I like to think about SN as a market. One of the things markets allow us is an easier way to determine what it is that people want.
it can use the knowledge of all participants, and the objectives it serves are the particular objectives of all its participants in all their diversity and polarity.
This sounds a lot like what algorithms and moderators are trying to solve in the world of social media. Particularly, it sounds like what sats are being used for on SN.
Here's another thing: if SN is a market, there ought to be competition on SN.
competition is important only because and insofar as its outcomes are unpredictable and on the whole different from those that anyone would have been able to consciously strive for; and that its salutary effects must manifest themselves by frustrating certain intentions and disappointing certain expectations
If there is competition here, what are we competing for?
Maybe we are competing for space on the front page (or on the front page of any territory). It seems like competition among users for such visibility (either of their own posts or those that they like to see) ought to produce an "optimal" ordering:
For if the market order does not serve a particular rank ordering of objectives, and indeed if, like any spontaneously created order, it cannot legitimately be said to have definite objectives, neither is it then possible to represent the value of its outcome as a sum of individual outputs. What do we mean, then, when we claim that the market order in some sense produces a maximum or an optimum?
Here is how Hayek describes setting up the conditions for such competition:
it obviously makes sense to try to create conditions under which any randomly selected individual has prospects of pursuing his goals as effectively as possible, even if we cannot predict which particular individuals will benefit thereby and which will not.
And finally, this is his observation on the outcome of such a system:
The only common objective we can pursue in choosing this technique for the ordering of social reality is the abstract structure or order that will be created as a consequence.
If SN is a market, it's not likely we can predict what topics will fill the front page, but will we be able to predict that any given stacker has the same chance at competing in this market as any other? What might need to change to make this so?
Great topic!
Short answer: it’s complicated.
Longer short answer: The competition is over any scarce thing that can be attained through Stacker News. That might be the time and attention of stackers who you want feedback from, it could be their sats, positioning on the front page (which both readers and writers are interested in), or it could be the rewards pool.
There’s no advantage to any particular stacker in some of those things, while others clearly have some degree of reputation factoring in. Reputation seems like a useful thing, though, so now we have to ask if building a reputation is broadly attainable. I think it is, but I haven’t given much thought to what frictions exist there.
This paper is underappreciated in Bitcoin circles. Hayek's core argument -- that competition generates knowledge no central planner can possess -- maps directly onto Bitcoin's proof-of-work discovery mechanism. Each hash is a micro-experiment testing the nonce space. The network learns the valid block through millions of failed attempts. No single miner knows the answer in advance. This is Hayek's "competition as discovery" made literal in code.
What is less discussed is Hayek's corollary: the outcomes of competitive discovery cannot be predicted, only evaluated after the fact. This is why Bitcoin's monetary policy works -- it does not try to optimize for outcomes. It sets the rules and lets the discovery process run. The hashrate IS the price signal of the knowledge market for block production.