From: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 14:43:48 -0800 (PST)
To: rah@shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga)
Subject: Re: Reputation distortions?
In-Reply-To: <v0300780faeb77279ea48@[206.119.69.46]>
Message-ID: <199611192300.RAA01464@smoke.suba.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> At 6:05 am -0500 11/19/96, snow wrote:
> >     Reputation could also eleminate the need for judges. If Matt Blaze,
> >or Randall S. were to try to claim a specific bounty, people would be
> >more likely to accept their claim than if I were to do so.
> I'm not saying that Gauss *didn't* discover the normal distribution. I'm
> saying that he didn't have to *prove* he did. Of course not. He was the
> greatest mathematician of his time, and probably since.
> I'd call the event a reputation distortion.

      With either system proposed (market based contracts v.s. bounty) 
you are paid for code. Let's face it, with reputation capital, losses (i.e.
bad moves/actions/whatever) are far more costly than good moves pay. 

     To use a sports analogy: If you fumble the ball, and allow the runner
to score, more people are going to remember it than if you make a couple of
baskets.

     What was the thing that killed Bushes chances of re-election against 
a rather weak canidate? One lie "No new taxes".

     If Gauss had been called on it, what would have happened? If the caller
could _prove_ he was lying, what then? He still would have been the
greatist mathmatician of the time, but he would have been seen as a liar
and a crackpot. We know how that works don't we.  


Petro, Christopher C.
petro@suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow@smoke.suba.com