The case for gatekeeping, or: why medieval guilds had it figured out
joanwestenberg.com
joanwestenberg.com
You would have known that people in the guild leadership fall in love with each other and decide to literally rob the guild bank and then sell months of collective digital work to some Chinese for cold hard USD, you would know that the people getting the good loot before everyone else are always the guild officers, who decide wisely that the most valuable pieces go to the most valuable guild members, which are always in the close circle of leadership, and that people literally go Game of Thrones Lannister mode, because the more people decide who makes it up the ranks into the inner circle with the highest trust level, the less control you have over your own fate as there are now more people who could vote you out of your trust level/position.
I don’t have a good solution for the problem. I think it’s a fundamental thing in human biology that surviving today means acquiring as many resources as possible for yourself while not allowing anyone else to be in a stronger position. This is no longer a world for peace loving sheep, it’s the century of wolves, we had a decent run tho with peaceful cooperation. Maybe after another world war the people who survive will be smarter this time.
But I find it kinda amusing that the same people who programmed the tools to allow this problem to now be an existential threat to a system their whole industry relies on finding talent and maintaining the building blocks of a lot of their Products will get the full blow of what they did when the snake is done eating its tail up to its head.
It’s precious.
(Sarcasm of course.) Isn't it weird how much of a quirk this mentality is? Almost reminds me of how everything though they were part of a select few who got to be secret agents in Club Penguin. "I believe every word you just said, because it's exactly what I wanted to hear."
Your children get to inherit your position, other people children have to beg you to apprentice them, and serve at your bidding.
Trying to squeeze out existing makers is doable, but it’s more logical to freeze the status quo to prevent immediate infighting or the creation and lobbying of competing guilds.
I guess you could argue that's what guilds were, but guilds enforced membership and the ability to do the associated work; webs of trust merely advise.
Anyway, despite their assurances, it still sounds somewhat bureaucratic. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it should be acknowledged, and not just by whatever the libertarian contingent is.
> Would a guild system be perfect? Obviously not. Would it create new forms of exclusion? Probably. Would medieval Florentine weavers recognize the problem we're dealing with? I suspect they'd find it eerily familiar.
Still not a fan. If the author would've expanded a bit more on verification and not only trust I'd be more open. But this is just gate keeping and the opposite of open.