From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 21:25:56 MST
I was thinking about Hal's World of Knights, where all promises are honestly
kept, and lies are not a method of strategically dealing with others. It
occurred to me that not only the problem of information purchase, but all
public goods problems would disappear. There would be no need for patent and
copyright law, as Hal noted, since all information users would honestly
abide by contracts forbidding them to pass on information to others. Yet,
independent suppliers of identical information (independent inventors) could
still sell their product, since they would be able to prove having
independently derived the information, thus preventing monopolies.
Additionally, the holdout problem, the bane of most public purchases would
be gone. In the classical example of the polluting factory, every individual
downwind of it would truthfully disclose the value of clean air to him, thus
preventing the situation where holding out on an agreement to pay for clean
air out could allow somebody to reap the reward without paying (the only
persons who would hold out would be those who truly didn't care about clean
air, and therefore should not be compelled to pay for it anyway).
What a glorious world it would be.
Luckily, as Ander's references show, the technology needed to bring about
the world of knights is getting ever closer.
Rafal
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