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Is there just one regenerative zero-sum game?

2024-03-11

We're mostly familiar with the idea of a zero-sum game. It is often thought of as

  • competitive
  • individualistic
  • not regenerative
  • within the scope of the left hemisphere 1)

I'm setting out a view that there is at most only one regenerative zero-sum game: the “game” of change from an extractive, exploitative, degenerative society to a regenerative one. There are other zero-sum games that continue to have a foothold outside our attention, and I would like them to be changed into regenerative win–win games.

I'm not an expert in these areas, so some of this may come across as ill-informed opinion. If you see it as such, please get in touch to help inform me better!

Zero-sum games

Zero-sum games are not regenerative, because if the sum is zero or negative, how can there be any regeneration? If one's gain is another's loss, there is no collective betterment. But in my view, many people in the regenerative movement still play zero-sum games in one way or another. I want to focus in particular on three things that tend to be zero-sum:

  • money
  • attention and time
  • technical platform usage

Money is important, because in my experience, most people in the regenerative movement have limited money, and need to choose wisely where it goes. For sure, there are benefactors, charities and foundations; but when these are widely known about there is zero-sum competition between deserving causes for their funds. Attention and time are the ultimate limited resource for humans. That's why there is so much competition out there to grab and hold our attention in every medium I can think of.

The choice of technical platforms (for whatever purpose) is related. People in the regenerative movement tend to be busy doing good things, and each different platform takes time and attention to use. It's impractical to use all of them. For example, the more messaging apps there are, the more time we spend trying to keep track of them all, and the more likely we are to miss messages that we want to see. When our capacity to track different platforms is full up, then it becomes a zero-sum game: using one platform more means using another less.

These three factors can be present together, so let's look at some examples or activities around the regenerative world, and tease out the threads.

Examples

Communications

I've noticed, to my dismay, an increasing number of regenerative writers deciding to publish their writings particularly on Substack, Medium (website), Academia.edu and other similar commercial platforms. I have no problems with people paid to write on commission, nor with people whose business is entertaining others. If a written work is commercially valuable to some business, then, for sure, the business should be paying for it, just as they should be paying for software (and not simply lifting it from the Open Source community). But what about information, experience, knowledge, wisdom, that is of value to everyone, or even more pointedly, is of particular value to people in the regenerative movement? People who are not playing the competitive financial game? There, I say, (knowledge or) information wants to be free.

Commercial writing platforms do provide certain useful features that are hard to arrange on one's own site. They also offer the ability for authors to charge money for accessing their writing, often within a freemium model, where some writings can be accessed freely, and others are locked behind a paywall. The author may get some remuneration from this, but if so, the business is taking a cut. Where does that cut go? I presume, to the usual places for a business: towards the cost of running the business (in a capitalist system), to shareholders, and to the business owners. Most of these are not part of the regenerative movement. We could see the business owners are extracting a “rentier” profit, in the way described by Yanis Varoufakis as “technofeudalism”.

To be clear, I don't want to argue against the freedom of commercial businesses to provide various services to writers, and to profit from that. However, I am cautious, particularly after seeing the fate of social media platforms such as Facebook. Moreover, I do not count the commercial nature of these operations is necessarily zero-sum.

Their zero-sum nature strikes me as coming through the economy of attention. Because these platforms are marketed well, and provide services that people find useful and convenient, they tend to take audience away from self-published sites.2) The zero-sum concerns the fact that readers' reading time is limited by their circumstances, and I do not wish to see more humble, open and free web sites suffering lack of attention due to commercial competition. That's as well as not enjoying the sight of resource being syphoned off to some techno-metropolis such as Silicon Valley.

For video communication, video storage and delivery is quite specialised, so not surprisingly most people use services such as YouTube (owned together with Google) and Instagram (owned together with Facebook). There appear to be quite a few more podcast hosting platforms. For video and audio, I haven't done the research to find out which if any platforms would count as inside the regenerative movement, but I'm guessing that they will be more expensive and have a smaller audience of users, so they will be in a similar position trying to compete against the incumbents, as with Substack and Medium.

