Secure the BaaG

First, in time, it will seem barbaric that we didn’t enjoy going to work. As more of our basic needs are met automatically, we should be able to spend more time on things that we enjoy doing.

Video Games are Eating the World. Video games are worth more than the film industry already, and games are spawning thriving virtual economies.

Second, when our basic needs are met, we will need a sense of purpose. The beauty of games is that they lend importance to the objectively trivial. If we reach a level of abstraction in which we all become investors, sending money back and forth, wrapping it in a game will make it feel more meaningful.

But it’s not just ecommerce. Venture capitalist Nikhil Basu Trivedi recently wrote about Business-in-a-Box Platforms (BiaB), including but not limited to Shopify, that “enable new businesses to be started, managed, and grown using their products.” These BiaB companies all take a set of products someone would need to start a business in a particular... See more

Rewards Based on Skills and Contributions. People should be able to join companies semi-anonymously, via an avatar tied to a confirmed real identity that is not necessarily visible to the employee (Crucible is making this possible). People will be hired and rewarded based on trackable contributions instead of traditional credentials.

I’m actually surprised that no one has developed game interfaces for running a business yet. When you start to think about all of the disparate, 2D tools we use to work as compared to the rich, contained environments in which gamers play, the way we do things seems bland.

As it evolves, BaaG can mean new ways of allocating human, digital, and financial capital to projects, more seamless employment, and new ways of crowdsourcing, prototyping, and simulating products and business models.

Game-like Environment with Real-World Implications. One digital interface through which an operator or operators can run a business and lead people, like a MMOG.

Third, BaaG gives humans more agency than a future in which AI and robots are able to do everything that humans do now, however far in the future that day may be.