Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
226 lines (152 loc) · 22.1 KB

1-knowledge-commons-2019-04-09.md

File metadata and controls

226 lines (152 loc) · 22.1 KB

Data. Together. Let's read about it

Knowledge Commons (April 9)

🎬 Recorded Call

Intro

Readings

Themes

  • What is an “environmental” commons? Reflect back on readings from last year.
  • What is a knowledge commons?
  • What important similarities and differences can we notice between these two types of commons?
  • Ostrom/Hess and Dulong et al. discuss examples of knowledge/digital commons like library repositories and Wikipedia. What about social networks?
  • What is the relationship between a knowledge commons & enclosure?
  • How do themes from these readings apply to organizations like EDGI?
  • What is the tragedy of the digital commons? How might this differ from tragedies in other kinds of commons? What are the limits of the "tragedy" model in the first place?
  • Leave some time at the end to discuss the next reading

Notes

Background reminding ourselves of context of this topic from last year

  • read Ostrom on environmental common pool resources
  • wrangling with decentralization (setting this aside until August) and the need to relate this to technical infrastructures brought us to this set of readings

Start with Ostrom/Hess: dig into good framework they provide us for discussion

- Ostrom responding to Garett Hardin reading from the late 60s

What stood out to us?

ROB: [Pace of change] sustainability is a continual process.

What does sustainability mean in an evnironment where the pace of change is extremely high?

RICO: Laid groundwork for defining what a commons is. WIll cite again and again.

LIZ is asked if she has an example of a CPBR resource that comes to mind. Liz says wikipedia. and also mentions her own community

Public Lab:"Not only sharing information but also producing actionable knowledge together".

BRENDAN: [Scarcity Principle] These readings are relevant to Data Together, the work we undertook together in Data Rescue. Scarcity principle when we transition from the physical resource to a digital one. Almost all the readings pointed to this near zero cost of copying. The IAD framework translates well even though the resource is intangible.

ROB: [IAD (institutional analysis)] seems broadly applicable, beyond a commons more about anytime people are coordinating with other people.

MATT: ["near zero cost of copying"]. This is something I cover in my intro classes. After EDGI, however -

"I believe less that the cost of copying is close to zero. The infrastructural costs are significant, and focusing on the "Zero cost" makes this infrastructure -- and it's ownership and maintanance -- invisible. (at our peril)."

ROB: There are different versions of copying - copies from here to there and that is still marginally relatively cheap and then theres copying in the sense of oh how I have a copy and this is my ownership and those are used interchangably so often.

  • Rumor of Gods: detective hunts rouge AI. Makes him think about copies because robots copy themselves to move.

BRENDAN: is what you're referring to as a distinction in copying between producers and users, which might be an infectious frame instead of producers. Maybe we're talking about the labor of labor of production, and the heavy lift of making something

LIZ: Struck by a particular quote

"In an era of rapid change, participants will move from operational situations into collective choice situations, sometimes without awareness they have switched arenas." (p 51. Ostrom)

reminded me of what happened in the wake of Data Rescue. I encourage us to avoid the trap of the 2012 article (zero copying, some other concepts). Another decade has passed since then, and we're now aware we need to control the servers, and also are managing knowledge that is based in hardware. I look forward to us becoming aware of forming conditions of our self-governance and how they apply to community-based data stewardship.

BRENDAN: How much less colorful examples offered by the Ostrom article, especially the underuse of a knowledge commons. In our group here we have a lot of really colorful examples of constructing a commons. Are social networks a commons? A whole lot of people might be blanket nos or yes but I think there's a lot of discussion to have here.

ROB: Re: what is a knowledge/digital commons, there seems to be a lot more variety than a base assumption would be. Much broader situations and baseline needs/conceerns to address in different ways for different constituencies. Some things transferrerd from one to another, others failed to do so. Software commons is unique, DT might share more with other knowlege repositories.

LIZ: In decentralized data archiving project, we wondered about how communities define each other (access to data sharing). Not crazy to approach that through Ostrom's 8 and see where we get re: community self-regulation and structures to exclude & include.

MICHELLE: - Protocol Labs. Less valuable to define something as commons or not, more valuable to explore how communities manage resources with externalities. Negative side: what do folks make that people don't hate, and have ability to change rules around what community wants/needs. Few have ability to make/change the rules that affect them (particularly true in tech space). Promoting small networks with more autonomy (could slow information flow, but it could be a good thing in that it could promote healthy communities that deliberate in a productive way)

MATT: it does seem that fast is not especially sustainable. Systems that change fast dont stay around for a very long time because they are changing so fast. I found that goong back and looking at what the English commons were actually 1) of all theres a whole bunch of different commons and Hardin's assumptions are really just repeating something from the 1830s a polemic that was part of the enclosure movement.