Courses

I notice increasing numbers of people offering courses with fees. I see that as good, if a training is going to help people set up regenerative businesses, which in turn will either take money from the currently normal economy (let's call it the “degenerating” world) and helping it to flow into the regenerative world, or helps the regenerative world become more self-sufficient. That training would be increasing the resources of the regenerative system, while allowing good trainers to make a living, or contribute to their livelihood.

But we need to be careful how that is done. If the courses in regenerative topics attract mainly people who already have an established interest in regeneration, they tend not to have a lot of money, as they may already have wholly or partly given up on a “normal” degenerative job. Thus, any money given for a course is money not given to another course, and courses compete for the scarce resources of the regenerators. The other “zero-sum” here is that money given to regenerative course leaders comes from the regenerative commoners, so that the total money in the regenerative system doesn't increase — rather, taxation means that it decreases.

Events, residencies, retreats

A similar story can be told about any kind of regeneration-focused event. If a festival, retreat, residency or whatever is aimed principally at enjoyment, money is typically flowing out of, rather than into, the regenerative community, through taxes, degenerative supplies, etc. Now, of course, a great festival may provide priceless opportunities for people to meet in real life, spark off each other, and start something new; but this needs both deliberate planning to maximise the chances of such connection for action, and also careful attention to inclusivity, to enable some people who have little money at the time to attend.

As with courses, here again there is the danger of events competing against each other for regeneration-friendly participants, all of whom have finite time, and many of whom have strictly limited funds. The same story is likely: the success of one event might be coupled with the failure of other ones.

Another reservation I have with supposedly regenerative events is that I have seen some participants seeing them as an opportunity to sell their goods or services. Now, to be fair, that's quite normal for festivals, and often welcome. But as with courses, or events themselves, I would hope for caution here. If you're selling inside the regenerative community, is that actually increasing the overall value in the community, including its self-sustaining or regenerative capacity as a commmunity or movement? If not, isn't it just a distraction?

There is one kind of notable exception to this trend: places where people can enjoy free board and lodging in exchange for work. The one I have heard most about is WWOOF, which is a good representative of the regenerative movement. There have been, and still may be other communities or ecovillages that offer similar arrangements for work other than organic farming.

Technical systems

I have felt sickened over several decades now by certain tactics of the computer industry. In particular, software vendors such as Microsoft are notorious for offering their software very cheaply for educational purposes — knowing full well that because of the differences between such software, and the effort it takes to learn new ways of interacting, most people will be reluctant to change the software they are using for a different way of interacting. Hence the predictable, and presumably quite deliberately created, preference of people for Windows software over open source alternatives. Apple has played similar games with people — and of course they are quintessentially in a competitive situation with each other. The zero-sum nature is because of that effect: if someone uses one operating system they tend not to be using other ones.

This is mainly the big tech players, who are not by nature regenerative. But even in the regenerative movement I see somewhat similar things happening: two or more groups building software for doing similar things, but in different ways, and in a ways that are not interoperable. This seems to me even worse than the zero-sum “win-lose” situation. If people adopt incompatible approaches to the same challenges, the danger is that the network effects mean that splitting the community in two reduces its effectiveness by perhaps four or more, overall.

Membership networks

The matter of membership networks is the most subtle and perhaps nuanced case I can think of at present. Of course we all want to belong to some meaningful group, and particularly people who identify with regeneration want to belong to regenerative networks. A small network organisation is likely to create a warm sense of belonging and trust, and this is unquestionably important for many people's morale, and therefore for their agency; their effectiveness; their ability to live the life and do the work they are called to.

On the surface there is a bit of a zero-sum game here in terms of membership. It doesn't make much sense to belong to more than one or two close-knit affinity groups, where you can develop the desirable and necessary familiarity and trust. That's a bit like: you can't really live in two co-living communities at once.3) If we were to look at networks as a zero-sum game, it would mean that each network is competing for members, in a kind of marketplace of people and communities.

