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Computer-mediated communication systems are believed to have powerful effects on social relationships. Many claim that this new form of social interaction encourages wider participation, greater candor, and an emphasis on merit over status. In short, the belief is that social hierarchies are dissolved and that flatter, more egalitarian social organizations emerge. Networked communications, it is argued, will usher in a renewed era of democratic participation and revitalized community. But as with earlier technologies that promised freedom and power, the central problems of social relationships remain, although in new and possibly more challenging forms.

recommended by Amy Scatliff ; she said: Also, on this thread Gilly Salmon's model came up - http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml. I'd like to link that to Gregor, what you've posted on socializing through cooperative board games. I'd love to keep the conversation going on how to scale social interaction between learners by using real world simulations and games (in my case I'm usually thinking of learners 18+) as a way to train in the skills necessary to navigate micro-interactions--is that the word that's been used?--within social dilemmas. I like to see how games can relate as closely as possible to the real-life situations being navigated.

In the pages that follow we advance two propositions. First, people cooperate not only for self-interested reasons but because they are genuinely concerned about the well being of others, care about social norms, and wish to act ethically. People punish those who exploit the cooperation of others for the same reasons. Contributing to the success of a joint project for the benefit of one's group, even at a personal cost, evokes feelings of satisfaction, pride, even elation. Failing to do so is often a source of shame or guilt. Second, we came to have these "moral sentiments" because our ancestors lived in environments, both natural and socially constructed, in which groups of individuals who are predisposed to cooperate and uphold ethical norms tended to survive and expand relative to other groups, thereby proliferating these pro-social motivations. The first proposition concerns proximate motivations for prosocial behavior, the second addresses the distant evolutionary origins and ongoing perpetuation of these cooperative dispositions.

A tiny book published in 1951 by the longshoreman Eric Hoffer.  From wikipedia: The book analyzes and attempts to explain the motives of the various types of personalities that give rise to mass movements; why and how mass movements start, progress and end; and the similarities between them, whether religious, political, radical or reactionary. As examples, the book often refers to Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Christianity, Protestantism, and Islam. Hoffer believes that mass movements are interchangeable, that adherents will often flip from one movement to another, and that the motivations for mass movements are interchangeable; that religious, nationalist and social movements, whether radical or reactionary, tend to attract the same type of followers, behave in the same way and use the same tactics, even when their stated goals or values differ.

« Sharing as accountabilityThe beauty of endless distractions in discussion forums » Minding mapping in the Social Media Classroom January 30, 2013 by jennymackness Mindmapping is a big feature of Howard Rheingold's course - Towards a Literacy of Cooperation. We are not only expected to collaboratively mindmap in the live sessions…. …… but also the first individual mission (task) requires the production of a mindmap.

[JOSEPH HENRICH:] The main questions I've been asking myself over the last couple years are broadly about how culture drove human evolution. Think back to when humans first got the capacity for cumulative cultural evolution-and by this I mean the ability for ideas to accumulate over generations, to get an increasingly complex tool starting from something simple. One generation adds a few things to it, the next generation adds a few more things, and the next generation, until it's so complex that no one in the first generation could have invented it. This was a really important line in human evolution, and we've begun to pursue this idea called the cultural brain hypothesis-this is the idea that the real driver in the expansion of human brains was this growing cumulative body of cultural information, so that what our brains increasingly got good at was the ability to acquire information, store, process and retransmit this non genetic body of information.

Robert Cialdini is an emeritus psychologist at Arizona State University who studies how our behavior is affected by social rules that we're only vaguely aware of but which have incredible power over what we do. What happened to Kunz, he explains, is the direct result of one of the rules that most interest him: the rule of reciprocation. The rule, he says, is drilled into us as children.

Mentioned by Howard Rheingold who said: Wilson is controversial, but the rarity of what he calls "eusocial" species and the coincidence of the advent of hunting-gathering in cooperative groups with the acceleration of human cognitive, cultural, and social capabilities supports his hypothesis: "The riddle of the human species."

Oblique Strategies for Ambient Journalism Alex Burns (alex@alexburns.net) Published in M/C Journal, 13(2), May 2010.  Alfred Hermida recently posited 'ambient journalism' as a new framework for para- and professional  journalists, who use social networks like Twitter for story sources, and as a news delivery platform.  Beginning with this framework, this article explores the following questions: How does Hermida  define 'ambient journalism' and what is its significance? Are there alternative definitions? What  lessons do current platforms provide for the design of future, real-time platforms that 'ambient  journalists' might use? What lessons does the work of Brian Eno provide-the musician and  producer who coined the term 'ambient music' over three decades ago? My aim here is to formulate an alternative definition of ambient journalism that emphasises craft,  skills acquisition, and the mental models of professional journalists, which are the foundations more  generally for journalism practices. Rather than Hermida's participatory media context I emphasise  'institutional adaptiveness': how journalists and newsrooms in media institutions rely on craft and  skills, and how emerging platforms can augment these foundations, rather than replace them.

In his book "Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World" Kevin Kelly has a chapter titled "Hive Mind."  Here is one of my favorite parts of that chapter: "For many years Mark Thompson, a beekeeper local to my area, had the bizarre urge to build a Live-In Hive -- an active bee home you could visit by inserting your head into it. He was working in a yard once when a beehive spewed a swarm of bees "like a flow of black lava, dissolving, then taking wing." The black cloud coalesced into a 20-foot-round black halo of 30,000 bees that hovered, UFO-like, six feet off the ground, exactly at eye level. The flickering insect halo began to drift slowly away, keeping a constant six feet above the earth. It was a Live-In Hive dream come true.

Innate human propensities for cooperation with strangers, shaped during the Pleistocene in response to rapidly changing environments, could have provided highly adaptive social instincts that more recently coevolved with cultural institutions; although the biological capacity for primate sociality evolved genetically, the authors propose that channeling of tribal instincts via symbol systems has involved a cultural transmission and selection that continues the evolution of cooperative human capacities at a cultural rather than genetic level - and pace.

Dog parks are popping up everywhere. They're among the most popular urban amenities and demand for them has been steadily increasing since the first one was introduced in Berkeley, California in 1983. In 2010 there were 569 dog parks in the 100 largest U.S. cities and the popularity of dog parks continues to grow They offer dogs a place to play off-leash, get some exercise and socialize, and they're good for humans too. Dog parks provide us an opportunity to get outside, meet our neighbors and spend quality time with our pets. And it turns out that they can teach us something about the commons.

Why has cooperation, not competition, always been the key to the evolution of complexity? MARTIN NOWAK is a Mathematical Biologist, Game Theorist; Professor of Biology and Mathematics, Director, Center for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University; Coauthor (with Roger Highfield), SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed. Martin Nowak's Edge Bio Page In July, Edge held its annual Master Class in Napa, California on the theme: "The Science of Human Nature".  In the six week period that began September 12th, we are publishing the complete video, audio, and texts:  Princeton psychologist Daniel Kahneman on the marvels and the flaws of intuitive thinking; Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak on the evolution of cooperation; UC-Santa Barbara evolutionary psychologist Leda Cosmides on the architecture of motivation; Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker on the history of violence; UC-Santa Barbara neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga on neuroscience and the law; and Princeton religious historian Elaine Pagels on The Book of Revelations. For publication schedule and details, go to Edge Master Class 2011: The Science of Human Nature.

Transcript of fabulous presentation on the evolution of cooperation with great Q&A at the end.

" According to the parable of the tribes, civilized peoples have been compelled to live in societies organized for the maximization of competitive power. People become the servants of their evolving systems, rather than civilized society being the instrument of its members."