Understanding the Matthew Effect: The Power of Accumulated Advantage

Transcript

have you ever heard this saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer how about success breed success or hopping on the bandwagon and the first mover Advantage hello all JT here and today we're diving into the Matthew effect [Music] the Matthew effect is a term coined by Robert K Merton and describes the pattern of an accumulated Advantage where as a person or group gains an advantage they gain more opportunities from that Advantage which is a positive feedback loop into even more and larger advantages but hold up if Robert K Merton came up with this concept who is

Matthew well good question so it's named after a Biblical passage in Matthew chapter 25 verse 29 to those who use well what they are given even more will be given and they will have an abundance but from those who do nothing even what little they have will be taken away have you ever heard of a network called Facebook I made a movie about it how about myspace Google Plus or Friendster Friendster these were the early competitors to Facebook shortly after it was founded in 2004 but the Matthew effect took hold and as Facebook started with more users it continued to gain more users and as

it did more people had more incentive to leave these other social networks because more of their friends wanted them to join where their friends were going hundreds of millions of dollars of investment couldn't compete with the fact that no one wanted to associate with the Lesser social networks Facebook the one with the most and most active people quickly took the remaining market share from its competitors and this happens across all of our social systems from a few political parties choosing a candidate to businesses becoming monopolies financial markets controlled by Elites to trade agreements and World policy consolidating into Global alliances everyone wants to bet on the

winner and as the leader in front gets more support their chance of winning becomes even more and more likely it's a slow build up to Winter takes all but how can we combat the Matthew effect surely we can't just give up because the system is rigged is there still hope absolutely and our larger systems having public goods like public parks Education Health Care access to technology we can set baselines for everyone that can't be taken away and we can further this by creating opportunities like scholarships grants and fair hiring practices spreading education and awareness to

give people a better understanding Fair distribution models for how we give back and get back from our communities fostering collaboration and decentralization to keep our protocols open and accessible to everyone additionally in our communities we need to be cautious rather than always approaching one dollar one stock or one token is one vote find ways for our systems to orient around one person one vote by finding a balance between money and power power and people it removes the ability for a whale or individual to Devour the voting power of the combined individuals what examples do you have of

how we can combat the Matthew effect how can you use that to improve the communities Dallas and organizations you're in join the movement with us at green pill greenpill.network on behalf of green pill my name is JT cheers and big hugs from Kansas City hey that was fun I'm glad you watched all the way to the end make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel check out all of these amazing videos and be sure to hit some likes and leave us some comments we want to hear what you're thinking better yet join our Discord find us at greenpill.network and let's get coordinated