"WSE and Larger Economy", by Unga Pau
Unga Pau sent this to me via notecard, and it is especially interesting in the context of WSE allegedly being hacked. These comments belong to Unga Pau:
The Avatar Thurston Hallard no longer exists, the AV's name has been removed from the Linden search engine yet it remains in the stock holder list of MDS Mystic Designs.
His disappearance ties into allegations that the World Stock Exchange was hacked for a considerable sum of money, more than $10,000 US. The WSE was abruptly closed for trading over the last few days. Lately, liquidity and volume at the WSE has been weak. Hacking of the major exchange will certainly slow an already anemic economy.Prior to the hacking of the WSE, I would attribute this weakness to the fact that Linden Labs has been printing land faster than it can be absorbed. Land sitting unsold in second life causes money to be drained from the economy in usage fees called tier. More dollars are going to Linden thus fewer linden dollars can be multiplied within the second life economy.
Linden has been auctioning off land for profit well above in world retail prices. This too has slowed the economy as losses are recognized in real life dollars.
On a user to land basis Second life has now become a ghost town.
In Second Life the fees are so great that users must look for a return on investment. To be a player in second life requires the ownership of assets valued in the thousands of real life dollars. Without a return on investment, and without governance, an economy has little value.
Frankly, Linden needs to get a grip on managing a command economy complete with return on investment and a body of meaningful laws.
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on the other hand...
liquidity, stocks, trading, issues similar to inflation...what strikes me is the fact that most of the above are virtual permutation or real nuisances, meaning what??? wherever there are human beings there is business and therefore troubles??? Guess is a too simplistic vision of the whole matter, still the beauty of SL experience should be preserved, and evolution should not re-create simulacra of everyday's pains and troubles..
We have the technology...
but apparently we still lack common sense. :-)
...
Just for reference, I no longer recognize Thurston Hallard as being a stakeholder in Mystik Designs. As per my previous announcement, his name was completely removed from the list. That is the list we'll be going by when we issue buybacks and issue dividends from here on out, as we're leaving WSE.
why not put it all in one place?
Whether you intend to or not, you're making this story more difficult to follow. I'd suggest writing a summary.
In the context of Thurston Hallard - Thurston cannot be found in Search and in my eyes shouldn't be in WSE because of that. Given what little information is out there, and spread to the winds - I'd have to say that they installed the Risk API and in doing so found Thurston Hallard. This fits with the 'World Internet Currency' whizzbang WSE is installing.