Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere and Exchange Stylistics

Discussion of the relationship between Eric S. Raymond's Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere and Yukito Emaya's [interchange format

from Cultivation of the Nowhere Sphere

Most methods of organization that humans have are adaptive behaviors to scarcity and desire. Each method has a separate means of acquiring social status.

• Means of obtaining social status.

• The easiest way is the command hierarchy... The distribution of scarce goods is done by a central authority, backed up by a military force... Social status is determined primarily by the ability to access extortion power.

  • This is [interchange format B

• Our society is solely an exchange economy... The distribution of scarce goods is de-centered by exchange and voluntary cooperation... Social status is determined primarily by the control of things (not necessarily material things).

  • This is exchange form C.

• ... There is a third model that is quite different from both of these and is not widely recognized except by anthropologists. This is the culture of giving.

  • Giving culture is an adaptation to excess, not scarcity... Social status is not determined by what a person controls, but by what he or she gives away.

    • Original English: Gift cultures are adaptations not to scarcity but to abundance. ... In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control but by what you give away.
    • Related: Wealth is not how much you have, but how much you can give (Larry Wall)
  • Would this be exchange form A?
    • Strongly related to exchange style A in terms of gift culture
    • But to equate this with Exchange Form A seems like a low resolution representation.
    • It is important to point out that "adaptation to excess, not scarcity" is the key.
      • In the era when exchange style A was born, exchange was the exchange of tangible objects.
      • Technological advances have created [digital goods
      • Digital goods are cheap replication cost, so they become excessive as soon as they are created
    • Progress from the invention of letterpress to the invention of the Internet has lowered the cost of reproducing and transporting the written word.
      • First, this generated a community of knowledge exchange called academia.
      • Knowledge exchange is another kind of exchange
      • Reproducible nature is similar to digital goods
    • These are the birth of New Exchange Style.
      • I have reservations about whether to call this an exchange form D, because there is no clarity regarding the boundary between A and D.
      • It seems that Yukito Emaya sees more meaning in the exchange style D, so he puts together a big concept in a small way.
      • Personally, I don't believe that the wide variety of exchange activities should fit into the four classification frameworks A-D.

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