The Whuffie Manifesto

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

It's kind of like the "thanks" system on this forum. Except instead of thanks you would be giving posters you thought were good actual social currency they could exchange for goods and services. And it would be for anyone you encountered in society not just on the internet.

If someone is a dick, you can penalize them, if they are beneficial you can reward them.

[Spider]

So whats the exchange rate?

[The Dharma Bum]

Hmmm, that's a actually pretty good practical question.

[Spider]

Just saying...one can do a lot of good with money. So the people who have gained a tremendous fortune in dollars have a natural ability to amass a fortune of Whuffies, and still wind up "rich" in terms of their ability to gain control of goods and services...and can then use that position of strength to further their fortunes. In whatever currency.

Which begs the question...is large scale good-doing for the purpose of amassing goods and services really good?

[The Dharma Bum]

This particular system is kinda just for social networking and playing around for now, but the idea comes from this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie

I think a system of exchange based on social capital rather monetary capital has many advantages and relatively few drawbacks. This is probably the way society will go.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Spider]

I guess I'm just not seeing a meaningful difference between social capital or monetary capital. If they can both be exchanged for goods and services, then they are both capital just the same. I get the motivation behind this, but there still needs to be a tangible basis for the social currency, if its to have any real value.

So, where money has a basis in its value based on faith in whoever issues it, or on bars of gold or whatever, this money would have a basis on...what exactly? Who would control how much is issues? How would inflation be addressed? Its an interesting idea.

But if this is a mode of exchange for things of actual value, it needs to have a solid basis in actual value, as opposed to perceived social value....which is frankly nothing more than a value judgment.

[The Dharma Bum]

It's not money, it's a reputation score compiled from the reactions of people you interact with socially. So it's based an objective measure of individual's actual real time contributions to society, as perceived by society itself. If you started trying to somehow concentrate your social capital so you can start taking advantage of your peers you will probably lose reputation unless you are benefiting everyone in some way. Also whether you have a score of 0 or of 1,000,000 each individual can always give or revoke whuffie so it is a fully equitable system. There's simply no way a tiny segment of society could take advantage of another segment and exploit them for their labor. If they did that everyone would hate them and simply revoke the whuffie they had given.


It also liberates man from a system that sees human labor as a commodity. Human beings aren't draft animals so that's good, right?

[The Dharma Bum]