That's an interesting set of points...perhaps impossible for mere mortals to fully understand the impact of. Of course, the whole Lindar can be made to implode if the 2nd Life Managers decide to virtually print up a lot of virtual money. Could that impact the actual economy? 'Impossible'....maybe not... I'm still wondering too if the new anti-net-gambling laws are really an attempt to crack down on terrorism. Imagine a gambling site set up so that someone wishing to move funds can be identified and made to 'loose' 100s of thousands, but in small transactions. Hell, the site could be otherwise legitimate. I'd bet the Russians already do this. -TD
From: "J.A. Terranson" <measl@mfn.org> To: "cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net" <cypherpunks@jfet.org> Subject: Brands signature revisited :-) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:42:00 -0500 (CDT)
Several weeks ago my wife was carping about something I didn't quite grok, and really didn't care about - her virtual game world had put up a notice (daily and repititiously apparently) that anyone found trading "IRL" would be instantly wiped clean with no refund and no exceptions. Apparently she thought this was a rather large overreaction to what she thinks of as a really small problem.
The only problem is that the USG disagrees with her assessment!
On the way home today I heard NPR running a story about the new "desk" at Reuters: they have assigned a full time reporter to cover "business" in a virtual world (2nd life). This reporter described his appointment as a normal reaction by Reuters to real "news" being made. After all, this virtual world has a thriving economy that has an actual physical exchange setup to trade "Lindars" into USD (floating this A.M. at 207 Lindars to one USD). It appears the USG is so worried about all the real cash being generated that they are *seriously* looking at setting physical taxes against these virtual currencies (wherever there is a point of exchange).
Lets take this to its obvious limit - why hire a spammer to send penisgrams when you can use that botnet to make Lindars? Or, to quote a friend of mine, "Great! Kim Jung Il needs only to hire a few kids to beat the embargoes! Funny!!!".
Maybe funny, maybe not.
If these currencies are crossing the virtual / physical interfaces then they have become real and real is (and always will be) taxable. That means that forgery is a real issue - enter Mr. B.
I find this fascinating! We just went at this the wrong way! Fuck e-gold! Gimme Lindars!!!
-- Yours,
J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF
"Surely the larger lesson learned from that day is that other men, all over the world, took inspiration not from the heroism of the rescuers in New York or the passengers flying over Pennsylvania, but from the 19 hijackers - the twisted brilliance of their scheme and their willingness to sacrifice their lives to make a political and, as they saw it, religious statement."
Richard Corliss/Time Magazine 11 Aug 2006