The reason "the task of designing values and institutions is complicated by selection effects" is because that design is not very effective. Everyone makes this way to complicated. Life is a complex adaptive system: a few simple initial conditions iterating over time with feedback. The more integrated things are, the more, and more effective, emergent properties. As Alex Wissner-Gross and others suggest, you don't really design for value: large value is an emergent property. Design the initial conditions. But we don't have to do that: it's already been done! All we have to do is recognize, then codify evolution's initial conditions: Private property. Connections that are both tangible and intangible. Classification: Everything has a scope of relationships. It's the classification that holds all the meta data. And add value first: Iteration http://wp.me/p4neeB-4Y