4 ms·

Isn't a libertopia (reading as a libertarian utopia) a place where griefing and scams are able to run rampant, the thought being that the free market will sort

Isn't a libertopia (reading as a libertarian utopia) a place where griefing and scams are able to run rampant, the thought being that the free market will sort out the issues in the long run? Of course people get hurt in the short term, but that's just natural selection at work... At least, that's my understanding of a pure libertarian philosophy - still not sure how the philosophy gets around the people at the bottom of the social pile getting crushed, or even that it tries to. Running a virtual investment vehicle (legit or scam) actually sounds quite fun for a certain type of person. I find the mechanics of scams, cracking, social engineering etc. quite fascinating but have no desire to actually con people out of money. Running a ponzi scheme in a virtual game world sounds like a fascinating way to see the mechanisms at work - same with the whole virtual currency space in general. Seems like it would also be of interest to economists and social scientists - previously it's only been possible to do postmortems or theoretical discussions of certain economic issues (truly libertarian societies, ponzi schemes, etc.) but being able to watch them form in such a simple world must be quite exciting for researchers in that area.

anigbrowl 15y ago
As it happens, CCP (the company that runs the game) employs an economist who advises them on how to keep the in-game economy stable (so that commodity/game item prices are not subject to so much volatility that people give up and stop playing), and he also produces quarterly reports for the players on how the economy is functioning. There have been some academic papers written on virtual economies, it's an interesting theoretical tool.
iwwr 15y ago
This is where the abstraction leaks through. In Eve, death is just a minor setback, losing a ship may mean a few minutes to hours of work. It's still a game and people do things in games that may be objectionable in real life (see: shooter games).

anigbrowl 15y ago

As it happens, CCP (the company that runs the game) employs an economist who advises them on how to keep the in-game economy stable (so that commodity/game item prices are not subject to so much volatility that people give up and stop playing), and he also produces quarterly reports for the players on how the economy is functioning. There have been some academic papers written on virtual economies, it's an interesting theoretical tool.

iwwr 15y ago

This is where the abstraction leaks through. In Eve, death is just a minor setback, losing a ship may mean a few minutes to hours of work. It's still a game and people do things in games that may be objectionable in real life (see: shooter games).