Deindividuation theory is a social psychological account of the individual in the crowd that postulates that the psychological state of deindividuation brings about anti-normative and disinhibited behavior in the individual members.
More than just a technical architecture or an organizational format for knowledge exchange or collaboration, Peer to Peer keeps appearing as a model in many arenas, from technical to cultural, to social and political, and it is ultimately leading to the establishment of a new civilization.
“The parable of the tribes” is used to describe schematically how one aggressive tribe among an otherwise peaceful group can force the spread of the “ways of power” throughout the system: power becomes a contaminant that, once introduced, becomes universal abetted and magnified through innovations in organization and technology.
Scientific and technological developments such as the Human Genome Project, GNU/Linux, Global Positioning Satellite data, file-sharing distribution of music and cinema, the cost of drugs for global epidemics such as AIDS, has necessitated new models for paying for public goods, such as compulsory licensing, competitive intermediators, and nonprofit matching funds.
While the Internet phenomenon is often referred to as an “Information Revolution,” Michael Schrage says this is a misnomer and claims it is more accurate to state that the world is in the midst of a Relationship Revolution.
In addition to self-interested behavior, various experimental games have been able to quantifiably demonstrate behavior with preferences for altruism, equality and reciprocity, reflections of a human dedication to social norms even at personal cost.
Studying long-standing institutions for governing common pool resources at various scales can provide important lessons for governing new kinds of shared resources. In the end, institutionalizing effective processes for ongoing negotiation of the rules is more important than the rules themselves.
Using “international [cooperation] regimes” as an example, Keohane examines how cooperation is possible in the absence of a “hegemon” to enforce compliance.
Cooperation through indirect reciprocity, captured by the phrase "I help you, someone else helps me", requires the evolution of reputations and communication of those reputations among the larger group (as in the human instinct to gossip), cognitive abilities beyond being able to identify relatives (required for kin selection) or the individuals who have cooperated with you in the past (required for direct reciprocity).
