In the last chapter, we explored a dynamic system model of the frictionless labor movement. What's this labor and how do we represent it to make sure the frictions are less is what we will explore in this thread.
So, what's a labor representation? The answer to this question is dependent on the idea of identity. The concept of identity is problematic because it’s determined from subjective viewpoints, which can be divided into two types. 2
- Internal creation - formed by myself. This is the picture I have of myself.
- External creation - formed by someone else. These are the pictures that other people have of me. “I am a fool!” cries the self, while the other labels that person a genius (or vice versa)
Social Identity: Social Categorization - the process we group individuals based on social information. The “Big Three” are sex, race, and age, but numerous other dimensions such as social status, occupation, sexual orientation.
Social Identity theory: Henri Tajfel's most significant contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).
Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e., putting people into groups and categories) is based on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things. In doing so, we tend to exaggerate: the differences between groups the similarities of things in the same group.
This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them).
The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.
Spatial Identities: No two cultures live conceptually in the same time and space. Space and time, like language itself, are works of art, and as language, they help condition and direct particle action.
Long before Kant announced that time and space were categories of the mind, long before the mathematician discovered that there were conceivable and rational forms of space other than the form described by Fuclid, mankind at large had acted on this premise (Mumford 1934: 18)
Modern nation-states are a form of spatial identity. The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, natural area the medium; the cultural landscape is the result.
None of the above ways of representations would be ideal for representing labor.
The other way to look at identity is Skill based.
Varṇa (Sanskrit: वर्ण, romanized: varṇa), a Sanskrit word with several meanings including type, order, color or class,[1][2] was used to refer to social classes in Hindu texts like the Manusmriti. 11 These and other Hindu texts classified the society in principle into four varnas:
- Shudras: labourers and service providers.
- Vaishyas: agriculturalists and merchants.
- Kshatriyas: rulers, warriors and administrators.
- Brahmins: priests, scholars and teachers.
Communities that belong to one of the four varnas or classes are called savarna or "caste Hindus." The Dalits and tribes who did not belong to any varna were called avarna. However, they grouped themselves around skills. 13
5 tribes / avarnas of Nilgiris
- Irula-snake, rat-catching, and honey collection.
- Badaga-food gathering, hunting, buffalo rearing, millet cultivation
- Toda-cattle-herding and dairy-work.
- Kota-jack of all trades
- Kurumba-hunters and gatherers.
Human Evolution has gravitated around Skills.
- Society 1.0 of the hunter‐gatherers,
- Society 2.0–the development of agriculture and the beginning of permanent settlements,
- Society 3.0–the process of industrialization, and
- Society 4.0–the information age of the Internet and communication technology.
- Society 5.0 is the response to the inevitable technological innovation and the increased use of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics.
Checkpoint: Though Identity can take different forms, a skill-based representation of a person/labor would make sense to remove frictions in the labor movement. Hence, we will delve deeper into the expression of these skill-based identities.
While our forefathers were hunters and gatherers, the #SkillIdentity was scars on body parts based on the difficulty of killing prey. Then we moved a little outside body to wear ornaments made of the kill.
Then badges and stars with monarchy taking over.
From badges, we moved on to Paper Resume: Leonardo DaVinci is credited with drafting the first "resume" in 1482 when he wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan to gain his patronage.
From paper resumes, we have evolved to use GitHub, Behance, LinkedIn as digital resumes.
But we know the paper and digital resumes are marred with overlooked errors to blatant lies. As we saw in this thread, the cost of errors in resumes (digital &/ paper) is ~ 10 Billion USD by
Now that we understand the history of identity representation and see that a skill-based identity is a good place to start, let’s see how we can leverage new technologies such as BlockChain to make it foolproof - pre-verified, pre-validated (company and community vetted)
You ask me now: Why would government agencies and markets (corporations) come together to share/validate data and join a blockchain consortium? Well, well well, park that question, alright? Few more chapters, and you get the purview.
A simple answer lies in incentives. If the incentives are set right, there's no reason why institutions and agencies wouldn't be part of a larger consortium that's acting on behalf of the wellbeing of a worker. We shall discuss more on this soon; stay tuned!
Summary: we looked at how identity is closely tied to a person's skills, how it has been historically represented, the issues with the current representation, and what's an ideal representation.