Presentation transcript - part 2 - Metaverse Republic Marc 1.

[11:30] Ashcroft Burnham: Terribly sorry - crashed and was locked out for about five minutes...
[11:31] Ashcroft Burnham: The "Metaverse Republic".
[11:32] Ashcroft Burnham: I was explaining, I think, teh community benefits of governance in virtual worlds, and how, without the ability to enforce and adjudicate upon rules, common resources may end up being misused...
[11:33] Ashcroft Burnham: That is what is often called hte "tragedy of the commons" - have a look on Wikipedia if you'd like more information.
[11:33] Ashcroft Burnham: So, an internal system of rule based governance can help to make commerce work and can help to bring communities together effectively.
[11:34] Ashcroft Burnham: It can also help to deter unwanted over-regulation from outside: either from the virtual world provider, or, more insidiously, from national governments, whose members often have little or no understanding of what virtual worlds are about.
[11:35] Ashcroft Burnham: A virtual world with a working and effective governance model in place is far less likely to be seen as in need of regulating than one withoug such a model.
[11:35] Ashcroft Burnham: Beyond that, dispute resolution by formal mechanisms has a great many advantages.
[11:36] Ashcroft Burnham: Anyone who has used SecondLife for a long time will have heard of cases in which groups and communities of people have been torn apar by disputes that reach often extreme levels because of the lack of a formal mechanism to resolve them.
[11:37] Ashcroft Burnham: Alternative dispute resolution without any mechanism of enforcement is useless, since the losing party is unliekly to abide by the terms of any order, and people are often reluctant after a disptue has arisen to give anybody a chance to have it resolved in the other party's favour.
[11:37] Ashcroft Burnham: Alternative dispute resolution is only useful in so far as there's something for it to be an alternative *to*.
[11:38] Ashcroft Burnham: If that thing is litigation in off-world courts, that is generally useless because of the immense cost and effort involved in international litigation.
[11:38] Ashcroft Burnham: And in any event off-world courts very often do not have the mechanisms for dealing with specifically virtual world disputes: in many cases, the ordinary law simply does not cover the issues.
[11:40] Ashcroft Burnham: As I mentioned earlier, the particular system of governance of the MEtaverse REpublic, which is a distributed system, works better in a distributed environment - such as OpenSim - than any system that relies on the virtual world provider.
[11:41] Ashcroft Burnham: And, finally, if there is to be any sort of governance, it is far preferable that it is governance by the rule of law - with courts in which people can have their side of things fairly heard and decided impartially in accordance with existing and publicly promulgated rules - and a formal mechanism for creating and changing those rules - than if governance is effected by the will of individuals.
[11:41] Ashcroft Burnham: Governance directly by individuals almost inevitably leads to abuses of power, and is highly undesirable for that reason.

Slide 3 here

[11:42] Ashcroft Burnham: So, what is the Metaverse Republic?
[11:42] Ashcroft Burnham: Well, first of all, we are still working on a system of governance:
[11:42] Ashcroft Burnham: we have the basic system designed, and much of the detail in place, but there are a number of things yet to do.
[11:43] Ashcroft Burnham: One of the things that we have not yet finalised is the detail relating to how our system will interact with local governments, and I'd be very interested in feedback later on on how we might make that work well.
[11:43] Ashcroft Burnham: It will, as implied earlier, once it is up and running be an effective system of governance:
[11:43] Ashcroft Burnham: that is, it will have a legislature, executive and judiciary, and the capacity to enforce its laws - independent of any off-world courts or the virtual world service providers.
[11:44] Ashcroft Burnham: There will also be a formal written constitution, and, since we founded in 2007, we have made a great deal of progress in designing that.
[11:44] Ashcroft Burnham: One reason that it is taking so long - and I'll come back to that issue later - is that we are designing it in some detail.
[11:45] Ashcroft Burnham: The reason that we're doing that is to make sure that there aren't any problems later on: experience has shown that constitutions lacking in detail tend to give rise to disputes or the opportnity for abuses of power.
[11:45] Ashcroft Burnham: We think that it's very important to avoid any possibility of anybody abusing their power, so we've designed the constitution very carefully, with far more checks and balances than any off-world government that I've ever encountered.
[11:46] Ashcroft Burnham: The FAQ that I'll distribute at the end gives an overview of our system for those who are interested.
[11:46] Ashcroft Burnham: The two most important limbs of our system are the democratically elected parliament and the independent, professional judiciary.
[11:47] Ashcroft Burnham: That combination ensures both democratic accountability and the rule of law: the necessary ingredients in any balanced and effective governance system.
[11:47] Ashcroft Burnham: Finally, an important part of the Metaverse Republic system is that it is designed to interact with governments of specific local communities.
[11:47] Ashcroft Burnham: (Such as Bay City, for example:
[11:48] Ashcroft Burnham: I know that there's been proposed a governance system for Bay City recently, and that may well benefit from interaction with the Metaverse Republic).
[11:49] Ashcroft Burnham: The idea is, in short, that the Republic would have a sort of confederal structure: the enforcement mechanism used for the Republic could be used to enforce local rules, and any enforcement mechanism used in the locality could also be used to enforce Metaverse Republic ("confederal", if you like) rules.
[11:49] Ashcroft Burnham: Similarly, the Metaverse Republic could provide means of dispute resolution for the local rules (access to the Metaverse REpublic courts) even for those local communities that lack the ability to have their own court system.
[11:50] Ashcroft Burnham: (And that's important because it's actually very difficult to set up an effective court system in a local community: not least because, the fewer the people, the more likely it is that any judge will know one or more of the disputants personally).

