John Backus

Yes, just need to include social capital in your model!

Yes, but even this is a stranger conclusion than you might think. Most leakers only knew each other through online pseudonyms. Addicted, some returned to The Scene and continued to leak anonymouslyhttps://twitter.com/backus/status/1006397180356132865 …

I don't think that diminishes social capital point (can have self-social capital and also non-compounding on identity/brand too). But agree super fascinating! Crazy to me that we have modeled out financial capital out so much. But not social capital

Oh yeah. Know we're totally agreeing! The two most interesting aspects to me of social capital were that it's non fungible and staking Dynamics. But you're bringing up a good third which is it's flexibility in scope.

Yes. Maybe social capital is a means to another end. Social capital is the best tool (that the brain is wired for) for validating that what you are doing is valued/hard. Once that is fully validated, maybe you need social capital less. Would explain desire to leak anonymously.

Why do people eat artificial sweeteners? They taste like nutrition. This stuff isn't really social capital, but it tastes like it.

Yes trivially. As other replies have indicated ... social capital. Competition to gain status within the tribe etc. Financial profit is not the only driver, just one dimension, which might 'reduce down' to social validation anyway.

I agree, but I don't think it is trivial when you acknowledge that social capital can be in terms of anything. See a few of my other replies: 1. https://twitter.com/backus/status/1006398203162288128 … 2. https://twitter.com/backus/status/1006399386723573761 … 3.https://twitter.com/backus/status/1006399055633604610 …

Why do you say anonymous? The individuals had a strong identity within the group. The fact that they didn't use real names doesn't matter, we can attach reputation to a long-lived pseudonym just fine.

Sorry, pseudonymous. Point was just that 1. We're talking pseudonymous social capital within IRC 2. Social capital is independent from "real life", and 3. the fact that social capital can be defined in terms of anything seems possibly accurate, but definitely nontrivial

I don't see that social capital becomes less important as an incentive when we remove real names. We still have strong identity within the group. "Real-life" is a red herring. For those immersed in hacker/gaming communities, that is their real-life!

Yeah I think I agree with you then. I was probably just being obnoxious, but I was just trying to defend that this is a more extreme claim than it might seem at first. Seems like a shift in the same direction that behavioral econ took when it pushed back on the rational actor

Did I misread the image that you posted though. Did they change to one-shot random 3-letter pseudos? IMO that would change everything if their identities were not long-lasting

You read it correctly. This was two people who were previously some of the biggest leakers who returned back to the scene. One idea: once you feel sufficiently validated by others that you're doing distinguished work, the need for social capital goes awayhttps://twitter.com/backus/status/1006402308622520320 …