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Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#21

Post by cstejerean »

aneesh wrote: post #17
dkasper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next think you know we'll have a currency exchange of karma points for dollars.

again, you can't do this. it wouldn't work because karma is infinite. the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. if you did fix an exchange rate of karma to USD or whatever currency, you and a friend could just upmod each other's comments to get free money.

you don't fix the exchange rate, you let the market determine it. As the amount of karma increases it's possible for a value to decrease. But given how the dollar is doing, who knows what would happen.

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#22

Post by aneesh »

cstejerean wrote: post #21
aneesh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again, you can't do this. it wouldn't work because karma is infinite. the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. if you did fix an exchange rate of karma to USD or whatever currency, you and a friend could just upmod each other's comments to get free money.

you don't fix the exchange rate, you let the market determine it. As the amount of karma increases it's possible for a value to decrease. But given how the dollar is doing, who knows what would happen.

here's a game theoretic explanation of why that's no good: okay, fine, let's have an exchange rate where karma gets less valuable as the amount of total karma increases.

then me and my friend will upmod each other 1 karma, because we're each gaining 1 whole karma, but the devaluation we're causing is only losing us a fraction of a karma. With these incentives, everyone will upmod ... and the value of a karma point will tend towards zero.

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#23

Post by PStamatiou »

aneesh wrote: post #12
deltapoint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That brings up how much is a karma point worth in monetary terms?

exactly zero dollars. if you tried to fix an exchange rate, you'd run into problems, because the supply of karma is infinite.

if karma is stored as an integer..

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#25

Post by 1gor »

aneesh wrote: post #17
dkasper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next think you know we'll have a currency exchange of karma points for dollars.

again, you can't do this. it wouldn't work because karma is infinite. the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. if you did fix an exchange rate of karma to USD or whatever currency, you and a friend could just upmod each other's comments to get free money.

>the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them.

I thought thanks to Bernanke there is unlimited supply of USD.

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#26

Post by hooande »

bap wrote: post #16

At the risk of interjecting fiction into a business discussion. This whole thing 'karma vs cash' reminds me of the intersection between the way Cory Doctorow describes the 'Whuffie' reputation based currency in 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' and the way the the protagonist of Charlie Stross' 'Accelerando' makes his living in the first chapter or so of the book.

thank you for injecting good sci fi references into this boring business discussion

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#27

Post by TransientMuse »

1gor wrote: post #25
aneesh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again, you can't do this. it wouldn't work because karma is infinite. the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. if you did fix an exchange rate of karma to USD or whatever currency, you and a friend could just upmod each other's comments to get free money.

>the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. I thought thanks to Bernanke there is unlimited supply of USD.

I'm inclined to agree.

Moreover, the US government basically prints money all the time... (in the metaphorical sense)

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#29

Post by mixmax »

aneesh wrote: post #17
dkasper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next think you know we'll have a currency exchange of karma points for dollars.

again, you can't do this. it wouldn't work because karma is infinite. the reason a Euro or USD has value is because there is a limited supply of them. if you did fix an exchange rate of karma to USD or whatever currency, you and a friend could just upmod each other's comments to get free money.

Karma is backed by gold didn't you know?

Re: Ask YC: Hacker News Feature Request - Gigs Page

#30

Post by rms »

dkasper wrote: post #7
rms wrote: post #5

Oh man... I'd love to pay karma to have people do programming jobs for me. Hell, if anyone wants to do a decent size but not particularly challenging job, I'll give you my account permanently. Also, I think you're fine to just submit a cash job as a normal story.

Next think you know we'll have a currency exchange of karma points for dollars.

I'm ready to sell my account on ebay and donate the proceeds to charity. Apparently karma is very important to some people. I have realized it is just a measure of how much I post here.

I'm very curious what the karma->cash conversion rate is. The only reason I haven't put the auction up yet is I feel the rms username is damaged because of my disenfranchisement. If 30 days from the original incident pg won't restore my voting rights, I'll ebay my account anyways.

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