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"Reputation-based economies need bankruptcy laws"
In the aforementioned panel at Noreascon, either Cory Doctorow or Benjamin Rosenbaum said the above; of course, the main plot thread of Doctorow's novel is all about the experience of getting completely busted in a futuristic reputation-based economy. The point was made that systems based on things sort of like Whuffie have always existed, and they're not necessarily better or less stressful than working in a money-based world. Friedman mentioned that academia is one, and "some people don't like being in academia".
(Of course academia is tremendously money-based, but personal reputation is what you get when you accomplish something big, and the money-grubbing is primarily seen by the workers as a means to further work.)
Rosenbaum brought up the classic example of high-school social relations. As always, it's great if you're on top, but reputation tends to be distributed by some sort of sharply peaked power law, and it is essentially impossible to redistribute; it can be reflected, but not in the arbitrary manner of an account transfer. So it works best in situations where this is a feature rather than a bug. Meritocracy is all well and good, but if it's all that determines who eats, it might be very hard to achieve a balance with basic compassion. That's probably why it's easier to imagine whole meatspace economies based on reputation in worlds in which scarcity has been eliminated and nobody has to worry about just getting by.
The point about academia struck home with me. One thing I was surprised to discover when I moved into the corporate world was that it was actually something of a relief to be working, for the first time, for people who were primarily motivated to get money. Their motives, and what they consequently wanted from me, were really easy to understand, however ignoble to my preexisting mindset.
(Of course the commercial sector is tremendously reputation- and connection-based, but raises and bonuses and fat stock options are what you get when you accomplish something big, and the reputation-grubbing is primarily seen by the workers as a means to further work.)
One way to reboot your reputation, Friedman mentioned, is to abandon your whole identity and start a new one. You can do that in online worlds, less easily in meatspace. But if Clay Shirky is right and DNA becomes the ultimate identifier (as it already is in some criminal and other legal contexts), the only way to do that would be to either have yourself somehow genetically modified, or bring on the kung fu bubble eunuch clones.
(Of course academia is tremendously money-based, but personal reputation is what you get when you accomplish something big, and the money-grubbing is primarily seen by the workers as a means to further work.)
Rosenbaum brought up the classic example of high-school social relations. As always, it's great if you're on top, but reputation tends to be distributed by some sort of sharply peaked power law, and it is essentially impossible to redistribute; it can be reflected, but not in the arbitrary manner of an account transfer. So it works best in situations where this is a feature rather than a bug. Meritocracy is all well and good, but if it's all that determines who eats, it might be very hard to achieve a balance with basic compassion. That's probably why it's easier to imagine whole meatspace economies based on reputation in worlds in which scarcity has been eliminated and nobody has to worry about just getting by.
The point about academia struck home with me. One thing I was surprised to discover when I moved into the corporate world was that it was actually something of a relief to be working, for the first time, for people who were primarily motivated to get money. Their motives, and what they consequently wanted from me, were really easy to understand, however ignoble to my preexisting mindset.
(Of course the commercial sector is tremendously reputation- and connection-based, but raises and bonuses and fat stock options are what you get when you accomplish something big, and the reputation-grubbing is primarily seen by the workers as a means to further work.)
One way to reboot your reputation, Friedman mentioned, is to abandon your whole identity and start a new one. You can do that in online worlds, less easily in meatspace. But if Clay Shirky is right and DNA becomes the ultimate identifier (as it already is in some criminal and other legal contexts), the only way to do that would be to either have yourself somehow genetically modified, or bring on the kung fu bubble eunuch clones.