BitLaw - Polycentric Law in Crypto-Space (part 2)

[Blindsite2k]

@Al_Kafir

Really? I thought that was the “polycentric club rules” thing… the recent one, was the idea of buying/selling reputation via “Repcoin” and you were arguing the case for this. The alternative siggestion I made did not have personas, and though I have asked why it would eliminate anonymity, of those (more knowledgeable) stating it would - nobody has yet answered though - so I can’t really argue further - I’m lacking the opposing argument and information.really.

Here this whole thing was addressed earlier in the thread. I was in fact arguing your position quite a bit.

@Blindsite2k

Just a thought here. Why not have anyone participating in the bitlaw system have their own altcoin for reputation sake. When someone contracts with someone they buy some of that person’s altcoin, that is they invest trust in that person. If that person breaks that trust then the offended party would sell the person’s altcoin thus reducing their declared public trust in the person. The more people buy your “reputation” altcoin while performing various interactions the more declared trust the system has in you. This way if someone wants to contract with another they can compare reputation easily. Why would you contract with someone with no reputation?

[quote=“Blindsite2k, post:71, topic:4755, full:true”]
One should be fully informed about any decision they make be it voting or spending money, that is any exertion of power and/or will. While switching to an anarchic system would change the form of this it would not get rid of the need of staying informed on various issues. Politics and economics will remain. It’s just one will be “voting” with their dollars or taking direct action rather than electing a proxie ruler into office.

@Blindsite2k

So perhaps we also need a third option somewhere that allows people to declare “Trust in what?” as well as “Trust in whom?” So it’s not enough to declare you’re honest. A psychopath can be honest with you. He can be totally honest with you that he’s going to chop your head off, have sex with your corpse and eat your liver for desert while spending your money to buy a new big screen TV. It might be majorly DISTURBING but hey it’s honest. But do you want to invest in the cannibal psychopath just because he’s straight with you or do you want someone that, while is still honest and reputable, has similar moral values and won’t eat your face? Hence the whole “Trust in what?” equation.

I think this would need to be more like a proof of resource equation. Again like how we had people have their own personal altcoins one could have different belief system altcoins. Humantarianism, women’s lib, evironmentalism, anarchy, socialism, activism of various kinds, religious belief systems, you name it, every belief system could have their own coin. And various groups set up various tasks and award their coin for completing them. Think about it like experience. The more experience you have the more you are showing your advocacy in a particular belief system. Now why use a cryptocurrency for all this? Well in order to perform any activism or support any cause you need to spend money right? Banners, flyers, buildings, supplies, loudspeakers, all that bruhaha costs money. So at some point merchants would either accept various “beliefcoins” directly for specific wares or they’d need to be traded in for safecoin AND if a specific beliefcoin was trading at a high value it would be worth more. And basically if people are just buying a belief coin because of it’s value they’re also affiliating themselves with the organization. So you could be the “Cult of Crazy Child Killers” with lots and lots of cash but do people REALLY want to be associated with your group?

Basically what I’m getting to here is that altcoins could start to represent individuals, belief systems and tribes and therefore lines of trust and reputation. The more you “buy into” something, both literally and figuratively, the more you show trust in that system. But to disassociate yourself from that system you simply sell your coin. Of course emotionally and spiritually it’s never quite that simple but once people get used to using the symbolic link then buying or selling coin should help them adjust. Perhaps have a personal setting somewhere to have you automatically buy x amount of coin from y individuals and groups you trust or z timeframe. Or sell for vice versa.

Of course with so many altcoins running around one would need an app to manage all these. It should be noted these altcoins are not primarily used for economic gain. Their primary use would to be establish the value of trust one has in various entities. Also one should have the option to hide or reveal what amounts of what coins one holds similiar to how one keeps some relationships private, some semi private and some public.

@Grizmoblust

Ah I was just rambling. I was thinking something like dungeon and dragons, where one is excel at con, str, wis, intel, or cha.

You could grade a player performance, do a background checks, his work / ethics history, rewards, etc. Isn’t it annoying that if you want do a background check on a person, you have to go through state process, and wait for many days
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:77, topic:4755, full:true”]
But what good is a decentralized reputation system for a background check? I mean you could have one account and be an utter saint and have another account for all your dark backroom deals.

@Grizmoblust

Yeah, so?

Nothing stopping people from creating fake IDs.
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:79, topic:4755”]
The point of a background check is to ensure the person you are interacting with is reputable. Moreover if you are inferring there is nothing in the real world stopping one from creating fake IDs that would largely depend on one’s community. If one lives in a city where one is largely anonymous and unknown without an ID then no it would be much easier to do so but in small towns or rural communities where people know you personally and not by your ID that is nearly impossible to do. In short if one can easily create “fake ids” then one’s reputation is not in association with them but with an identification profile. Which again means that it’s of limited security. Just because you check out on one profile doesn’t mean you don’t have another shadier one and because of this does this not negate any security gained from a so called background check? It’s like saying “Your history is clean as far as we know.”

