feel I should give some more time, because I don't want to run over...
OK, I'll wrap it up with the next slide, which is the practical implementation.
This is what it will look like.
You want something done.
What do I want?
OK someone to fix my laptop, I can't fix laptops.
Then you're getting offers...
(These are people who have said "I have an ability to fix a laptop")
and requests.
Like Google, there are a lot of pages out there, and you want just a few of them.
This system can put the people towards the top...
who have helped the most, and who have received the least help.
These are the people that you should be helping.
It doesn't tell you who to help, but it's based on another assumption...
that's the reverse of ordinary economics.
This assumption is that people like things to be fair.
So it's going to show you all the people...
and it's going to say for the requests...
"Help these people, they have an imbalance."
I'm not suggesting a centralised system, it's a completely decentralised system...
but instead of using money, this will be another way that you can get things done.
So it's putting people in touch with other people...
and it's very reliant on the semantic web and the strong identity.
Thank you.