Responding to msg by James A. Donald: If you *define* reputations to be something formal and explicit, and say that the system will work because people guard their reputations, then reputations become something that can be most efficiently granted and withdrawn by some centralized authority. . . . . . . . . . . . I am complaining about dangerous carelessness in your use and definition of words. Your use of the word reputation is as fraught with frightful consequences as Marx's use of the word "value". ................................................................. .... Perhaps when you decry the establishment of 'definitions' you mean that a concept should not be circumbscribed tightly within the boundaries of a pre-determined range of meaning? I thought what Hal intended by 'examining & defining' a term, was simply to assess what it means to those who are seeking to apply it, rather than intending to confine it in advance of any real knowledge of its actual reference. Blanc