  • Human interest in accruing capital automatically leads to the construction of commons (unless you have enclosure of the commons)

  • Instead the commons turn out to have been pretty successful for 1000 years because people didn't operate as self-interested machines.

  • They didn't always work out the same way there are different kinds of problems its not like there's a utopia but so what

  • We are different from open source software. dogs are different from cats. In the same way Hardin's analysis of the English commons seems born out.

BRENDAN: Humans are irrational can't interpret the models in terms of rational human. Hardin was responding to this model where humans were "econs" perfectly self-interested but Ostrom refutes that quite simply because we already know now, in modern economics, that people do not always behave in self-interested ways

LIZ: ['Tragedy of Commons'] far more popularized phrase than Ostrom's name and contributions.

MICHELLE: Question: Any insight around the concept of 'technology growing so complicated that it requires people who are able to engage at a minimum level of competence / capability?'

LIZ: Setting up community structures - 'need to read community in' - 'can't disrespect lack of others' capabilities'

  • Wouldn't slow all tech development, but could carve out sections of society where this is robust. Humans respect each other as peers, but also where all professions respect each other as peers. Hard problem to encapsulate in code of conduct but people are working on it.

MICHELLE: Question: Will we get to a point where everyone can contribute?

ROB: Not optimistic. We always jump to legislative recourse. Not just community standards. No clear notion of bigger levers to pull. How do we express things in a way that we can include the least tech savvy among us without carving out separate repositories where they get an oversimplified / incomplete access to the information. Knowledge deficit is NOT a skills deficit. Can we teach? - example from current work on following the easiest path where people don't want to learn version control, but important benefits are lost

LIZ: Re: expert cultures and how they self-select, self-promote, homogeneous. Would like us to revert to this idea once her team has explored these issues. Article on how programming languages are generated from certain cultures, genders, neurotypes -- and it doesn't have to be that way. Sandra Harding's book "The Science Question in Feminism" -- and how science doesn't have to be that way.

MATT: The trouble with "doesn't have to be that way" is that the world is big, hard to keep it from organizing in on itself. Would like us to shape provisional sign posts on how to organize ourselves. From these readings, seems like you can engineer the success of a commons, to some extent.

MICHELLE: we work on protocol level changes to the way information moves, can we automate "our best selves". Is there any way we could build something in? Does anyone have any ideas?

BRENDAN: yes! jumping in to say we can be self-critical on how commons' form, it is easy to form a group that is common around a commons. Can we form a group non-homogeneously? Can we use this as a signpost for goal setting. Work of the python community which agressively moved to weed out this technological superiority complex and ejected certain members on the basis that they were not welcoming of those of differing technical means. Don't want to go all the way to the other end of the spectrum to connect folks with no common interest, that is a recipe for frustration, but our opportunity is to put in effort at bringing diverse folks to the table BEFORE starting. Wanted to bring a reading _______ about DNS and the origins of hierarchy in technological structures. Our group includes people interested in commons principles and people interested in technologies -- let's continue to compose the types of people we collaborate with as a method for busting out of collaborating.

ROB: original question of Michelle abt ProtocolLabs. I come immediately back to Michelle's question about protocols [can we bring best practices/ways of being our best selves into the code & protocol at a low level]. We talked earlier a bit about Twitter– one of Twitter's biggest problems is that you feel like you have to always have a hot take. If you don't respond quickly and violently on Twitter, then you're not doing it right. Features like GMAIL not sending an email for 30 seconds so that you can undo it. Features that ask you "are you sure?" Can we do this at more levels / all levels in the technology stack?

MICHELLE: another way to look at it, is that there's a thread in decentralized convos that everyone should be able to be in their own space, BUT NO we need to be able to govern the decentralized space.

ROB: this connects to the delong piece, a counterpoint to anonymity in online spaces is reputation. It means you can't have throwaway accounts, you need a durable identity. can't be a bad actor under a different name.

LIZ: Have experimented with sidestepping reputation as a prime value in a commons context. Reputation can have some of the same undesirable impacts (incumbencies, authority, over-representation). Often, we're moving at the speed of 'did you test it for yourself and did it work?' Can get a little crazy, but in a knowledge commons, understanding 'pre-authenticated knowledge' from another system just moving it into a new context.

ROB: Agree because we often don't have that basic level– in code reviews, it's very common for people to approve without actually testing it themselves & finding out: well, does it work?

