Axiologie: An Economy 2.0 Understanding of Valorization

Axiology is a third major branch of philosophy dealing with the study of the nature, types, and criteria of values and of value judgments. Axiology includes valorization, the according of value (or lack of value) to things, and aesthetics, relating to the beauty or pleasing appearance of things. Axiology is often overlooked in favor of its higher-profile philosophical cousins metaphysics, dealing with the nature of existence, and ethics in the 1.0 sense, dealing with rules of behavior based on ideas about what is morally good and bad.

Axiologie (e.g.; Axiology 2.0)
Axiology 1.0 needs to be extended to Axiology 2.0 or Axiologie in a technology philosophy sense to denote the new kinds of valorization that are present in the shift to Economy 2.0. Economy 2.0 is a world where economic transactions are highly-automated, affinity-based, multi-currency, unobtrusive, and on the way to post-scarcity for material goods.

One of the most visible aspects of the transition to Economy 2.0 is the multi-currency dimension - individuals are increasingly accumulating value in alternative non-monetary currencies such as reputation, authority, attention, intention, time, ideas, creativity, and health.

The multi-currency Economy 2.0 is also called the gift economy, the reputation economy, the attention economy, and the intention economy.

Science fiction has already envisioned future economic worlds where reputation points are the only currency and vary dramatically up and down like video-game points, typically viewable in virtual reality goggle Heads-up-Displays like Cory Doctorow’s whuffie-driven economy in ‘Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.’ Technology philosophy’s Axiologie deals with the acknowledgement, valorization, visibility, invisibility, modes of understanding, transferability, storage, investment, and use of alternative currencies.

Part of an ongoing series of Technology Philosophy Conceptology

Broadcasting Preference in the Intention Economy

One key dimension of the future is the presence of multiple currencies. A multicurrency society is already starting to develop where traditional monetary-related currencies are being supplemented with other currencies like reputation, attention, intention, ideas, affinity, preference, health, and resource access.

A book published in May 2012, Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge, suggests mechanisms to make intent as a currency more explicit, monetized, and implementable. The book extends the author’s previous ideas about vendor relationship management (VRM), which is how consumers might more effectively manage their relationship with vendors.

The issue is that corporations and other entities spend $1.5 trillion per year on marketing to create ‘a bad model of you’ and your purchasing intent (‘50% of marketing dollars are wasted but we don’t know which 50%’). On the other hand, you as a consumer may have trouble defining your demand, and finding and tailoring products and services in the midst of fending off unwanted publicity and inaccurate personalized advertising.

One potential solution for decreasing friction in the narrowband way that vendors and consumers currently interact is having consumers directly communicate their interests and intent. Intent communication could be accomplished through fourth party exchanges, websites like EmanciPay, where consumers may escrow their intention to buy with a down payment of funds to the site (fourth parties are truly independent intermediaries and advocates for the consumer as opposed to current third parties which are more of an accessory to second parties (e.g.; vendors)). Short of making a financial pledge, many other fourth party sites could accommodate less-defined customer specifications for desired products and services.

The Intention Economy then, is where consumers intentcast (e.g.; broadcast their intent) for products and services, even and especially at inchoate and automated levels, so that vendors can be responsive and continue their expertise in constructing solutions that anticipate consumer demand. Some companies are getting onto this bandwagon, like IBM with their "Chief Executive Customer" program, but like any important change and successful implementation, mindset shifts may be required, and tools must be extremely easy to use – where is Twitter for VRM?!

The big data graph era

With the start of the big data era and the ability to collect, store and render meaningful numerous data points, the cultural outlook of the world is shifting too. Graphs, graphs, graphs. Individuals and communities have a social graph, taste graph, preference graph, affinity graph, attention graph, intention graph, values graph, emotion graph, health graph and more.

Graphing theory is being applied to many new contexts such as social networks, media consumption, nanotechnology fabrication, gaming, and genomic analysis and could be one of the many data analysis techniques applied to any large dataset. VLDS – very large datasets – and moving back into the cloud mean that sophisticated data analysis and artificial intelligence techniques could be an expected feature of websites just like social networking commentary and gaming elements have become today.

The preference economy

There is now the new era of a multicurrency society. Numerous non-monetary currencies are coveted, amassed and exchanged including reputation, social graph, time, ideas, intention, attention, affinity, preference, health, and resource access.

The internet is already doing a good job of serving as a clearing exchange and means of valuation for the currencies of reputation, social graph, intention, and attention.

The next generation of economy 3.0 startups is building even more dimensionality into the multicurrency society.

Blippy broadcasts purchasing activity and serves as a leading indicator for public company quarterly sales; a real-time economy feed.

Hunch goes a step further with the grand vision of mapping and predicting the affinity of all people for all objects.

For example, what is any individual’s preference for Nike, TikTok, Slaughterhouse-Five, Ulan Bator, existentialism, or any other noun, brand, product, item, object or idea. Social feed “likes” are already being mined for preference, affinity, and revenue.

Value, preference, and affinity could become an expected attribute of any product, brand, website, and experience just like social networking is and gaming principles are starting to be. These seemingly unobtrusive currencies could stream nicely into exchange via automatic markets.

Affinity Capital

A key concept in the 2.0 Economy is affinity capital. Deeper levels of information about every economic transaction are starting to be available such that individuals, businesses and communities can be very specific in directing and democratizing their capital. In many cases, products can be chosen that are organic, recyclable, fair trade, made from sustainable materials and made by companies with fair labor practices or whatever affinities or attributes the buyer cares about.

Affinity-directed capital can influence both cash inflows and outflows. Affinity inflows are the money earned. Earners can now be more selective by checking Corporate Social Responsibility reports if thinking of working for large companies, by being entrepreneurs and contractors, finding projects on website marketplaces like TopCoder (software programming), oDesk (professional services) and 99 designs (graphic design) or by having clients seek them directly through their web activities and content. A taxonomy of affinity capital marketplace links is available here.

Affinity capital influences capital outflows too: investing, donating and purchasing. In investing, socially-responsible investing (SRI) mutual funds have been available for several years, and now peer-to-peer lending and social venture capital platforms allow investors to direct capital into these asset classes too. Philanthropy is merging with investing in cases like Kiva where investors find a lower or blended financial return is acceptable when social outcomes can also be achieved. The SocialCapitalMarkets conference has continued to draw several hundred worldwide social entrepreneurs to talk about how to bring social change with economic transactions at their annual September conference in San Francisco. The organization also sponsors The Hub, twelve worldwide physical spaces for social capital markets collaboration.

Affinity purchasing, voting with dollars based on product attributes, is another way of democratizing capital as consumers and businesses check websites like ClimateCooler, the Fair Trade Federation and others to see how socially and environmentally friendly products are before buying or purchasing directly from green product websites like GreenHome or other affinity-based marketplaces.

Socially-responsible and environmentally-friendly are some of the biggest affinity attributes but the key point is that deep attribute knowledge means that capital can be directed granularly to ANY affinity attribute.