Unscarcity Notes

Civic Standing

Civic Standing Civic Standing is the publicly visible reputation signal that tracks trustworthiness and contribution to the community. It accrues through actions such as Civic Service, validated...

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Civic Standing

Civic Standing is the publicly visible reputation signal that tracks trustworthiness and contribution to the community. It accrues through actions such as Civic Service, validated Merit contributions, and adherence to Commons norms. A threshold level grants political voice–voting, proposal rights, and participation in Frontier-scale decisions.

Unlike social credit schemes, Civic Standing is narrow and transparent: it measures reliability and stewardship, not obedience. It resets for new persons (including AIs) at zero and grows through demonstrated reliability, with decays or sanctions applied only after due process anchored in the Foundational Principles. The metric is audited and open-source to prevent invisible manipulation.

The concept echoes civic republican ideas of virtue and modern trust metrics, while explicitly avoiding the surveillance and coercion associated with state-run scoring systems. It is designed to be earned, not bought or inherited.

References

  • UnscarcityBook, chapter4
  • Philip Pettit, “Republicanism” (1997)
  • Wikipedia: Social capital (accessed 2024)
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