Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven (Intellagora)

[Declan McCullagh]

Protection racket? Nah. More like "I won't buy a lamp that's not
UL-certified" or "I won't buy a novel that Oprah doesn't recommend."

Kosher rating systems are a wonderful example of private reputation
systems. There are hundreds of rating agencies; they seem to generally
coexist -- folks who are sufficiently interested can rely on whichever
they choose, or none at all.

-Declan


On Mon, Apr 16, 2001 at 09:34:43PM -0500, Neil Johnson wrote:
> I was listening to a radio program on NPR (The cypherpunks favorite statist
> medium :) ).
> 
> They were discussing the problems with the certification of kosher food.
> 
> Evidently there are many different organizations with differing ideas on
> what it takes to be kosher.
> 
> They interviewed one restaurant owner who follows kosher practices and has
> been certified by a rabbi.
> 
> However, the local kosher certification organization says he isn't because
> he doesn't have a full time rabbi on staff in the kitchen (who just happens
> to HAVE to be from their organization). So most orthodox Jews won't eat
> there.
> 
> Kind of sounds like a "protection racket" to me.
> 
> Neil M. Johnson
> njohnson at interl.net
> http://www.interl.net/~njohnson
> PGP Key Finger Print: 93C0 793F B66E A0C7  CEEA 3E92 6B99 2DCC
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Choate" <ravage at ssz.com>
> To: <cypherpunks at einstein.ssz.com>
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 8:57 PM
> Subject:  RE: Making the Agora Vanish | OSINT distributed haven
> (Intellagora)
> 
> 
> >
> > On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, David Honig wrote:
> >
> > > The diamond-trading jews of New York use reputation (ostracism from
> > > the community, centrally enforced by a council that rules their
> voluntary
> > > association) to handle 'arbitration'.
> >
> > They're also responsible to the same law and license that every other
> > diamond trader in NY is responsible to. This isn't a 'market' in the
> > economic sense, it's an extension of their religion (clearly a
> > non-economic aspect to their culture).
> >
> > > Jews also use a non-governmental USDA to keep their food clean.
> >
> > Which again isn't really a 'market' per se since there isn't a statistical
> > issue here. ALL Jews, as opposed to some percentage of same, technicaly
> > require their food to be kosher.
> >
> > They are particular mechanisms for the protection of their culture not an
> > 'economic market' (though both have economic aspects). They don't do it to
> > protect their income. They do it because they believe it's the 'right'
> > thing to do, they are answering to a higher calling.
> >
> >     ____________________________________________________________________
> >
> >             The ultimate authority...resides in the people alone.
> >
> >                                              James Madison
> >
> >        The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
> >        Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage at ssz.com
> >        www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
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