I guess you’re right. Background checks have always been of such limited security. It just seems rather naive to rely on them.

And in that post we also talk a little about honor societies. Moving on.

@janitor

But with anonymity and the inability to independently execute decisions that penalize dishonorable behavior, how would that work?Bitcoin and other crypto is having the same problem, although it’s slightly different there because they have multisig and other things that slightly improve the situation.

@Blindsite2k

With anonymity what honour have you to lose? The whole thing hinges on reputation and relationship building. You don’t get that by popping in, performing a single interaction and disappearing back into the void. So think about honour in terms of gaining wealth. If you are totally anonymous yes you can do whatever but you are also poorer than a pauper in terms of reputation. Say you wanted to filter out excessive anon attacks on a forum or something. Yes there will be newbies who JUST made their SAFE account and might just find your forum the next day or something but real people would post on the forum, like posts, send messages and generally interact with people, thereby generating reputation and honor one way or another. Someone who just made an account to spam would not do that, post a single message and disapear. Ergo you could either set up the entire forum to only allow people to post who have otherwise aquired a minimum of reputation or set up some kind of temporary post area where newbies can post which gets cleaned out every so often. That way you only have to clean one board instead of the entire forum. Or set it so that the posts of “newbies” only last like 10 days or something. However you want to set it up. Point is low or no reputation acts as a filter. “I don’t know you so I’m not giving you any bisuits. Go sleep in the hayloft.” as opposed to “Oh hey George! 'Sup? C’mon in and have a beer.”
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:82, topic:4755, full:true”]
If you had a store or something it would work the same way. If a new user had no reputation then you might only let them buy lower valued items because they’re lower risk of you being scammed/stolen from or otherwise ripped off. If he’s well established as a reputable buyer and seller of goods on the other hand you can trade with him with confidence that he’ll honor deals and pay what’s owed.

In short there would need to be a record keeping app of some kind. Something that recorded one’s reputation with others. Goods and services paid for, people’s impressions, one’s affilitations if one chose to share those, all that kind of thing, you know a reputation system.

@janitor

You’re saying reputation and anonymity aren’t conflicting goals. Are there any successful examples of that that you can name?

How much in $ would you agree to lend to the 5th most reputable member of this forum?

It’s easy to sell something even to a thief if the payment is escrowed.Tell me how that works with buying from and lending money to anonymous users from distant lands.

@Blindsite2k

How much in $ would you agree to lend to the 5th most reputable member of this forum?

This is a highly subjective question since it leaves out information like:

Have I gotten to know him personally?

Is he in good standing with other members of the community?

What does he plan to use the money for?

Does he have a good history of utilizing money for other projects?

How much disposable income do I have to spend on such an act?

See what I mean? Just throwing a dollar value out there and comparing it to a reputation place value isn’t an accurate assessment as it doesn’t account for all the variables.
[/quote][quote=“janitor, post:85, topic:4755, full:true”]
I had said it’s very hard to combine reputation with anonymity, it seems you had said the same (earlier, I misread that sentence).

Of course it can’t work well across the board with anonymity (which prevents you from knowing answers to all those questions).

That’s why I am curious to see how SAFE farmer reputation will matter to farmers in terms of keeping the churn at a bearable rate.
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:86, topic:4755”]
I guess that depends on what you mean by anonymity. I don’t need to know your name, gender, address, phone number or any other such information in order to know your reputation in a particular buying community. If you buys somewhere or sell somewhere and have a decent reputation doing so then your name doesn’t really matter. It’s how you treat people that matters. Do I know you? Do I know you to be trustworthy? Again I don’t need to know your name or info but I do need to know if you are reliable, honest, preferably well mannered and have aligning values. Can I trust you to maintain my privacy? What kind of protocols or apps will we use if any? All these little questions. Details. One doesn’t need to compromise anonymity to generate trust but one does need to build a relationship and reputation.

Imagine it like this. Anonymity is like this huge suit of armor or cloak you wear when you walk into town. You could do all your dealings while wearing that suit and no one could know who you are under it but they would get a feel for you by what you do and how you act. So in essence you would build a character or persona for yourself to act as proxie for your identity. And that character is what people would place trust and reputation in.

@janitor

If it was so simple, there would be a functioning reputation system that preserves anonymity. There are none.

It’s how you treat people that matters.

What treatment? You sell or lend, I buy or borrow. Either I pay on time or not.

Can I trust you to maintain my privacy?

