I jotted down a few notes while reading, and I though I’d post them up in list form here:
1. Law, Policy, and Cooperation
Could you expand on “individual benefits from cooperation” on p.5? Is success in passing down one’s genes one of the individual benefits from cooperation?
p. 6 – “Because of its formality, this approach adds theoretical tractability to the analysis of cooperation, applicable at the level of social institutions on historical timeframes, rather than stating biological facts that have to be considered as hard limits on on institutional design.” I’m unclear on what is meant by “formality” in this context. Does it mean that it’s both empirical yet has a sufficient level of abstraction to be useful? What is an example of a “biological fact” that sets a hard limit on institutional design?
p. 6 – “The trick, ultimately, of a successful synthesis will be to match up plausible abstractions of the observational work to plausible synthetic generalizations of the experimental and theoretical work in the more reductionist lines of work.” Could you give us a quick teaser of what this will look like, perhaps as a footnote with a brief explanation and a “see X, infra”?
p. 8 – In naming the types of cooperation, consider listing from small to large (or large to small): altruism, committed mutualism, collective efficacy.
p.11-12 – In the humanization mechanism discussion, is it worth mentioning the “downside” that once you get more information, cooperation decreases? It might support something like a “humans qua humans sans stereotypes” argument. Humanization can aid cooperation, but finding out too much about other “team members” may decrease it. How does this work in group dynamics?
2. After Selfishness
p.4 – “The fact that California law took noncompete law off the table during a period when relations between management and employees were still conceived as quite oppositional may have forced Silicon Valley employers to take the path of constructing a more trusting and cooperative workplace.” A question about dates – it was my understanding that California, under its Business and Professions Code §16600, has long held noncompetes invalid, certainly long before the rise of Silicon Valley. What “period” are you writing about here?
p.9 – Does a “‘reasonableness’ requirement for noncompete clauses” mean that the actual contractual terms should include language to that effect, or that employers/courts should consider reasonable use of information gained through prior employment to be non-offending behavior?
