Certainly in Time Enough For Love he has Lazarus Long liking colonising new planets because they haven't got enough people on them yet to need lots of rules.
I think that Dunbar's Number comes into play in these kinds of situations. If you can't keep track of all the people in your head then you need stronger rules in place to deal with problems that won't just get solved by people acting well.
Of course, things like reputation can help (see Ebay's rating systems, for instance) but this has limitations of its own (they can be gamed).
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andrewducker) wrote2010-06-06 12:01 pm
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I think that Dunbar's Number comes into play in these kinds of situations. If you can't keep track of all the people in your head then you need stronger rules in place to deal with problems that won't just get solved by people acting well.
Of course, things like reputation can help (see Ebay's rating systems, for instance) but this has limitations of its own (they can be gamed).