Value Capture

Abstract: Value capture occurs when an agent enters a social environment which presents external expressions of value — which are often simplified, standardized, and quantified — and those external versions come to dominate our reasoning and motivations. Examples include becoming motivated by Twitter Likes and Retweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such pre-packaged value expressions have in our reasoning and our communications. But when we internalize such metrics, we damage our own autonomy. In value capture, we outsource the process of deliberating on our values. And that outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits of personal deliberation. When we tailor our values to ourselves, we can fine-tune them to fit our own particular psychology and place in the world. But in value capture, we buy our values off the rack.

game theoryhuman-computer interactionsocial and information networkslaw and economics

Audience: researchers in the topic

( chat | video )

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Metagovernance Seminar

Series comments: The Metagovernance Seminar invites individuals working in online governance to present their work to a community of other researchers and practitioners. Topics of the seminar include, but are not limited to, computational tools for governance, governance incidents and case studies from online communities, topics in cryptoeconomics, and the design of digital constitutions.

See archived videos: archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Metagovernance%20Seminar%22

The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public, but please note that the discussion is moderated. Our governance structure is defined here: metagov.pubpub.org/metagov-governance

Please contact a planning committee member (Cent Hosten, Nathan Schneider, Divya Siddarth, Michael Zargham, Joshua Tan, and Seth Frey) if you are interested in becoming a member of the seminar.

Where available, a direct link to the archived video is linked beneath the video tags.

Join our community to participate in the discussions around this series: metagov.org/join/community

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- Time: every Wednesday at 12:00pm ET (GMT-4). - Meeting Link: us06web.zoom.us/j/89076250096?pwd=flXetP53CxRFX7emjtiDhkbCR0CjBx.1

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