making the agora vanish

[Ray Dillinger]

Okay, as some have pointed out, I've been a little too flip 
in assuming that people's nyms will "vanish" if they get into 
real trouble. 

It's true that nyms like "Pr0duct Cypher", which represent 
the authorship claim to years of code and writing, are not 
going to be abandoned over a $10 transaction, and if P. Cypher 
were to put that nym on the line for a deal, I wouldn't hesitate 
to accept it. 

The problem arises because the means of building reputation 
are so utterly ill-defined.  Having read P. Cypher's list 
contributions and software, and having a public key to 
check his/her/their signatures against, suffices in an 
individual case.  

But commerce - large, heavy, routine commerce between relative 
strangers, which is the fundamental strength of our markets, 
requires there to be some standard format or method of 
presenting reputation capital that can be checked.  The only 
thing I can think of is a set of endorsements verifying deals 
done already.  But that is exactly the information that most 
of you say you don't want disclosed.  

Escrow agents and reputation agents definitely help -- they 
can overcome a lot of difficulties involving who gets paid 
what and when.  But now you've got a third party in your deal, 
charging vigorish when one of your main hopes was to get away 
from the tax man charging vigorish. 

				Bear