Peer Trust Network Project

Overall Purpose

My project to outline the structures and principle of a new model, built within the current one. An alternate reality that will make the existing reality obsolete.

Build and maintain a socioeconomic trust network that is beneficial, fair, and honest. All nonrival goods (digital media) are in a service model, and all rival goods (property such as land, material resources, water, air, spectrum) are in a resource trust model that charges for use. This model is bootstrapped into being voluntarily by the public because of demand for the benefits of the components and network.

To Add: Meat and specific aspects of examples, philosophy and principles, resources, site links, books, authors, advocates.

Components

Each component is a trust node, composed of members that voluntarily joined with full knowledge of the intents and purposes of the trust network.

Trustbank / Value Exchange Trust

Purpose

I can exchange money with someone instantly and without fees.

Real world examples:

• Paypal.
• QQ and QQ coins.
• Currency transfer in most MMOs.

Benefits of trust over corporate / private model:

• Lowest price: not seeking profit, only best service possible. For-profit competition impossible.
• Peer-to-peer value transfer is optimal, at near-zero distribution cost.
• Value transfer established as a public right enabled by members, system is accountable and transparent.
• Members retain control, cannot be coerced or manipulated through institutional constraints.

Additional details:

• Credits can be saved, but no protected "banks" that charge or pay interest.

Credentialbank / Identity Trust

Purpose:

Anyone or anyplace I interact with only knows the bare minimum needed to identify me for my purpose of use.

Real world examples:

• ??? These examples are particularly weak.
• Sxip
• Steam

Benefits of trust over corporate / private model:

• Lowest price: not seeking profit, only best service possible. For-profit competition impossible.
• Privacy established as public right enabled by members, system is accountable and transparent.
• Members control their private information.
• Methods are open for criticism and improvement, no hiding of weaknesses that are ripe for exploitation.
• Peer-to-peer credential exchange is near-zero distribution cost.

Mediabank / Cultural Trust (has profilebank aspect with voluntary use and contribution tracking)

Purpose:

Cultural agora providing models of exchange between creators and users and improving availability and findability of digital media. I can see what my friends are listening to and try anything I'm interested in, I can join a game with friends or a trusted group. I can contribute to projects and people that created media I enjoy, build reputations for supporting and collaborating, and participate in communities.

Real world examples:

• Archive.org
• Gutenberg.org
• Amazon.com
• IMDB.com
• Audioscrobbler
• Steam
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Planets and news / media aggregators
• Torrent sites

Benefits of trust over corporate / private model:

• Lowest price: not seeking profit, only best service possible. For-profit competition impossible.
• Privacy established as public right enabled by members, system is accountable and transparent.
• Members control their private information.
• Methods are open for criticism and improvement, no hiding of weaknesses that are ripe for exploitation.
• Peer-to-peer media exchange and use is near-zero distribution cost.
• Long-tail fully accessible.
• Information wants to be free, and it is.

Additional details:

• Media in the trust is either public domain, or is GPL-ish.
• Many models possible for creators to receive compensation if not working on project others have requested:

Pledge, loans/microloans, digital auction, barter, donation, free as in beer.

• Reputation can be tracked as contribution / use, similar to a share ratio on bittorrent. This allows communities to have opt-in tracking so they can boot those don't contribute enough or at all. Game clans already do this in some aspects, for example, CS:S or DoD servers with reserved slots for community members.

Propertybank / Property Trust

Purpose:

Trust protects interests of all members, who each have equal stake in the property. The trust acquires resources, valuates resources, sets use fees dependent on sustainability of use, and distributes collected use fees equally to all members.

Real world examples:

• Nature Conservancy
• Marin Argicultural Land Trust (MALT) http://www.malt.org/
• Flexcar

Benefits of trust over corporate / private model:

• Corruption harder, system is accountable and transparent.
• Resources not sold to highest bidder.
• Provides real incentive for efficient use: waste most, pay most; waste least, pay least.
• Begins to restore land, reclaim farmland, generally improve human damage to environment.
• Methods used are open for criticism and improvement.
• Increases value of sustainable habitation and use.

Additional details:

The trust can be seen as a human-created mind of gaia that charges those who waste resources the most, selects for most efficient and ecologically-sound use, and redistributes wealth in the process. Considering we are all on the earth, and should all be considered joint owners of earth, those who are most wasteful should be charged most, and those that are least wasteful should be charged least.