On 10/25/17 11:47, Kerim Aydin wrote: > > > Hi all, I wanted to share some observations on what makes Agoran > economies function, and where we're not quite there yet. These are just > observations from watching systems go by. > > - To get trading, you need SPECIALIZATION and DIVERSE GOODS. For > trading to work, you need the Cost of Specialization (in time or funds) > to be much greater than the cost of a specialist producing those codes. > Otherwise people just rotate through specialties to get the goods they > need. (This is Econ 101 for Free Trade between nations). > > - Our current system has none of this. What the current system is is > an abstracted and volatile stock market. We can invest stamps or > proposals when price is low to sell high. It's basically each player > against "the system" (where the "system" is our collective behavior) > and it's kind of interesting. But it doesn't, at all, promote cross- > person economic activity. > > There's nothing wrong with an "abstract stock market" game. But we shouldn't > mistake it for a trading system.
In a way, the fact that each person's stamps are different makes everyone a fixed specialist. This was by design. Trading is intended to happen for win conditions, but I agree that it's become clear that we need more routine reasons to trade. > > So the way I see it, we should do one of two things: > > 1. Embrace the current system as a stock market/gambling system, and > increase the Stamps and aspects of gambling, and make more ways that > speculation can happen. But not try too hard to make this a "trading > economy". > > 2. Scrap the volatile aspects entirely (fix FV, mint more shinies than > we'll ever need). Instead, create a system of Specialization. We can > use things like Land as a vehicle - either by making Land *one* limited > specialty (limited supply) but creating other specialty directions... > OR by making Land a basic low-level commodity (lots of supply) but with > customization (Farms and so forth). > > I think *either* system could be fun. I do enjoy the "buy low/sell high" > simple gaming we've got now, and (in past history) we've done (2) much > more often than (1). > > But we should really not try to go in both directions, because this hybrid > is just a *bit* of a mess. [Once we've answered this basic question - > what are we trying to do - then we can talk about details like incomes, > supply level, etc. etc.] > I think a middle ground can exist, but only if the trading focuses on the speculative aspects. I propose that we make stamps even more unique, in a way that makes their trading more worthwhile. My proto: * Create a Bonus Stamp Value, at 1/5th the FV, with a minimum of 1. * When a player destroys a stamp that they did not create, the receive Stamp Value + (BSV / # of instances of that stamp that exist). Thus, your stamps are always more valuable to someone else, and vice versa. This should encourage trading. Additionally rarer stamps are more valuable, which gives new players a bit of an indirect advantage.
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