Karma system itself doesn’t specify what you get most karma for. It could be “for advancing the superorganism’s goals”, but it also could be for “making snarky comments about those who try to advance the superorganism’s goals”, or simply for “posting a lot of trivial stuff”.
Also, social status is perceived not only by how much karma one has, but also how they are treated (replied to, talked about) by other people in comments.
Sometimes what would be easier to do in real life is more difficult to do online, because the functionality is different or missing. For example, the real-life equivalent of “karma”—displays of admiration or friendship—is public.
Assuming voluntary association, one way to “enforce a given behavior” is to only associate with people who agree to behave like that. So if you want to have a group that does X, you associate with people who give social status to people working on X (as opposed to e.g. people who talk a lot about X, but give low status to people actually working on X).
Online… I guess banning people for not expressing proper attitudes would be perceived by many as very problematic (even if that’s what most of us more or less do in real life), so the realistic solution seems to be an invite-only club. Or a two-tiered system, where the outer forum is open to everyone, and only people with the desired behavior get an invitation to the inner forum.
So if you want to have a group that does X, you associate with people who give social status to people working on X
You are glossing over the practice of giving social status. In real life, as you said, it is basically public displays of admiration (friendship is a bit different). So you are going to build a community with the inclusion criterion of being willing to publicly admire a particular set of people. Presumably if you stop admiring, you are no longer welcome in the community. That doesn’t strike me as a way to build a healthy community—there are obvious failure modes looming.
with the inclusion criterion of being willing to publicly admire a particular set of people
That isn’t quite what Viliam is proposing. He says (emphasis mine):
you associate with people who give social status to people working on X
so what membership in this community commits you to is not admiring specific people but admiring people who do specific things, whoever those people are.
This still seems kinda dangerous, but I don’t think it has the same failure modes.
commits you to is not admiring specific people but admiring people who do specific things, whoever those people are.
I suspect that distinction is not going to be as clear-cut when you are dealing with a bunch of actual humans.
“Bob is an asshole but he did the specific thing X so I’m supposed to publicly praise him? I’ll pass.”
“Alice is such a great person, so what that she skipped the specific thing X this time, she’s the best and I’m going to sing hosannas to her really loudly”.
No, my question was more abstract, in the sense of “can you ever design a system that grants a prestige economy that doesn’t de-evolve into a karma system”?
Karma is not granting social status, it is community moderation of discussion. Imagine if the aggregate karma numbers were removed from display (arguably this is maybe something that should be done).
How is this different from the karma system?
Karma system itself doesn’t specify what you get most karma for. It could be “for advancing the superorganism’s goals”, but it also could be for “making snarky comments about those who try to advance the superorganism’s goals”, or simply for “posting a lot of trivial stuff”.
Also, social status is perceived not only by how much karma one has, but also how they are treated (replied to, talked about) by other people in comments.
Indeed, but how would you enforce a system of points granted if and only if someone advances the goal of this site?
This I think is unavoidable in a human society.
Sometimes what would be easier to do in real life is more difficult to do online, because the functionality is different or missing. For example, the real-life equivalent of “karma”—displays of admiration or friendship—is public.
Assuming voluntary association, one way to “enforce a given behavior” is to only associate with people who agree to behave like that. So if you want to have a group that does X, you associate with people who give social status to people working on X (as opposed to e.g. people who talk a lot about X, but give low status to people actually working on X).
Online… I guess banning people for not expressing proper attitudes would be perceived by many as very problematic (even if that’s what most of us more or less do in real life), so the realistic solution seems to be an invite-only club. Or a two-tiered system, where the outer forum is open to everyone, and only people with the desired behavior get an invitation to the inner forum.
You are glossing over the practice of giving social status. In real life, as you said, it is basically public displays of admiration (friendship is a bit different). So you are going to build a community with the inclusion criterion of being willing to publicly admire a particular set of people. Presumably if you stop admiring, you are no longer welcome in the community. That doesn’t strike me as a way to build a healthy community—there are obvious failure modes looming.
That isn’t quite what Viliam is proposing. He says (emphasis mine):
so what membership in this community commits you to is not admiring specific people but admiring people who do specific things, whoever those people are.
This still seems kinda dangerous, but I don’t think it has the same failure modes.
I suspect that distinction is not going to be as clear-cut when you are dealing with a bunch of actual humans.
“Bob is an asshole but he did the specific thing X so I’m supposed to publicly praise him? I’ll pass.”
“Alice is such a great person, so what that she skipped the specific thing X this time, she’s the best and I’m going to sing hosannas to her really loudly”.
You seem to have hit on (one reason) why the prestige economy is different from the karma system.
No, my question was more abstract, in the sense of “can you ever design a system that grants a prestige economy that doesn’t de-evolve into a karma system”?
Karma is not granting social status, it is community moderation of discussion. Imagine if the aggregate karma numbers were removed from display (arguably this is maybe something that should be done).
Karma was not designed to grant social status, but people look at it as if it does.