1. galapag%us
building an identity & reputation ecosystem
NYU-ITP Thesis 2013
Victor Ben Turner
founder/discoverer
ben@galapag.us
visit now! https://galapag.us/
slides online @ http://bit.ly/12DGlYb
Advisor: Heather Greer

2. Money and fame and #
of followers dominate
metrics for reputation.
tribe :: ecosystem

3. In our everyday lives, what dominates "reputation" is:
● that person in the office who can get things done
● what a random stranger said to us on the street
● who we'd drop everything for
● who we enjoy being ourselves around
● who we love and trust
tribe :: ecosystem
I don't care so much about how rich, powerful, famous, or
well-connected you are, but rather, do you get things done?
Can I depend on you?

4. I am obsessed with identity and reputation.
People don’t come out of a vacuum.
They often have narratives, made up of setbacks, 10,000
hours, small successes, long dry spells, tons of doubt, flashes
of brilliance, a lot of luck.
Where are their quirks? What’s their Moneyball values?
What are their stories? How were their personalities formed
in the crucible of life?
tribe :: ecosystem

5. ● My grandfather, Victor Turner, and his work on liminality, social
drama, rites of passage
● My grandmother, Edie Turner, and her work on communitas
Where this all came from: Ben Turner's bio
tribe :: ecosystem :: economy

11. Where this all came from: a bio of Ben Turner
Came a long way to get here, had many identities.
● Prodigy
● The Sierra Network/ImagiNation Network
● BBSs, MUDs
● UT Austin (Latin, Greek)
● US Army paratrooper
● Arabic linguist
● 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
● Global War on Terror: Iraq, Operation Iraqi
Freedom III
● Georgetown Masters of Science in Foreign
Service: foreign policy, international
development
● Department of Homeland Security: social
media news analysis
● USAID
● The Colbert Report
● NYU ITP
● 2012 visit to the Galapagos Islands

12. galapag.us is a tribe
of quantified selfers.
tribe :: ecosystem
(uh, and yes, you'll be a quant selfer soon if you're not one already.)

13. Our privacy is already gone.
● NSA wiretapping, site/database hacks, credit ratings
We hide our true selves from each other.
● We use fake Facebook/LinkedIn names.
● We act differently on Facebook than on LinkedIn.
All our data is siloed.
● Sites we use don't share. We always end up being the children in a company
divorce.
We are not getting enough value back from what we are putting
our time into online.
Let's talk about our lives online.
tribe :: ecosystem

14. What if we tried another way?
● gross national happiness/eudaimonia
● radical transparency
● mutual openness
● reputational footprints as proof of work
and alibis
● verifying each other's data
● integration of all our varied datasets
tribe :: ecosystem

16. Our tribal values:
● We believe that a primary goal of life is to maximize
eudaimonia and to help others do the same.
● We individuals own our own data, and can control its
availability.
● We believe in sharing and strength through
interconnectedness.
● We believe in transparency and accountability.
● Our data is a powerful form of expression of our own
identities, and we should be allowed to fully show and
present that data identity and reputation in a free society.
● We are each members of many tribes and have many
identities and faces, and only through all layers combined
can we be understood in context.
● We believe in networked webs of people reinforcing
validity of each others' information.
● We believe in generativity through open source and open,
linked, organized data.
● We believe in economic incentives and positive
externalities.
● We believe in being fast and adaptive.
from: https://gist.github.com/Xeus/4371822
● We individuals can balance the benefits of others,
governments, and companies having data about us, against
the benefits of retaining ownership, oversight, and privacy
of our own data.
● We individuals benefit from being more public and open,
rather than less.
● We individuals should be able to fully express ourselves by
being honest, open, vulnerable, genuine, and caring.
● We individuals, through sharing our own data, can benefit
from what currently only governments and companies can
exploit off of us.
● Instead of rumors, gossip, credit ratings, etc. determining
reputation, we can use data science, Moneyball, and a
combination of quantification and qualification to build a
more thorough reputation for ourselves that doesn't just
rely on wealth and popularity.
tribe :: ecosystem