Slide 4 here


[11:50] Ashcroft Burnham: So, how will it work?
[11:51] Ashcroft Burnham: I mentioned before about it being a *distributed* system, and that's at the core of teh Metaverse Republic.
[11:51] Ashcroft Burnham: The enforcement mechanism is tied in a unique way to the means of democratic participation.
[11:51] Ashcroft Burnham: In effect, everyone who owns or controls virtual land can subscribe to a central database - for free.
[11:51] Ashcroft Burnham: That database would contain a list of banned avatars, and be maintained by the Republic.
[11:52] Ashcroft Burnham: Only the courts, acting in accordance with the law, would be able to add avatars to that database.
[11:52] Ashcroft Burnham: Anyone who subscribes would be entitled to vote in elections to the parliament.
[11:52] Ashcroft Burnham: The parliament, in turn, would have the power to pass legislation binding on the courts.
[11:53] Ashcroft Burnham: So, with that mechanism, the rules of the Republic could effectively be enforced (if many people subscribed, banishmment by the courts - their ultimate sanction - would be a very significant punishment, as it would prevent people from going to a very large number of places)...
[11:53] Ashcroft Burnham: ...and people could also participate democratically.
[11:54] Ashcroft Burnham: Ahh, the crash means that I'm running out of time sooner than I'd hoped.
[11:54] Ashcroft Burnham: I'll move on, in that case, to the final slide, and deal with some issues often raised.
[11:54] Ashcroft Burnham: Firstly, as stated before, the Metaverse REpublic is not ADR.
[11:54] Ashcroft Burnham: IT's a legal system in its own right (or will be, at least, once it is up and running).
[11:55] Ashcroft Burnham: It will have its own independent laws and means for enforcing and adjudicating upon them.

Slide 5 here

[11:55] Ashcroft Burnham: Some people also make the mistake of thinking that we're role-players: we're not.
[11:55] Ashcroft Burnham: There are a number of governance role players out there, and we don't have anything against them, but the Metaverse Republic is a serious system designed to fulfil a serious purpose, as outlined earlier.
[11:56] Ashcroft Burnham: Thirdly, as mentioned before, we have been working on this for a very long time, and we're still not finished.
[11:56] Ashcroft Burnham: The reality is that it's quite hard to get people to volunteer to do hard work in SecondLife -
[11:56] Ashcroft Burnham: and because we're not roleplayers, and because we do take things seriously and make sure that they're designed properly, there are often not as many volunteers as we'd like.
[11:57] Ashcroft Burnham: Despite that, we've managed to design a great deal of the constitution, and are still makign good progress, but we'll need more volunteers than we have now if we're to succeed in the long term.
[11:57] BlueGin Yifu: Thank you for sharing your ideas. Clearly, you have put a great deal of work and thought into this concept. I would appreciate receiving more information as it develops.
[11:57] Ashcroft Burnham: IF anyone here is interested in working with us, please let me or Aeleen Tomsen know at the end - there are *lots* of things that need doing, and you certainly don't have to be a lawyer to be involved.
[11:57] Marianne McCann: Off to the Alliance. Have fun, all
[11:57] Ashcroft Burnham: Now, as I said earlier, I'll distribute our FAQ, which gives more information about the project...
[11:58] harris Givens: If you could give us a notecard.. we should be able to think it over and discuss it in our group, thanks