A counterproposal to the compromise

[Ari Rahikkala]

I liked the economy for a while. Oh, it had its problems, but it was both fun and meaningful. Then we kicked voting credits, and now we don't have a good source of demand for erb so we're making the same old mistakes that the early economies made all over again. We're creating artificial scarcity.

We shouldn't do that.

We really shouldn't do that.

We really, really shouldn't create artificial scarcity.

I'm sorry it took me so long to notice this... I should have called it out right when the new University charter was proposed.

Every copy of a course's digital materials after the first one is so close to free there's no reasonable system we could use to charge for them. Therefore, we shouldn't. If we do, the economy detracts from Shireroth.

We have a nation full of resources that are either truly naturally scarce, or scarce inside a simulation in which participation is optional. Space on the forum. Political positions. Voting power. SCIRA troops. Scores of other things. We have policies or traditions to determine people's access to each of those resources, some of them based on the economy, some not.

I am not happy with the economic compromise. I wish for a much simpler maxim behind whatever economical idea we create. It goes like this:

Never induce artificial scarcity. Accept that the economy is one possible way among many others to control access to a scarce resource.

Sound good?

[Andreas the Wise]

You're right. I've been trying to open the economy to get something that works while always being aware in the back of my head that it's better to have one simple key thing that works, and that all that we're adding is like the extra icing that probably won't achieve much.

Hmm ... *looks closer at qualifications* ... Hey, that is creating artificial scarcity. That's like the "you must pay x rent per week to live in this nation." I hate that ...

Ari, what else do we need to remove?