17. Meaning of Galapag.us
● a world of experimentation and exploration
● .us == social && American (no .ly fiascos)
● a teeming world of symbiosis, non-predatory
competition, speciation, efficient evolution
● a positive example of human conservation efforts
tribe :: ecosystem

18. galapag.us is a social credit rating
ecosystem for calculating reputation
using any shared personal data
(open & editable metrics + any type of personal data + API)
*% = :)
tribe :: ecosystem
financial + produced + social + human + natural == total capital

19. The ultimate goals of galapag.us:
● We will attempt to quantify and improve eudaimonic happiness.
● We will give every human on Earth (and his/her internet of things) a
reputation and identity.
● We will become the standard for the world's 21st century reputation
system.
● We will provide the model for transparency.
● We will organize everyone's personal data.
from: https://gist.github.com/Xeus/4371822
tribe :: ecosystem

20. ● achievements
● influences
● interactions
● moments
● obstructions
● perceptions
● personality
● pets
● relationships
● rites of passage
● wants
● wardrobe
What personal data are we talking about?
tribe :: ecosystem

21. Go ahead, start to think about what other peoples' deeds
and thanks mean to you, and how you'd like to appreciate
them.
Contribute your thoughts while you listen to this
presentation:
https://galapag.us/welcome/
tribe :: ecosystem

26. Features
● Post anonymously, under a pseudonym, or under your real name
● Make your own formulas for how you evaluate love, work, or happiness
● Fill out others' profiles, which they can then confirm, deny, ignore, or forgive
● Pick different islands to live on which support your preferred type of online
behavior (high-quality content, competitiveness, lurking, gaming, etc.
● Compare metrics at country-, company-, club-, neighborhood-, tribe- levels
● A breakdown of your 24 hours spent in a day and an Aboriginal songline of
your life/worlds
tribe :: ecosystem

27. Show Your Score
● business card subscription: get cards with your
updated stats mailed regularly
● widget to view reputations of people mentioned
on any web page
● put your reputation badge on your sites
● badges on clothing to show achievements
tribe :: ecosystem

31. Account Structure
Free Individual Account
● use galapag.us as a secure data store
● access your data via API
● self-improvement strategies
● export your data whenever you want
Premium Individual Account
● be social, share your data with others
● compare against individuals or in aggregate
Organization Account
● get aggregated stats on your employees, tribal members, etc.
● track internal health of organization metrics
● brands build their own DNA metrics
Audited Account
● data verified by third-party auditor for extra level of trust
tribe :: ecosystem

32. Future Features
● Using your stats to roll new characters in multiple
games, including text RPGs, role-playing
MUSHes, social games
● Census-taking for international development
projects, tracking trafficking/kidnapping
● GALApag.us, an end-of-year celebration of
reputation and good deeds done
tribe :: ecosystem

33. Help me alpha test by playing,
experimenting, breaking.
https://galapag.us/register

34. https://galapag.us/
I'm Ben, I'm the happiness
guy, and thank you, I'm out!
And thanks to those who went out of their way to help and
mentor me:
● Lisa Picco
● Mom, Dad, my brother
● Chris Leonard
● Luke Nankee
● Itzbeth Menjivar
● Slavek Jurkowski
● Cara Jurkowski
● Nina Walton
● Trish Duffy
● Terry Hodgkins
● Will Rinehart
● Vic Hyatt
● Fred Allen
● Brendan Conner
● Ryan McCraw
● Betty Duke
● Mrs. Dahl
● Rob Dubbins
● Sasha Stewart
● Benjie de Groot
● Dan Herman
● Federico Mora
● Ray Cole
● Brad Duty
● Dave Pierpont
● Chris Metsala
● Dina Poma
● Dan O'Hara
● Heather Greer