This is my first conversation with Chris Fortier, Vice President of the Web 3.0 company Rally. It begins when Chris questions me on what he calls my “natural forces” theory, which invokes two nonrandom forces of evolution: natural selection and natural reward. Relevant to this theory, we discuss the concept of teleology, especially as it relates to evolutionary adaptation and experimental evolution in microorganisms. We then review the “major transition” framework for classifying evolutionary innovation in terms of levels of organization, cooperation, and information storage and transmission, and how they relate to the Web 1/2/3 scheme. We then forge analogies between the cooperative and informational problems facing planetary life and humans operating in the technoworld, with reference to game theoretical dilemmas. In the latter half of the conversation, I tell Chris about my project investigating the economics of science and how to make science more innovative by altering its funding structure. Chris immediately grasps my approach to the problem and speculates about a solution. We then discuss what Chris is doing at Rally and I query him about its economics and governance. Finally, I tell Chris about my proposed solution and Chris is ready with examples from the cryptoworld that support my approach. At the end, Chris answers my question of how Rally itself stands to profit along with the creators within it. This conversation is an explosion of dynamism, where a discussion of “natural forces” illuminates the phenomena of nature, technology, and science.
The first half of this episode was recorded on Feb. 11, 2022 and the second half on Feb. 22, 2022. I had a lot of fun with Chris!
Feb 11, 2022.
Feb 22, 2022.
References
Natural Reward Theory
Gilbert, O. M. (2020). Natural reward drives the advancement of life. Rethinking Ecology, 5, 1.
Bacterial Evolution
Blount, Z. D. (2016). A case study in evolutionary contingency. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 58, 82-92.
Blount, Z. D. (2017). Replaying evolution. American Scientist, 105(3), 156-165.
Quandt, E. M., Gollihar, J., Blount, Z. D., Ellington, A. D., Georgiou, G., & Barrick, J. E. (2015). Fine-tuning citrate synthase flux potentiates and refines metabolic innovation in the Lenski evolution experiment. Elife, 4, e09696.
[has simplified figure from Quandt et al. (2015) showing the rapid expansion of a bacterial lineage following exploitation of citrate resource zone]
Social Amoebae
Gilbert, O. M., Foster, K. R., Mehdiabadi, N. J., Strassmann, J. E., & Queller, D. C. (2007). High relatedness maintains multicellular cooperation in a social amoeba by controlling cheater mutants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(21), 8913-8917.
Kin recognition, Histocompatibility & Association Theory
Gilbert, O. M. (2015). Histocompatibility as adaptive response to discriminatory within-organism conflict: A historical model. The American Naturalist, 185(2), 228-242.
Gilbert, O. M. (2017). Association theory: a new framework for analyzing social evolution. bioRxiv, 197632.
Gilbert, O. M. (2018). Altruism or association?. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(14), E3069-E3070.
Human MHC Variability
Robinson, J., Barker, D. J., Georgiou, X., Cooper, M. A., Flicek, P., & Marsh, S. G. (2020). Ipd-imgt/hla database. Nucleic acids research, 48(D1), D948-D955.
IMGT/HLA database showing polymorphism
Face Variability
Sheehan, M. J., & Nachman, M. W. (2014). Morphological and population genomic evidence that human faces have evolved to signal individual identity. Nature communications, 5(1), 1-10.
Egg shell variability
Lyon, B. E. (2003). Egg recognition and counting reduce costs of avian conspecific brood parasitism. Nature, 422(6931), 495-499.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/08/17/readers-wildlife-and-science-post/
Robert Hanson
Hanson, R (1995). Could gambling save science? Encouraging an honest consensus. Social Epistemology 9, 3–33 .
Vitalik Buterin
Buterin, V. Review of Optimism retro funding round 1.
Game Theory
Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981) The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211(4489), 1390-1396.
Reciprocity
Rockenbach, B. and Milinski, M. (2006). The efficient interaction of indirect reciprocity and costly punishment. Nature 444, 718–723.
Major Transitions Theory
Buss, L. W. (1987) The evolution of individuality. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ.
(transitions in levels of organization)
Smith, J. M., & Szathmáry, E. (1997). The major transitions in evolution. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK.
(transitions in information storage and transmission)
Taleb, N. (2009) The Black Swan. Random House. New York, NY.
Taleb, N. (2012) Understanding is a poor substitute for convexity (antifragility). The Edge.
Press, W.H. (2013) What’s So Special About Science (And How Much Should We Spend on It?). Science 342, 817–822.
Command Economies
Grossman, G. (1990). “Command Economy” in Problems of the Planned Economy, The New Palgrave., J. Eatwell, M. Milgate, P. Newman, Eds. (Palgrave Macmillan UK), pp. 58–62.
Clark, J. and Wildavsky, A. (1990) Why Communism Collapses: The Moral and Material Failures of Command Economies are Intertwined*. Journal of Public Policy 10, 361–390.
Niemietz, K. (2019) Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies. The Institute of Economic Affairs. London, UK.
Capitalism
Friedman, M. and Friedman, R. (1980). Free to choose. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. New York, NY.
Nelson, R. (1990). Capitalism as an engine of progress. Research Policy 19, 193–214 .
Christensen, C. (1997). The innovator’s dilemma. Harvard Business Review Press. Cambridge, MA.
Baumol, W. J. (2002) The free-market innovation machine: analyzing the growth miracle of capitalism. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ.
Zitelmann, R. (2018) The Power of Capitalism: A Journey Through Recent History Across Five Continents. LID Publishing Limited. New York, NY.
Economics of Science
A. P. Kirilyuk, “The Last Scientific Revolution” in Against the Tide, M. L. Corredoira, C. C. Perelman, Eds.
B. Knuteson, Capitalist science. arXiv arXiv preprint arXiv:1102.2474 (2011).
[Argues for capitalistic science, but assumes products of science are marketable]
B. Knuteson (2016) The solution to science’s replication crisis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.03223.
[Argues for capitalistic science, but assumes scientists sell products to each other]
Gilbert, O. M. Planned capitalism for science.*
[Argues for capitalistic science by identifying structures of capitalism that can be imported into science even where the products are not marketable]
*This is draft will be available for download once I receive comments from reviewers.