The Linden dollar - every bit as fake as the US dollar
Caleb Booker (better known as Onder Skall) reports on this week's Metanomics session in Second Life.
For those of you who came in late, Metanomics (sponsored by our friends over at Metaversed.com) seeks to study how economies work (or sometimes don't work) in virtual worlds and MMOs, how they develop and how people interact with them. A virtual world economy is a capsule microcosm full of lessons about real economies.
Among the speakers at Monday's session were Jillian Sayuri Falconi, Innovation Consultant, Saxo Bank; Aribtrage Wise, Chairman of the SL Capital Exchange; IntLibber Brautigan, CEO of Ancapistan Capital Exchange; Gigs Taggart, blogger, open-source developer, and advisor to Linden Lab on early financial policies; David Karsbøl , Market Strategist, Saxo Bank.
It's Brautigan who makes the comparison between the validity or reality of the US dollar and the Linden dollar - an eyebrow-raiser to some, but not much of a surprise to those who know their economics.
Taggart also noted with respect to the fledgling stock-exchanges that when actual people are gaining and losing actual value, you can call it "a game" or much of anything you like, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't be subject to regulation.
The whole session is available via video and MP3 at Metaversed, along with Booker's observations, and transcripts of the back-channel discussion. There's a lot of meat in this week's session to chew on. Recommended for everyone interested in economics, virtual world economies, and related topics.
