Commoning is a good way to solve coordination problems

[[Flancian]] asked:

• wdyt about commons/[[commoning]] as a possible solution to solving [[coordination problems]]?
• it seems like adding to the value of a commons, and thus unlocking further (e.g. integration) value for one and others, might be an actual incentive to agree on coordination points

I replied:

• Oh interesting! Yes I think commoning is a fantastic way of solving coordination problems.
• [[Peer Governance]] is one of the main spheres of commoning.
• Commoning feels in a nutshell like agreeing that a shared goal/resource is important, then figuring out the rules needed to keep that shared goal from being lost.
• Rules and activities
• I guess the counterargument is the [[Tragedy of the Commons]]. Which feels pretty much like a prime example of failure in a coordination problem.
• Of course that’s what [[Ostrom]] and other scholars debunked so thoroughly.
• I suppose, and I don’t know how this is approached usually in a game theoretical sense, is the problem in a coordination problem the question of how do you actually communicate in the first place that you have a shared goal?
• Like in the [[prisoner’s dilemma]] is the problem that people just don’t have a means to communicate a shared goal to each other? Or is it the assumption that even with a clearly communicated shared goal a rational individual would still choose selfishness.
• Another thing to add is that B&H describe commons as [[complex systems]], so I think not something that could easily be modelled to ‘prove’ it could solve a given problem.

I suppose, and I don’t know how this is approached usually in a game theoretical sense, is the problem in a coordination problem the question of how do you actually communicate in the first place that you have a shared goal?

• ^ Re: this question, I feel that commoning kicks in once you have a shared goal. I don’t know how much commoning helps to actually define the shared goal in the first place… need to look in to that.
• Heh one of the patterns is called [[Cultivate Shared Purpose and Values]] so maybe it does help in that regard too.
• [[Anarchist Cybernetics]] had a lot to say about communication of shared goals too.

Epistemic status

Type : [[notion]]

Gut feeling : 8

Confidence : 5

Confidence middling because I haven’t researched what a coordination problem is formally defined as. So I’m not sure how much a coordination problem revolves around deciding what to coordinate on, or doing the coordinating once you’ve decided that. But gut feeling high, because coordination seems to be a core principle of successful commoning.