Does Society Collaborate?
From Open Source Ecology
- Millions have collaborated to build the pyramids - albeit as slaves. See Homo Deus for an explanation of how belief systems (in pharaohs, Gods, or money systems) served as great coordinating/cooperation mechanisms - albeit by not-so-healthy means.
- Supercooperators - the book tells us that supercooperators get more done. But how is great cooperation achieved?
- In general, there is very little cooperation between competing businesses - which take out patents to protect their work. take microchip manufacturers, for example.
- However, open source software has shown a counterexample - in that open source is accepted as the effective norm.
- From the open sourc ecology perspective, cooperation doesn't exist in the mainstream world. Proprietary development is the norm. In kindergarten, we are taught to share and play nice. After high school - or leaving for the real world - , we are taught to plunder and war-wage.
- Companies tend to state that they collaborate with their customers. You get to customize your car or other product. But being offered choices is not the same as true agency, about which you can read in Shop Class as Soulcraft
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