Anthropologists have several categories for how groups exchange goods and services. The one you're probably most familiar with is called a Market Economy, where I go to a coffee shop and give them a few dollars and they give me a cup of hot coffee. Rationalists, by and large, are fans of market economies. We just don't usually operate in one.

I. Market and Gift

Lets start with some definitions and examples in case you're unfamiliar with the genre. Allow me to describe two ways of organizing.

Someone offers you an experience you want, maybe some music. You take them up on it, which basically just involves walking over to their place and sitting down to listen; if you're not close enough you just go the Youtube channel with all the music. You have a great time. Later you write some story and put it on the internet where anyone can read it, sending a note to a friend you wrote it for. Your friend gushes about it back to you. A little while later your friend runs a party with a bunch of food and invites you; you don't go, but you hear the musician did and had a good time. 

Or there's the other way.

There's some experience you want, maybe some music. It'd bring you joy, but you can't listen without offering the musician something first. You go write some stories, and offer to let people read the stories if and only if the people give you a kind of marker. One of those people arranges a small conference venue and makes some food, selling tickets that to get their own markers. They give you markers for your story, and you give markers to the musician. The musician does this a lot, it's how they get markers to go to places with people to talk to and food to eat.

Which of those sounded more like the rationalist community to you?

Hint: Here's the Bay Area Secular Solstice with music, you can go listen right now if you want. Here's one of, if not the, best rationalist story, which you can go read in its entirety right now if you want, or go listen to the audio version. Here's a list of places you can go hang out with rationalists; some of those have ticket prices but most don't, and many of them have free-to-the-attendee food. 

Sometimes goods and services are gated by money within the rationalist community, but they mostly aren't. Even when money is a requirement it usually involves people working for free or for far below their market price. We know how to offer a good or service contingent on someone paying us a market price, including the cost of our labor. We just don't do it. 

Someone reading this is thinking of bringing up the larger Solstices, or big events like the East Coast Rationalist Megameetup (which, if you will pardon a shameless plug for a moment, is happening the weekend December 19th, 2025, and does sell tickets) or LessOnline. Those events do gate attendance on paying. . . somewhat. 

But at LessOnline many people volunteered their time in exchange for cheap or free tickets, and the exchange rate was bizarre both ways; professional software engineers spent twelve hours moving chairs and tables instead of paying the ~$500 ticket price. And the price range for Californian Bay Solstice, a price range which gets you effectively the same ticket (as in it's not like front row seats vs balcony) currently look like this:

That's not market pricing. That's not even really price discrimination. That's a collection hat being passed around inviting gifts.

The far more common transaction around these parts is for people to just give you things.

II. What does a gift economy need?

Gift economies rely on a handful of components.

First, gift economies are most commonly seen where reputation can be tracked and remembered. Gifts between individuals work. You give me a nice pie, or let me sleep on your couch for a week when I'm traveling. I remember this. Even amid a vaguely Dunbar's number sized crowd people often can mentally track who is helping out other folks a lot.

Second, gift economies often take advantage of reciprocity. There's a very human instinct to do nice things for people who have done nice things for you. Sometimes this gets almost codified; when grandma gives you a toy for Christmas, you write her a thank you letter. But we also do nice things for people who do nice things to others. We do this all the time. The archetype here is the village priest never having to eat alone, or a questing knight being offered shelter even if they haven't slain any dragons around this town yet.

Another key fact is that gift economies rarely balance out. When I pay the pizza place twenty bucks for a pizza, that's it, we're square. If I decide to tip, I don't expect them to remember that and throw in an extra couple slices next time I order. Instead, everyone involved tries to provide a bit more than they take most of the time.

Lastly, gift economies are long term. They don't work well as a one-shot, prisoner's dilemma style. In small towns or villages where people don't leave very often, a gift economy can hum along with the goodwill you've earned coming back to you over time. If people are moving away all the time and you might not see them again, people are more likely to use market economies where that accumulated value can be taken with them when it's time to go.

Look at the rationalist community.

Local groups outside of the bay are sub-Dunbar. Many rationalists travel; even amid that crowd you start to recognize a few of the same faces from conference to conference whether the gathering is in Berkeley or Berlin. That's reputation.

For all the supposed ruthless optimization, rationalists are pretty open and warm. People keep trying to give their favourite blogger nice books or swords. I basically have to beat off offers of housing with a stick when I travel. Sure, me and Scott are unusually prominent, but it's not like offers of a couch are hard to get around here.

And oh man, do many rationalists have whole complexes about not having done enough to help others. I still think a lot of you all need to sit down with Atlas Shrugged to get nudged in a usefully more selfish direction.

It's tautological to say, but rationalists who stick around tend to stick around. Many people have been interacting for a decade or two at this point. Present rate no singularity, many people expect to be interacting with some of the newcomers for a decade to come. People may leave town (to go to Berkeley usually) but maybe they'll come back, or wind up working adjacent to you in the future.

III. Is this good?

I think it's pretty good.

This is a low friction, high trust way to be. The gift economy in these parts is taking a bit of an advantage of the generally high surpluses afoot; some folks make a lot of money in the market economy around us, there's a lot of talent and competence on display from a high percentage of people, other folks really like baking bread.

It does run into a few problems. We burn people out a bit often, and when we do we often can't replace them at prices people are happy with. We don't have as clear a signal on what's important to do as we might like, because there isn't a measurable signal coming in.

I'm not making an argument that we should change from being a gift economy. I have this buried anthropologist inside me that just wants to say out loud what's going on, because it's a useful Rosetta stone for understanding how many awesome parts of the community manage to exist in defiance of anything market shaped.

It's also useful to notice when something should shift from gift to market. There comes a scale of Solstice where the venue isn't someone's living room any more and it expects to be paid. At some stage of an organization's life and goals, it's better to swap to paying people a salary to work there.

And I think gift economies are easy to misunderstand if you're coming with a market mindset. You really can just eat the food at your local house party unless the host specifically says otherwise. It's not an explicit trade where you have to give the right sort of gift back. We do a lot of 'pass it forward' around here. If you haven't been in a gift economy, if you're used to having to earn each inch and settle the tab by the end of the night, you can relax a bit. 

(Some people should reverse advice they hear, including this advice.)

Anyone want to try and change my mind?