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From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 21:25:56 MST

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    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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