Of course not. If you could, you wouldn’t ask the question. I have nothing at stake and I’m anonymous. How could you trust me? Because I said I like Tesla cars, small fury animals and liked 7 of your posts?

The armor example in my context: in the virtual world I can marshal a small cloaked army of 1000 and instruct them to trade with each other. Thousands of transactions every day, no deadbeats, great reputation. If the market where they operate is small (say, 2000 participants), all they need to become reputable is just 1 unit of money ($1, for example). Then one day they all disappear with unpaid debts.

There’s a reason that there is no functioning reputation system for anonymous participants.
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:88, topic:4755”]
What treatment? You sell or lend, I buy or borrow. Either I pay on time or not.

You must have horrible customer relations skills if you assume that’s all it takes to run a business. Even on amazon or ebay they have a reputation system going where customers can review products and the good sellers REPLY to those comments. Same with Google Play for that matter. And how do I know if you pay on time or not? You develop reputation with real people.

The armor example in my context: in the virtual world I can marshal a small cloaked army of 1000 and instruct them to trade with each other. Thousands of transactions every day, no deadbeats, great reputation. If the market where they operate is small (say, 2000 participants), all they need to become reputable is just 1 unit of money ($1, for example). Then one day they all disappear with unpaid debts.

No you can’t because bots can’t develop relationships with people. As you point out one’s sales ratio alone doesn’t mean anything. It’s only when you combine it with comments from real live human beings and conversations back and forth that it may or may not mean anything. Also as you point out the amount traded matters. So if it’s just 1,000 transactions of $1 with no comments on quality or questions about stock or anything it’s likely to be just a bunch of bots, ie a scam and not a reputable vendor. I tend to value product reviews and comments more than the manufacter’s propaganda. No reviews = faster passover while scanning through products. Imagine the process in your example. No comments, no reviews, no conversations, no relationships, hinky stats, it smells like an automated system.

Of course not. If you could, you wouldn’t ask the question. I have nothing at stake and I’m anonymous. How could you trust me? Because I said I like Tesla cars, small fury animals and liked 7 of your posts?

Okay why do you feel like a real life person can be trusted but an anonymous user cannot?

You can meet a real life person and not know anything about them but their name, and names can be falsified. So you walk up to some vendor on the street or something and know nothing about them. Why wouldn’t they rip you off? Because it’s illegal? There you are implying reputation amongst a community and negetive feedback. “Hey that guy did something bad. Stop him! Expel him!” But an anonymous user can still be part of a community and fear expusion from that community and therefore have something to lose. That same anonymous user can also fear reputation loss among that community as a result of bad behaviour. So what ensures good behaviour is adherance to a community moral code of coduct and/or honor, in short a communal moral code. When one breaks with this code one risks expulsion from the group and risks isolation or the need to find a new group. You can’t trade in isolation.

@chadrickm

@Blindsite2k is correct. Every profile and it’s reputation has a context. Reputation isn’t generic. Credit Rating could be built up by someone’s district profile. The person behind that particular profile might be the worst evil that ever existed but they are good for a loan. (I really want to bring up the Lannisters here but that’s not going to help)

@chadrickm

They are not conflicting if reputation isn’t free and you’re only concerned with the specific context. Meaning I start with nothing and build my credit rating with a specific profile. When you’re loaning money, you might only care about the credit rating profile if your only interest is interest.

@chadrickm

Another way to do it perhaps:With smart contracts anonymity can be preserved completely I think. A system could be built were you didn’t need to know who you are doing business with at all. To enter into my contract you only have to have a specific number of past contracts you were good on (specific tokens). Anyone who was good on those contracts is fine with me. Once the contract is excited each side receives tokens because they completed it successfully. The next level of contact might require the account holds more tokens to enter into it…
[/quote][quote=“chadrickm, post:90, topic:4755, full:true”]
With a contract/token system you might always run the risk of someone building up tokens so they could do a really high level contact and then not fulfilling that last one. A form of pump and dump. Not sure how to get around that.

@Blindsite2k

If you are selling woolen socks and I send you a pm about where the wool was made and if it was shorn from sheep living a good life or from sheep in some horrid factory farm to which you give no reply that is not good for your business. If you want to sell me a product and I want to ask if there is a return policy or warrenty and again you do not reply promptly that again is not good for your business. There is more to trade than just buying and selling.

@Blindsite2k

Also keep in mind that the whole polycentric law thing doesn’t just involve commerce but all human interaction so it needs to be flexible enough for general human interactions. Which is why reputation in general comes into play. It’s not just a tit for tat thing and direct exchange of goods. People don’t really interact with each other in terms of contracts.

@janitor

You must have horrible customer relations skills if you assume that’s all it takes to run a business. Even on amazon or ebay they have a reputation system going where customers can review products and the good sellers REPLY to those comments.

