Fwd: [AllHandsActive] Alternative Value Exchange. Anybody interested?

[Alexander Honkala]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alexander Honkala <alexande...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 10:08 AM
Subject: Re: [AllHandsActive] Alternative Value Exchange. Anybody interested?
To: aha...@googlegroups.com


We're at the point in which interested parties have likely chimed in, time for ahasho...@googlegroups.com so that we don't keep spamming 400 lovely people with this thread.

-X

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Michael Grube <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

I feel that Xander brought up an important point that needs clarification. In a network like this, the *routing* is f2f, meaning I can communicate with many people without needing to talk to them directly.

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:03 PM, Michael Grube <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

My list of people I barter with directly is very small, but the network remains very large. I do not need to change my connections often, but I can if I must.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_network

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Michael Grube <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 11:56 AM, Alexander Honkala <alexande...@gmail.com> wrote:

Keeping authentication as only F2F will mean that whatever system you make will always stay very small and static.

Small? Did you not see what I wrote about small world networks? I know people that know other people. I don't have to communicate with the directly.

What do you mean static?

 

-X

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 8:44 AM, Michael Grube <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

Correction: It is between C and B to barter about the value of the pot, not C and A.

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 11:36 AM, Michael Grube <michae...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 10:24 AM, James Valleroy <james.v...@gmail.com> wrote:

      Now, what *I*'d like to see is a way of computer-assisting the bartering

      process.


Ripple is a step toward that.  

You mean http://ripple-project.org/ ?

I will check that out soon, thanks.

I believe Ripple avoids the issue of duplicating currency, because Ripple is not a currency--it's an IOU. If I understand it correctly, Ripple "payments" (cancellation of IOUs) can only be made along chains of trust relationships. The idea is that small-world network effects would allow you to have at least one trust-chain to any random merchant on the web.

This is correct.

 

The main issue I see with decentralized Ripple is that IOUs in different social networks can have different real-world values. I guess the current approach is to set up IOU exchanges, but how do you determine the relative values of IOU units distributed across the net? It might be a lot simpler to just tie IOUs to a real currency such as the US$.

Could you explain this more? I want to step through an example and maybe you can correct me:

A needs a chair. B has a chair. A has no money, so creates an IOU for B to...I don't know... make a pot for them. Let's keep it simple and say that the thing being owed here is the pot that A could potentially give. 

Now let's look at a case where B is friends with C but not A. B now has an IOU from A offering a pot. If B wants to use A's IOU as credit for C, it is between C and A to barter about what C will give B in exchange for A's pot. The problem is solved at each step. Maybe the pot has a lesser value to C than it does to B, but it is still something to barter with. I suppose I just don't see where the issue is - B must simply offer something more. 

[James Valleroy]

I'm not sure about the example you gave, but I think you are correct that the problem can be solved at each step. However it would appear to require some kind of input or approval from every person in the chain. My thinking was that the credits could be expressed in some kind of real or fictional currency, in order to automate this process. It's a useful abstraction.

In the current [centralized] implementation (https://ripplepay.com/), it looks like everything is expressed in terms of well-known currencies, with no option for the users to define their own.