Now I'll start turning towards better ways forward.

Imagine that a large group of networks made an agreement between themselves to positively facilitate transfers of people across different networks. (This could work for intentional communities, ecovillages and co-living arrangements as well.) What could happen? Instead of competing for members, each network would be encouraging members to transfer to other networks that suited them even better. And if this worked well, most if not all networks would, in return, be receiving new members from other networks, that fitted in even better with their particular special interest, or way of operating, or whatever other characteristics that mattered. Quite possibly, everyone would gain, because people who fitted better into their networks would be more enthusiastic and likely to draw in more people overall.

A win–win! Let's take a look at some more.

Win–win regenerative alternatives

Money

In recent times, the world seems to have become more and more divided between, on the one side, the super-rich, for whom money is no problem at all; and on the other side, increasing numbers of people who do not have enough money to meet the lifestyle they aspire to. It seems inevitable that the majority of those who are super-rich will not be those who are concerned with regeneration. They have their wealth and power now, and probably are concerned with not losing it. Thus, it seems likely that most people in the regenerative movement need to take some care with money. Private expenditure is therefore, too often, zero-sum, and I've pointed out a few cases of this, above.

The main ways that ordinary people get access to free resources seem to be either through advertising or ‘freemium’ model pricing, and this accentuates unequal access to resources. Some services honourably and notably use a gift economy, such as Wikipedia, where all information is available without charge, and Wikipedia is financed through voluntary donations.

One way to try to escape from zero-sum money games is to break out of the normal, fiat money system. Various alternatives are mentioned in the Wikipedia article on complementary currency. On the surface, local currencies seem merely to reduce the flow of money away from a locality, but they may also lead to increased economic activity and therefore be, in a way, regenerative. Another, even more radically different way, is through the gift economy.

Offering regenerative services, or goods within a regenerative or circular economy, to people or companies who would otherwise buy from the established suppliers represents a valuable shift – “transvestment” is has been called – of resource from the old to the new, and that is to be warmly encouraged. Ideally, a good amount of money for events, as well as services, needs to come from outside the regenerative movement, while not denying access to the less affluent regenerative community. Using the same resources for regenerative events and business-oriented events is one possibility. Another option is bidding for funding in a field where the other bidders are inside the mainstream economy, and have mainstream values.

Time and attention

Our time, and even more acutely, our attention, are the ultimate scarce resources. My impression is that doing things regeneratively can take more time than doing things the “convenient” way — a simple example is sharing or using public transport rather than everyone having their own vehicle. To me, this means that living regeneratively must involve spending less time on things that are not in keeping with our values, and on distractions or displacement activity.

When the driving force behind social media is advertising (as it is in many cases), the longer people spend on a site, the more opportunity there is for advertising revenue. This drives giant businesses such as Facebook to prioritise the kind of outrage that drives people to react, while of course staying on the platform. But every minute spent reading one person's story is a minute less to read someone else's; every minute spent in divisive outrage is a minute less spent on fruitful reflection and taking regenerative action.

Thus, my guiding principle for regenerative media of all kinds is this: give your visitors first the information needed to know whether this is the right place for them, or whether some other place would serve their needs better. This is the exact opposite of what incentivises advertising-driven sites, or sites that collect information about your actions, to sell that information to marketers to target adverts to you. I was saying something similar back in 2000 and in 2004.

This is surely easier said than done. Practically, I see it as requiring a remarkable amount of collaboration between providers of information: to know who the other ones are; to be able either to guess well or to find out where people find most benefit, and to keep up to date with where exactly to send them. If this were done, the result would be rather like the situations described above, for membership networks. You allow your people to go elsewhere, freely; and receive others freely from elsewhere.