B5: It's true, and I'm guilty. How do we confirm, at a technical level? As a technical system...can introduce challenges. We're now talking about whether you can make a system that will come in and interrupt you. It's different to build it as technology vs. people– we want something that resembles participation but doesn't end up as coercion. "did you do the reading?" As a person I can just ask you and you'll say, no.

SASHA: CI as a trust layer (base agreement). Ensure that some(thing) tested: well, does it work?

MICHELLE: more ways to kindly connect real world stuff to digital stuff / our online lives. We tried to do a reputation thing connected to github but didn't have ways to include business functions that are not included in github. How do you do carbon sequestration in blockchain, how do you prove it? Has anyone seen anyone do it well?

BRENDAN: i don't think there is one, studying photography brought this to me - you can't take a picture of the future. anything that exists in the digital world is just a partial, twisted version of the real world. Putting X on the blockchain! Put Y on the blockchain! But legitimetaly NO. (ref guy from DNA blockchain, and how to write down the bits around fingerprints)

ROB: was going to tack on to our convo from a few weeks ago about XXX in QRI. Where trust is involved in a system. Blockchain seems predicated on the idea that we can prove trust, but then XXXXXXXX you have to chooose what you trust. ive head it said "it's attesting, but it's not proving" -- that's an important concept here when moving between realms of digital and analog. Important seams in systems where we should all be paying the most attention.

BRENDAN - ["trust comes from people not cryptography"] that's my anti-tradgedy of the commons line. I don't think there's a causal connection from physical to digital, but there is going from digital to physical when someone has shown who they are online i can then trust them in the real world.

MATT: My question isn't quite fully formed. I was thinking about the empirism experiment that liz performed, I don't quite understand it because it seems like it tries to run without a trust layer, which is counter to the way I want to live. I keep our bikes in the bike shed with no lock on the door, and every once in a while the bike gets stolen but it's worth it to me becasue I get to live in a world where I believe that it's OK to leave my shed unlocked. That's something I want .....

The commons works because people don't work as self-interested machine but because people operate as members of community.

KEVIN:

What about the tragedy of the anti-commons? With natural resources the problem is overusing, but the problem with the knowledge commons is that people underuse resources or don't add to them. What incentives could we propose so they'd join and contribute?

RICO: Fame, Power, Money, (Sneakers?!) Promoting QRI can make you famous?

MICHELLE I appreciate that question and get stuck in a corner thinking about it. There's personal control of data that has gotten people mobilized. But it's so difficult to connect this to regular life. Will making tech easier be the thing? Or maybe that's not the thing.

I spent years in the federal government trying to get people submitting metadata to open data.

KEVIN Matt in chat said he doesn't even like contributing to his digital library repository. What do you think is the barrier to this?

MATT: I think I am a weird case. I don't particularly want anyone to see anything that I write. I am a particularly undisciplined and inconsistent person. That moment from a year and a half ago, made us realize that:

It better be easier than what already exists -- it doesn't have to be better, it just has to be easier.

ROB: from before, we asked what could pull people towards participating. Traditionally it's been fame, power. What liz was saying about what brings people together (survival). Validation from close peers -- this is super sticky.

WRAP UP

  • OUR NEXT TOPIC IS ON CIVICS, what is our responsibility in a community, re: participating. Matt and Dawn are facilitating the next topic.
  • we have an article on Civic Republicanism, which is a little imbricated in a political philosophy convo but still cool and useful. It's a tradition in political thinking that has been in loggerhead with XXXX. where are we with communitarianism and libertarianism.
  • civic, citizen, community, digital civics. We might drop civic tech.

KEVIN -- (paraphrased by Liz) "yeah we're a group of small people who can change the world!"

Ostrom and Hess talked about how building a knowledge commons requires “great amounts of energy and time from individuals or small groups”, and I feel that’s who we are now. They define a homogeneous group as “people working towards a common goal” and I think us wanting to change the world for the better, working together towards that is what makes us “homogeneous” and I’m always so grateful and honored to be with this group. And even though we obviously don’t have all the answers, we have some great questions. That’s a great place to start!

