hi! - HackMD

### RadicalxChange Singapore <img style = "border:0, box-shadow: none;" src="https://radicalxchange.org/images/logo.gif"> first meetup (28 feb 2019) radxchangesg.github.io ---  *"the here and now is a prison house. we must strive, in the face of the here and now’s totalising rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there…"* ###### josé esteban muñoz, cruising utopia ----  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> agenda </h2> <h3 style ="color: #e8f8f8;text-align:left;font-size: 100%; "> - <a href="#/1">icebreakers</a><br> - <a href="#/2">introducing RadicalxChange</a><br> - <a href="#/3">main ideas from Radical Markets</a> - <a href="#/10">RxC SG Labs + other ideas for this chapter</a><br> - <a href="#/11">chill owt</a> </h3> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> <h1> hi! </h1> <br><br> <h2> what's your weather? ☁️❄️☀️☔ <br> </h2> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> what is RadicalxChange? </h2> <br> <h3 style ="color: #ecfdfe;text-align:left;font-size: 78%; "> - a [foundation](https://radicalxchange.org/) led by economist Glen Weyl, with autonomous chapters around the world <br><br> - using free market mechanisms for efficient allocation of social goods (see [Radical Markets](http://radicalmarkets.com/), [Liberal Radicalism](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3243656)) <br> - since branched out to activism and government; arts and communications; entrepreneurship and tech; and ideas and research <br> </h3> </div> ----  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; ">why RadicalxChange Singapore? </h2> <h3 style ="color: #ebfcfc;text-align:left;font-size: 78%; "> 1. a space to <font color="#aaaaaa">debate and critically evaluate</font> political and socioeconomic systems + <font color="#aaaaaa">experiment with new models</font> of governance and collaboration<br><br> 2. pluralism: exploring the ways in which <font color="#aaaaaa">art, entertainment, and community</font> interlink with <font color="#aaaaaa">science and technology</font> <br><br> 3. greater than the sum: an experiment with <font color="#aaaaaa">community</font> at the <font color="#aaaaaa">human scale of physical locality</font> <br><br> <font color="#ababab">NOT: a mouthpiece for Radical Markets</font> </h3> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 130%; "> main ideas from Radical Markets </h2> <br> <h3 style ="color: #e8f8f8;text-align:left;font-size: 92%; "> - <a href="#/3">property (harberger taxes)</a> - <a href="#/4">quadratic voting</a> - <a href="#/5">quadratic grant-matching</a> - <a href="#/6">immigration - antitrust</a> - <a href="#/7">data as labour</a> <br> </h3> <p style="text-align:left; font-size:71%; color: #808080"> <b>NB: we present these ideas to be questioned, not accepted</b> </p> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #f3d6a5; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> "property is monopoly" </h2> <p style="text-align:left; font-size:80%; color:#555555"> <br> "The existing system of private property interferes with <b>allocative efficiency</b> by giving owners the power to hold out for excessive prices. We propose a remedy in the form of <b>a tax on property</b>, based on the <b>value self-assessed by its owner</b> at intervals, along with a <b>requirement that the owner sell the property to any third party</b> willing to pay a price equal to the self-assessed value." </p> <p style="text-align:right; font-size:60%; color:#777777"> <br> -- Posner, E. and Weyl, E.G. (2017). <i>Property is Only Another Name for Monopoly</i>. </p> </div> ----  <div style="background-color: #f3d6a5; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> ![](https://i.imgur.com/9RR4d1M.jpg =420x450) </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #FFCECE; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> quadratic voting </h2> <p style="text-align:left; font-size:60%; color:#555555"> <br> "We argue that <b>quadratic pricing of votes on collective decisions</b> is analogous to linear pricing of private goods and thus <b>solves the tyranny of majority created by the one-person-one-vote rule</b>. ... Under this concept, quadratic pricing of votes is the only rule that is always efficient." </p> <p style="text-align:right; font-size:60%; color:#777777"> -- Lalley, S.P. and Weyl, E.G. (2015). <i>Quadratic Voting</i>. </p> <p style="text-align:left; font-size:60%; color:#555555"><br><br> Quadratic Voting allows people to express <b>how strongly they feel about an issue</b> rather than just whether they are <b>in favor of it or opposed to it</b>; thus giving more weight to a minority who feels strongly, than a majority who do not.<br><br> </p> </div> ----  ![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Negative_Externality_and_Deadweight_Loss.svg =600x600) Note: Because an unregulated market doesn't transact the socially optimal quantity of a good when a negative externality on production is present, there is deadweight loss associated with the free market outcome. (Note that deadweight loss is always associated with the suboptimal market outcome.) This deadweight loss arises because the market produces units where the cost to society outweighs the benefits to society, thus subtracting from the value that the market creates for society. ----  ![](https://i.imgur.com/0xSdgKD.png) ---  <div style="background-color: #D8BFD8; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> quadratic grant-matching </h2> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:68%; color:#555555"> <br> <li>extension of quadratic voting: individuals make public goods contributions to projects of value to them.