From: szabo@netcom.com (Nick Szabo)
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 93 00:58:20 PDT
To: ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu (L. Detweiler)
Subject: Re: Electracy: Evil Revisited
In-Reply-To: <9308130703.AA01369@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Message-ID: <9308130756.AA00697@netcom4.netcom.com>
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While I'm dubious about the trend towards E.D. with our current
physically-bounded, coercive governments, I'm quite interested 
in this proposal which seems to (embedded within the hoopla :-) 
be for starting an E.D. system outside the boundaries of normal 
government, a virtual area of what Extropians call "Privately Practiced
Law" (PPL) within the anarchy of the Internet.  

The Extropian list (extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
has been experimenting with a kind of mini-totalitarian 
justice system for a while, and we are now experimenting with
the Hawthorne Exchange reputation market.  Both experiments
have revealed much room for improvement, but they are
valuable as tentative first steps towards virtual
PPLs, an important part of the cypherpunks vision.

It would be quite interesting to set up an E.D.-based PPL,
with both public reputation-based and anonymous voting.
Especially interesting, but seemingly difficult, would be 
mechanisms for evauluating the consequences of specific laws 
being enacted, so those benefits or penalties could be fed back and 
added/deducted from accounts of those who voted for for/against
the law.  Quite interesting!  I look forward to more specifics, 
perhaps I'll think of some myself.

Nick Szabo				szabo@netcom.com