Re: Pseudonyms and Reputations

A (semi) real-world application of the is-a-person technology was suggested
to me a year ago by someone whom I think is now a list member.  To protect
his privacy I will change the story slightly.

He wanted to set up an online game which would be ongoing for some time,
and which new people could join periodically.  New members would be given
a certain amount of resources (fuel, money, etc.) to start with, and then
they would compete with others in the game to try to get more.  At any given
time standings would be available to show who had done the best in terms of
getting the most resources.

The problem was that based on the rules of the game it was hard to prevent
people from colluding to transfer resources among themselves.  This would
allow someone who was doing poorly to create a bunch of pseudonymous accounts,
enter them in the game as new users, and then to transfer their initial
resources to his main account.  The result would be that the standings would
reflect skill at creating pseudonyms more than the abilities which the game
was supposed to test.

He asked whether there would be some way to ensure that only one account per
person was playing the game.  Basically, he was asking for an "is-a-person"
credential.  One solution would simply be to get a name, address, and phone
number from each participant, but he didn't want to violate his players'
privacy to that extent.  Without an infrastructure supporting this kind of
credential, he decided not to go ahead with his plans for the game.  This is
too bad because the game was actually going to test some very interesting
economic and political theories and it would have been good to see it in
action.

Hal

Hal writes:
 > He wanted to set up an online game which would be ongoing for some
 > time, and which new people could join periodically.  New members
 > would be given a certain amount of resources (fuel, money, etc.) to
 > start with, and then they would compete with others in the game to
 > try to get more.  At any given time standings would be available to
 > show who had done the best in terms of getting the most resources.
 > 
 > The problem was that based on the rules of the game it was hard to
 > prevent people from colluding to transfer resources among
 > themselves.  This would allow someone who was doing poorly to
 > create a bunch of pseudonymous accounts, enter them in the game as
 > new users, and then to transfer their initial resources to his main
 > account. The result would be that the standings would reflect skill
 > at creating pseudonyms more than the abilities which the game was
 > supposed to test.

Perhaps this is only reflective of the Real World, where he who gets
to the scarce resources first wins. Either you put a cap on the total
resource (meaning some must starve, unless they can trade something
else of worth), or you must allow limitless expansion.

You could impose an annoyance factor on the distribution of initial
resources (a week's wait, perhaps), or on unlikely transfers (you
can't give away the resource except in exchange for some other form of
goods... an Objectivist's paradise, perhaps?)

Finally, there's always forced socialism: A high tax rate or inflation
rate should keep folks from accumulating ill-gotten wealth for long.

Without delving too deeply into the details of the simulation, isn't
the liquidity of the value of the resource a hedge against people
attempting to stockpile same through polynymity?

nathan