[NORMAL]/[meta] Apprenticeships typically start with training but this is in exchange for continued labor from the apprentice for some period after they achieve a useful level of competency. I don’t think this part has been made explicit, which means the mentors and apprentices may have different expectations. Did you imagine that this would be training only?
Training can be a significant time cost to the mentor. It’s only fair that they be compensated somehow. (The apprentice is compensated with new skills.) If the mentors are simply paid with money as they go, this amounts to tutoring rather than an apprenticeship. If the compensation is some period of labor, then the amount of time and nature of the work should be agreed upon in advance, perhaps after a brief tryout period. Also, what mechanism do we have to punish defectors? The apprentice may simply cut off contact once they’ve achieved competency, refusing to perform any more labor. For standardized apprenticeships in a trade, they could be taken to court for breach of contract. For apprenticeships over the Internet where we’re not even certain of each other’s real names, this seems harder. I’m open to ideas.
Sometimes the best way to learn something is to teach it. The mentors can hone their own skills by teaching them, so mentoring an apprentice who defects is not a complete waste of time, but it’s still not clear if that would be worth it. Perhaps a useful type of compensatory labor could be a period of co-learning where the apprentice helps the mentor study their skill more deeply.
Something like a mutual mentorship seems more fair. It would be an exchange where both parties teach the other a new skill. This would work really well if there’s a match, but what are the chances that you know the skill your mentor wants?
An alternative system, which might work better for us, is a gift economy. The exact details can vary, but in a gift culture, you attain status by being generous, and lose status by being in someone’s social debt. If you’re indebted to a mentor, you can regain status by paying it forward: mentoring someone else in the community. For this to work though, we’d have to be open and public about what is happening, to bring the social pressure of the group into play.
Even this could be gamed to some degree, using sock puppets, but doing so would be somewhat costly anyway, especially if the apprentices have high karma. Maintaining the puppet might not cost quite as much as maintaining an apprentice, but it’s still a cost. In this sense, your LessWrong karma can be thought of as a kind of credit rating: how much you are invested in the community, and thus subject to its social pressure. Those with new accounts (say less than 1000 karma?) have lower social costs when they default. They could simply make a new account and start over. Not sure where the cutoff should be.
We should come up with some way to compensate for this. It occurs to me that we could have them post a bond to some escrow, to be paid to the mentor if they default. But then we’d need a trusted third party and a system to judge. Another possibility is some kind of verifiable community service as a prerequisite for low-karma apprentices. Maybe you guys can think of others.
Testimonials could form part of this system. Mentee provides a testimonial that mentor is knowledgeable on the subject, able to communicate that knowledge, able to help someone progress, etc. This is both useful prestige and evidence of valuable skills.
[NORMAL]/[meta] Apprenticeships typically start with training but this is in exchange for continued labor from the apprentice for some period after they achieve a useful level of competency. I don’t think this part has been made explicit, which means the mentors and apprentices may have different expectations. Did you imagine that this would be training only?
Training can be a significant time cost to the mentor. It’s only fair that they be compensated somehow. (The apprentice is compensated with new skills.) If the mentors are simply paid with money as they go, this amounts to tutoring rather than an apprenticeship. If the compensation is some period of labor, then the amount of time and nature of the work should be agreed upon in advance, perhaps after a brief tryout period. Also, what mechanism do we have to punish defectors? The apprentice may simply cut off contact once they’ve achieved competency, refusing to perform any more labor. For standardized apprenticeships in a trade, they could be taken to court for breach of contract. For apprenticeships over the Internet where we’re not even certain of each other’s real names, this seems harder. I’m open to ideas.
Sometimes the best way to learn something is to teach it. The mentors can hone their own skills by teaching them, so mentoring an apprentice who defects is not a complete waste of time, but it’s still not clear if that would be worth it. Perhaps a useful type of compensatory labor could be a period of co-learning where the apprentice helps the mentor study their skill more deeply.
Something like a mutual mentorship seems more fair. It would be an exchange where both parties teach the other a new skill. This would work really well if there’s a match, but what are the chances that you know the skill your mentor wants?
An alternative system, which might work better for us, is a gift economy. The exact details can vary, but in a gift culture, you attain status by being generous, and lose status by being in someone’s social debt. If you’re indebted to a mentor, you can regain status by paying it forward: mentoring someone else in the community. For this to work though, we’d have to be open and public about what is happening, to bring the social pressure of the group into play.
Even this could be gamed to some degree, using sock puppets, but doing so would be somewhat costly anyway, especially if the apprentices have high karma. Maintaining the puppet might not cost quite as much as maintaining an apprentice, but it’s still a cost. In this sense, your LessWrong karma can be thought of as a kind of credit rating: how much you are invested in the community, and thus subject to its social pressure. Those with new accounts (say less than 1000 karma?) have lower social costs when they default. They could simply make a new account and start over. Not sure where the cutoff should be.
We should come up with some way to compensate for this. It occurs to me that we could have them post a bond to some escrow, to be paid to the mentor if they default. But then we’d need a trusted third party and a system to judge. Another possibility is some kind of verifiable community service as a prerequisite for low-karma apprentices. Maybe you guys can think of others.
Testimonials could form part of this system. Mentee provides a testimonial that mentor is knowledgeable on the subject, able to communicate that knowledge, able to help someone progress, etc. This is both useful prestige and evidence of valuable skills.