</li><br> <li>the amount received by the project is (proportional to) the <b>square of the sum of the square roots of contributions received.</b></li><br> <li>applications to: <b>campaign finance</b>, <b>open source software ecosystems</b>, <b>news media finance</b> and <b>urban public projects</b></li><br> <li>experiment on Ethereum: <a href="https://medium.com/gitcoin/experiments-with-liberal-radicalism-ad68e02efd4">Gitcoin Grants</a></li><br> </ul> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #C9DECB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> immigration<br> </h2> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:57.5%; color:#555555"><br> <li><b>Visas between Individuals Program (VIP)</b>: "any ordinary person could sponsor a migrant worker… for an indefinite period rather than a renewable three-year period. We would allow people to sponsor one migrant worker at any moment in time."</li><br> <li>would-be migrants offer sponsors a cut of their earnings</li><br> <li>this comes with a list of restrictions:</li> <ol style="text-align:left; font-size:85%; color:#555555"> <li>the sponsor must provide basic health insurance for his migrant.</li> <li>the sponsor is financially responsible if the migrant can’t find work, commits crimes, or disappears.</li> <li>the migrant cannot collect welfare.</li> <li>stronger immigration enforcement.</li><br> </ol> </ul> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #BBDAFF; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> antitrust </h2> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:60%; color:#555555"> <br> <li>problem: <b>monopsonistic institutional investors</b> wield excessive concentrations of power in many industries e.g. tech (G-MAFIA), lobbying in politics</li><br> <li>leads to suppression of competition as the same investor owns stakes in most rivals ("horizontal shareholding", e.g. Vanguard, Fidelity, Blackrock)</li><br> <li>rule: <b>no investor holding shares of more than a single effective firm in an oligopoly and participating in corporate governance may own more than 1% of the market.</b></li> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:90%; color:#555555"> <li>ban institutional investors from diversifying their holdings <b>within</b> industries while allowing them to diversify <b>across</b> industries</li> <li>let investment funds diversify with the provable condition that they aren’t involved in the governance of any of their investments</li> </ul> </ul> </div> ----  <div style="background-color: #BBDAFF; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> ![](https://paulrberg.com/post/intro-to-radical-markets/bank-stake-distribution.png =600x350) <p style="text-align:center; font-size:40%; color:#555555"> the top 5 owners of the largest six US banks. <br> (from https://paulrberg.com/post/intro-to-radical-markets/bank-stake-distribution.png ) </p> </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #c9c9ff; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br/> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> data as labour (as opposed to capital) </h2> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:70%; color:#555555"> <br> <li>growing inequality between giant data companies and their private individual participants</li><br> <li>collectivising in data labour unions: </li> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:95%; color:#555555"> <li>one person’s data is worth little, but the collection of lots of people’s data is exponentially more valuable in the market</li> <li>e.g. an ISP could act as a union, and disrupt data routing in case of withheld payment from G-MAFIA </li> </ul><br> <li>other solutions? p2p social platforms, trusted execution envrionments...</li> </ul> <br> Note: "California wants Silicon Valley to pay you a data dividend". (25 Feb 2019). https://www.cnet.com/news/california-wants-silicon-valley-to-pay-you-a-data-dividend/ </div> ---  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> <h2 style ="color: #808080;text-align:center;font-size: 120%; "> RxC SG Labs + other chapter ideas </h2> <ul style="text-align:left; font-size:65%; color:#555555"> <li>chapter governance: (Cent, Moloch DAO, <a href="https://colony.io">colony.io</a>)</li> <li>agent-based modelling with COST</li> <li>coercion-resistant quadratic voting using zkSNARKs</li> <li>rewarding creative work (e.g. Cent), scarcity for digital art (e.g. Open Art Consortium)</li> <li>other kinds of markets and mechanisms, e.g. futarchy (prediction market for votes)</li> <li>markets for other goods and services, e.g. web of trust for identity attestations</li> <li>beyond the market framework, e.g. looking at institutions as information aggregators, not allocative mechanisms</li> <li>...</li><br> </ul> </div> ----  ![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1440/1*j_SJ1xJzZmUSW8o7nM7zbQ.png) ----  ![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*PQjGA2-rnEo2jcum8c91hw.png) ---  <div style="background-color: #FFC0CB; padding: 20px; font-family:"roboto thin", data-separator-notes="^Note:""> <br> <h1> hello again! </h1> <br><br> <h2> what's your weather now? ☁️❄️☀️☔ <br> </h2> </div>