Gee you sound like Peter Drucker is hiding behind your alias. I wonder if you ever owned a business.

You develop reputation with real people.

Yes, and not with anonymous SAFE addresses. How can you not understand that? You said it yourself:

But what good is a decentralized reputation system for a background check? I mean you could have one account and be an utter saint and have another account for all your dark backroom deals.

What are you trying to achieve arguing against your own (earlier) statement using a centralized example (Amazon) above?

With a contract/token system you might always run the risk of someone building up tokens so they could do a really high level contact and then not fulfilling that last one. A form of pump and dump. Not sure how to get around that.

Thanks for making this example. That’s not P&D but you could say it’s similar - it’s called “Long Con” and I wanted to mention it earlier but didn’t because Blindsite2k is still struggling with very basic concepts and contradicting himself from one comment to another.

Not all business arrangements and interactions are strictly contractual. There’s much to business and developing reputation that goes on before the actual sale and after.

No. Every exchange is a contract.

When I buy Coca Cola from a street vendor, what freaking reputation do I need to impress him to sell me a can of Coke? And how long do I need to build that “relationship” before I can quench my thirst? Would 17 hours be enough? That’s why we have contracts: so that I don’t need to give a crap about his circumstances and he about mine.

Every exchange is a contract. Not every exchange requires reputation or relationship.
[/quote][quote=“Blindsite2k, post:96, topic:4755”]
My point is not that repution is not important but rather it’s no good to verify one as an entire entity. A background check supposes that one’s entire history can be recorded, that it’s a centralized file as it were. A reputation persona would only be one persona. This would need to be explicitly understood. So that verifying the reputation of one persona could not necesarily insure the moral or ethical veracity of another persona. In short a reputation check of a persona is not comparible to a background check, unless one is suggesting that one’s “real life” that one is doing a background check on is merely just a persona that one develops reputation on. But generally the idea people have about background checks is that if one checks out they can trust them across the board.

Take for instance developing a reputation within a trading community and then making an assumption that person was honest and trying to date them. They are honest in their business dealings because it is profitable for them to do so but they could be a complete liar in personal relationships, or worse a raping murderer serial killer. So there would need to be reputation built in two separate contexts.

To get back to the can of coke example you had earlier. The vendor needs reputaion just to get you to buy the can of coke in the first place. What if he’s charging $2 for a can of sewage water? If he’s getting his product from a supplier of some kind then he needs reputation with his supplier, after all he’s selling their product and affecting THEIR reputation and THEIR profits.

Even when one buys something from a vending machine one trusts the stock is not tainted for horribly expired. One trusts the machine is in working order. One trusts that the food manufacter is not producing something that will kill them (for the most part considering most of the stuff you get out of vending machines is complety unhealthy). And so they are contracting with someone (manufacters, maintainance crews, health inspectors, and so on) they have developed or are extending trust towards.

@janitor

But why would you be stupid enough to contract with someone you do not trust!

Because there’s almost nothing at stake.If I’m buying a can of Coke I am risking $1. The seller could sell cyanide but they’d probably get caught quickly and go to jail.

Also, what I was pointing out is that when I say how much for a can of Coke, and when you said $1, when I then said okay the contract existed. You made an offer and Inaccepted it.There is no need, and it’s impractical too, to bring lawyers or the government into the whole thing. We have the product, price, payment terms, delivery schedule. The whole contract, without signing anything. The both parties can be illiterate, in fact, and they would still have concluded a completely valid contract.

If he doesn’t give a crap about your circumstances or you about his then what prevents him from killing you while he’s selling you something just for kicks?

Not everything requires police and private armies. Most people are reasonable and good. When there is little at stake or the incentives are right, people do the right thing. By cheating someone for $1, with Bitcoin you “taint” you address. Of course it costs nothing to create a new one, but if (say) I have a market where reputation belongs to addresses who’ve traded honestly and successfully then some people will get cheated but soon after that those who haven’t will have a large market share as they will have completed 1, 5, 47 successful trades.They can still cheat by making one big trade and running away with $100 worth of payment, but for small trades it’s cheaper to take a risk or even keep buying on Amazon or eBay, than to lawyer up.

One of Amazon’s own products is a trusty marketplace, by the way: they control the veracity of reviews, pervent cheating, stop fake products, handle returns, etc. By eliminating Amazon you don’t just eliminate the “middleman” but also trust. For some products and services that matters, for others not. You can have multisig in place of Bitcoin, but who is the third party that takes Amazon’s place? Someone almost certainly less trustworthy than Amazon. And if he or she is also anonymous, it becomes pretty hard to compare Amazon with the Wild West of anonymous P2P (which I like, but also know it’s no Amazon or eBay).