Links

Chat Log

00:05:37 Rob Brackett: I can also be switched off tooooooo 00:06:01 Kevin: https://hackmd.io/oEcuKALCTi-PbawLmT_Ixw?view# 00:22:10 Rob Brackett: BACK ON STACK 00:24:47 Brendan O'Brien: I think its fine to move on 00:24:48 Brendan O'Brien: ; 00:34:24 Michelle Hertzfeld: My brain gets more value out of considering the frameworks for successful collaboration that comes out of commons, rather than getting super bikeshed-y on what a commons is. So — community management that is more likely to be more successful = homogenous groups; slower change; folks having understanding of the resource, and ability to change rules around the resource, to meet their needs. It doesn’t look good for complex tech systems, from this perspective :( 00:34:50 Rob Brackett: 👍 00:36:08 Michelle Hertzfeld: But on the other hand, I have a colleague at work who is looking into what slowing the rate of information exchange via smaller, distributed online communities, and how that might be a good thing 00:39:39 Eric: +1 Yea! What would it mean to slow down? 00:39:59 Michelle Hertzfeld: Here’s my colleagues latest post, for more detail on her direction: http://enemygatedown.com/2019/03/29/from-point-a-to-chaos-the-inversion-of-information-economics/ 00:40:28 Rob Brackett: 👀 00:43:46 Michelle Hertzfeld: +100. The believe that we move in rational ways is actively damaging (sigh) 00:43:48 matt: I think Hardin's racism is more relevant to environmentalism.
00:44:03 matt: insofar as there are a number of racist roots ot ocntemporary environmentalism 00:44:24 matt: and it's useful to notice that and wonder to what extent some pieces of that are still there. 00:44:56 Michelle Hertzfeld: What’s a catch-phrase we can polularize? 00:44:58 Eric: Also the only woman to have won Nobel prize in Econ 00:45:02 Michelle Hertzfeld: Haha exactly @b5 00:48:24 Michelle Hertzfeld: Do you all think that tech will eventually be in a place where it’s Not So Hard (tm) ? Where people can engage more easily? 00:51:03 Michelle Hertzfeld: Interesting point — yeah, making it “easier” maybe doesn’t meet the need. 00:51:11 matt: man, I work with this all the time in the classI just finished! 00:51:34 matt: feel like I was able to MAKE my students use git, but not to CONVINCE THEM IT WAS WORTH IT> 00:51:41 Michelle Hertzfeld: Making things more understandable and able to engage with perhaps is more the thing. +1 Rob. 00:54:31 Michelle Hertzfeld: Hand 00:57:51 matt: nice one @b5 00:58:06 Michelle Hertzfeld: I mean, @b5, if you want to highlight the interesting bits.... 00:58:26 matt: +1 00:58:31 Michelle Hertzfeld: <3 01:00:30 matt: not exactly the same but related -- markers intended to slow us down: https://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2019/apr/02/why-were-making-the-age-of-our-journalism-clearer 01:02:49 Eric: I see Liz’s hand 01:07:45 Rob Brackett: This call is really just hashing the block of “everybody read these four articles” on the data together chain 01:09:07 matt: how do you mean? 01:09:09 matt: yes pls 01:09:47 Brendan O'Brien: noooooo 01:10:02 matt: you have to write the bits on the actual carbon atoms 01:11:26 Michelle Hertzfeld: These are all very eloquent ways to describe the problem @b5, thx 01:12:47 Michelle Hertzfeld: What’s star lark? 01:12:59 Brendan O'Brien: its a language 01:13:04 Brendan O'Brien: that qri runs 01:14:18 matt: I want to hear Liz say more about the empiricism experiment. And the avoidance of any trust relationship. That seems to run counter to the kinds of communitis I want to live in.
01:18:20 Michelle Hertzfeld: GOOD QUESTION 01:19:10 matt: I'll just say htat I don't even post my work ot the U of T digital commons repository. And that's ME. so I think incentivizing is hard. 01:20:03 Michelle Hertzfeld: Can also think about personal data — privacy controls, etc. 01:20:11 Michelle Hertzfeld: I think that’s easier to incentivize 01:20:38 Rob Brackett: Liz’s happy place is other people’s nightmare 01:24:22 Michelle Hertzfeld: Are we trying to head in the wrong direction? Or one that is impossible to adopt? Lots of people aren’t naturally organized, or think about things in ways that computers can understand. This is where content addressing seems really, really helpful — find the data automagically. 01:24:24 Michelle Hertzfeld: HMMMMMM 01:24:25 Michelle Hertzfeld: Thinking 01:24:29 Michelle Hertzfeld: Anyways — for next time :) 01:24:45 Brendan O'Brien: HMMM indeeeeed 01:26:06 Rob Brackett: 🏌️‍♂️ 01:26:59 Eric: datatogether#45 01:27:36 Michelle Hertzfeld: Thx, Matt! I learned a new word: “imbricate” :D 01:29:21 matt: I like that ending. 01:29:56 matt: where are you? 01:30:05 matt: wow.