On a rather more fanciful note, I can see choosing employees, life partners, or co-living partners, as working in a similar way. Why should it be a zero-sum competition for the best-looking (in a variety of senses) people? Why not, instead, adopt the spirit of passing them on to a place or person who might be a better fit? If everyone did this, everyone would fit in better. There might not be matching numbers of people and positions, but if there turns out to be scarcity, why not break social norms and try sharing?

Technical platforms

Platforms could be seen as one particular aspect of the issue of time and attention, and the zero-sum nature has been spelled out above in examples. So I'll just point out the potential win–win scenarios that I see.

First, I see the need for a strong software development culture and ethos where anyone with a good idea for a platform first looks at what is out there at present. Collaboration can be in the form of joining forces; or agreeing to specialise in different aspects or different functionality. Thus, keep to one platform for one service.

Many services have significant overlap. Thus there is a need, for example, for interoperable personal information, so that such information can be transferred when a person wants it to be, without technical delays, loss or corruption. There needs to be a baseline flexible standard ontology, where the common elements are represented in compatible ways, leaving freedom for specialist platforms to design the data structures that are specific to them in a way they see best.

I see this as embodying a kind of standards commons. The platform builders / curators / owners are the commoners sharing in this commons, and as with Ostrom's principles for effective commons, they govern the standards collectively in a way that benefits all of them. They also have collective control of the intellectual property that is inherent in their software, so as to be able to defend themselves collectively from predatory take-over by big tech business — which risks forcing the services provided back from being regenerative to being degenerative.

All this must not mean being stuck with present solutions. When a new idea comes along – to offer a better service, something more regenerative, or with less cost or damage to living ecosystems – then there needs to be a way of working that in to the system without delay; as the commercial businesses will most likely also be quickly taking on the better way of doing things.

So:

  • don't duplicate functionality: collaborate
  • make common data interoperable
  • encourage people to use the platform best suited to them

Could we see a nation state as a bit similar to a platform? It would be so delightful to see governments adopting similar principles, but … but … but … that is way beyond the scope of this piece!

Does cultural change need to be zero-sum?

In the above analysis, it is probably clear that I am advocating channelling attention, money and other resources away from the established powers that be – the “degenerative” capitalist incumbents – and towards regeneration in general. Participation is the measurement I am thinking of here. The more you participate in the regenerative economy, the less you will be participating in the competitive capitalist economy, and vice versa. That looks like the zero-sum game we would all be interested in playing.

But does it necessarily have to be zero-sum?

I'm not clear on this. But I recognise that fighting against something is rarely regenerative, so can we even dispense with this zero-sum? If we could, it would perhaps be in the spirit of “hospicing modernity” – being kind – while building up our culture beyond modernity.4)

Love

I will stop my rant here, to conclude with something much more positive. Love, in the best sense that I know, is never zero-sum. Possessive relationship is zero-sum. The competition for the scarce, “best” available partners in a monogamous culture is zero-sum, for sure.

The love described in the New Testament, agape is very clearly regenerative. So one approach to any zero-sum game, simple to describe, and hard to do, is to look at it in the spirit of love, and change the game to a regenerative one. That doesn't mean accepting losing the zero-sum game. It means getting right out of that game into a different one. We may not be physically able to change the situation – we may be suffering coercion – but inwardly our best selves are able to change the meaning of whatever is happening to a regenerative game.5)

I would like that spirit to inform all thoughts and actions around the matter of this piece.

See also

1)
See the work of Iain McGilchrist discussed at length in a recent study group of Life Itself.
2)
A similar situation, which may be more familiar, is that big chain supermarkets tend to squeeze out small, friendly, local retailers.
3)
Or, to take an example that used to happen occasionally, a man living a double life with two “wives” who knew nothing about each other, perhaps until the man died.
4)
I hesistate to use the term “metamodernity”, and “postmodern” is rather passé as well as being understood very divergently. I don't think there is yet a single good name for the culture and the economy that we want to usher into existence.
5)
This tallies with the IFS view of being “Self-led”.
d/2024-03-11.txt · Last modified: 2024-03-19 17:55 by simongrant