$1024 IN PRIZES FOR VIDEOS ON THE COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED STATES Next up in our interactive book club: The Communistic Societies of the United States, by Charles Nordhoff. Back in 1875, "communistic" meant something more like "profitable voluntary commune" or "startup society" than its modern meaning. Around that time, Nordhoff toured America's intentional communities, like the Shakers, Harmonists, Oneida, and Amana. He wrote down their operational details, internal economics, bylaws, and failures. It's one of the best primary sources we have on successful (and unsuccessful) startup societies. We want a video that discusses this book and these communities. What did they have in common, why did some last a century while others collapsed in years, and what can anyone starting new communities today learn from the past? YOUR TASK Make a 59 second (or less) vertical video with a 9:16 aspect ratio on this book. Assume your viewer has absolutely no context and is starting cold. Feel free to use AI, but please don't make it look or sound like AI slop :) We'll give $512 for first place and $128 each for up to four runners-up, subject to whether there are enough good submissions. Winners are paid in USDC to their public Farcaster wallet addresses by default. To enter, reply to this post with your vertical video. This prize runs for three days exactly from this post's timestamp, after which we'll take a little time to review entries and make awards. Please note: we can't give detailed feedback to each submission today as there are often too many, but we'll try to automate this. However, we'll look at every quality entry. For background, go read the book here[1]. Use AI to learn about it too. Then reply to this post with your video. The best will earn a prize! [1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4FKHLKY
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$1024 IN PRIZES FOR VIDEOS ON TIEBOUT SORTING New Farcaster prize just dropped! We have a series of new prizes teed up on important ideas you should be familiar with; think of this as an interactive book club. First big idea: Tiebout sorting. Everyone in crypto should know the work of Charles Tiebout. In 1956, he published a short paper called "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures" that provided mathematical rigor behind the idea of voting with your feet. His core idea was that *if* there were many small jurisdictions, each offering a different bundle of fees and services, then residents would move to the one that fits them best. Under certain assumptions, competition between places would then do for public goods what markets do for private goods. And now the Internet is making all of Tiebout's assumptions — high mobility, excellent search engines, many communities, digital subscription-based services, and so on — come true. However, while academics do cite the idea of Tiebout sorting, the work is not as well known as it should be among the general public. Perhaps you can fix that. YOUR TASK Make a 59 second (or less) vertical video with a 9:16 aspect ratio on Tiebout sorting. Assume your viewer has absolutely no context and is starting cold. Talk to them in concrete terms anyone can understand to explain the idea of Tiebout sorting. Feel free to use AI, but please don't make it look or sound like AI slop :) We'll give $512 for first place and $128 each for up to four runners-up, subject to whether there are enough good submissions. Winners are paid in USDC to their public Farcaster wallet addresses by default. To enter, reply to this post with your vertical video. This prize runs for three days exactly from this post's timestamp. Go read the original paper by Tiebout here[1] and then the various popularizations[2]. Use AI to learn about it too. Then reply to this post with your video. The best will earn a prize! [1]: https://fbaum.unc.edu/teaching/PLSC541_Fall08/tiebout_1956.pdf [2]: https://www1.cmc.edu/pages/faculty/LGrant/ref_cards_full/Topic_referenceSheet_tiebout_sorting.pdf
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One more set of winners for today. Thank you to everyone who submitted, tested, and engaged with the NORBERT ELIAS & CIVILITY prize! Prizes are headed to each winner’s Farcaster wallet. 1st place, $1,024: @papa farcaster.xyz/papa/0x780d71e5 The strongest argument of the bunch. It starts from Elias and backs the case with a real statistic on trust. Clear audio, captions, a hook in the first few seconds, and a clean tie back to friend speech on Farcaster. 2nd place, $512: @zatweirdaj farcaster.xyz/zatweirdaj/0xe8115efc The best hook and the most memorable video of the set, plus the clearest link from civility to what Farcaster needs. Honorable mention, $128: @tophb farcaster.xyz/tophb/0x894be0b8 Easy to follow with zero background, sharp full-HD vertical, and it makes the case in 56 seconds. Honorable mention, $128: @leoxcrane farcaster.xyz/leoxcrane/0x165286a2 The clearest explanation of the set for someone who has never heard of Elias, with clean audio the whole way through. Thank you to everyone who entered! Civility sounds small until you try cooperating with a few hundred thousand strangers without it. Farcaster is for friend speech, not foe speech.
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