Strike The Root!!!!

[Xerographica]

The root of the problem is the widespread belief that markets aren't truly necessary.

For example I've argued that, all else being equal, Netflix subscribers should have the freedom to spend their subscription dollars on their favorite content. Most people respond that this freedom isn't necessary. They perceive that Netflix already knows its subscribers' preferences thanks to... views/votes.

Is democracy truly more effective than markets at revealing what we truly want?

Reddit uses voting to rank content, and so does Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google. Except there's no way that voting and spending can be equally effective at ranking things.

Thanks to crypto, now there are sites that use money to rank content...

Honest Cash
Cent

Personally I prefer HC because...

- all the content can be sorted by value
- a post can have multiple tags
- each reply is its own post (like on Medium)
- when the people you follow spend their money on posts, they appear in your feed
- no need to setup a wallet (don't have to add MetaMask to Chrome browser)

The biggest drawback with both sites is that you can’t (yet) spend money on your own posts, which means that the rankings aren't as accurate as they could, and should, be. But at least you have the freedom to spend your money on other's people's posts.

Here's a list of some of the websites that promote markets...

http://www.learnliberty.org/
https://fee.org/
https://www.econlib.org/
https://www.cato.org/
https://www.adamsmith.org/
http://www.heritage.org/
https://mises.org/
https://liberty.me/
http://oll.libertyfund.org/
http://reason.org/
http://reason.com/
https://aier.org/

Not a single one practices what it preaches. Not a single one is a marketplace of ideas. Not a single one leads by example. Not a single one strikes the root.

The market is the most useful tool ever invented because we can use it to effectively educate each other about the usefulness of things. How useful are avocados to you? In a market you answer this question with your money. How useful are computers to you? In a market you answer this question with your money. Yet, despite the fact that the market is the most useful tool, it isn't being used by any of the biggest pro-market organizations, which is why the liberty movement isn't making any progress.

Fortunately for humanity, we now have HC and Cent. You should join them! Spend your money to elevate the most useful ideas!! Strike the root!!!

[106459]

Actually, I really like this idea. And I like the comparison between throwing money at netflix vs depositing the equivalent amount and supporting what you're actually interested in.

Without going into novel form, I don't like how apparently honest.cash is in beta/invitation only (currently, its page just asks you to sign up, which I hate: looking at you, pinterest), but it turns out that just signs you up for a waiting list.

I don't like how cent.co is just a mess of a main page, and apparently one of the trending topics is #dudelife, which is just a link to one user with an ongoing blog of his current life (?). I don't understand why it wouldn't build off reddit and have a relevant/well-defined hierarchy where people can delve into their own interests (ie, make it easy if you want someone to spend money).

What I really don't like is how this is more complicated than it needs to be. Why are these sites so crypto focused? Is there an alternative that uses actual currency (a medium of exchange) rather than experimental and speculatory assets? After the whole bitcoin pump and dump and hearing people talk on end about how much people's bitcoin is worth in dollars, and will be millionaires (in dollars), it just isn't something that interests the average person.

-Why aren't these sites building off something like Patreon where you deposit something like $10 into the site a month, and then dispense it to creators? Sites like PredictIt don't rely on cryptocurrency to function, why should these? The mechanism for funding is a totally separate issue from the idea of tipping content you've personally enjoyed.

But, this is just me blasting my initial impressions out onto the internet - I like the idea, but the sites seem to need work.

[Xerographica]

106459, lots of good thoughts. I also don't like how HC's homepage is a sign up page to join the waiting list. The waiting list is actually kinda short though. If you sign up I can ask the founder to activate your account.

Let's say that you join HC and your first post is all about how beneficial it would be to minimize the transaction costs of joining HC. The thing is, you wouldn't be able to spend any money on your post. So you wouldn't be able to use your money to reveal how important this issue is to you. I, on the other hand, could certainly spend my money on your post. So could everybody else.

Personally I really want to know how important this issue is to you. This is why for me the biggest fish to fry is having the freedom to spend our money on our own posts.

I want to see and know how you divide your money between the waiting list issue and the crypto issue. For me the crypto issue is a lot bigger than the waiting list issue. Nobody I know in real life uses crypto. The only reason that I use crypto is because of these two sites.

The main thing to focus on is that, since each site is a marketplace of ideas, we can actually see the demand for all the different ideas about how to improve the sites. Except for the part where we can't spend money on our own ideas.

It's incredibly amazing that we can mostly see the demand for the different suggestions/requests for the sites. Yet, I really don't think that the founders of either site quite grasp this. For example, Cent's latest update included a blocking function.

Blocking seems like a pretty useful feature, but what, exactly, was the demand for it? I have absolutely no idea. I didn't see anybody request it, and the founder didn't point to a request for it.

Of course the founders are free to implement whatever they want in any order they want. The question is whether governance by dictator is truly more effective than governance by market. I'm guessing that it isn't.

Right now all the organizations in the private sector are prioritized by the market. Would even the most enlightened person in the world do a better job of prioritizing all these organizations? No way. Even a committee of the most enlightened people couldn't do a better job than the market.

If the market is superior at prioritizing all the organizations in the private sector, it certainly must be superior at prioritizing an organization's development. Even though the founders of Cent and HC don't seem to appreciate this, it's not like they are going to hide the demand for changes/improvements to the site. Well, on Cent you can't see the posts in each category sorted by value yet. So there's some amount of amnesia. But this isn't an issue over at HC.

My point is, with Cent and HC it isn't just a matter of using the market for content, it's also a matter of using the market for governance.

Right now virtually all organizations are governed by dictatorships, more or less. Leaving a country isn't cheap, unlike leaving a company...

Capitalism is the best. It’s free enterprise. Barter. Gimbels, if I get really rank with the clerk, ‘Well I don’t like this’, how I can resolve it? If it really gets ridiculous, I go, ‘Frig it, man, I walk.’ What can this guy do at Gimbels, even if he was the president of Gimbels? He can always reject me from that store, but I can always go to Macy’s. He can’t really hurt me. Communism is like one big phone company. Government control, man. And if I get too rank with that phone company, where can I go? I’ll end up like a schmuck with a dixie cup on a thread. — Lenny Bruce

Governance is governance though, whether we're talking about a company or a country. There can only be one best form of governance.

If an organization is headed towards an iceberg, then of course you should be free to abandon ship, but only as a last resort. Your first resort should be to use your money to try and improve the organization's direction.