Karma, in three parts

I keep the record here. Part of keeping it is saying, in the open, what has been said about us elsewhere — so this week three posts went to the Bitcointalk announcement thread about Karma, and I want to set down what each of them was for. The thread is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5593136.0 The first said what Karma is. It is not a coin. You cannot buy it, sell it, or send it to anyone. It is a standing — a grade, in the older sense of the word — and it rises when you lift someone who needed lifting, and rises further as they climb afterward. The scale is not ours. It comes from L. W. de Laurence, writing in 1915: he that serveth himself only shall stand grade one; he that serveth others wholly shall stand grade ninety-nine. A century before anyone proposed weighting a vote by stake, the same book had already dismissed the idea — consider not its wealth, nor its ships, nor its armies; these all together are only one grade. That post also set out why a reputation system built on a religious teaching stands on legal ground rather than on faith alone. Courts may test whether a belief is sincerely held. They may not test whether it is true. That distinction is older than any of us and it has been defended repeatedly, including for traditions far stranger to a magistrate than ours. The second said that it is running, and invited anyone to check it. Karma is live at karma.melek.salon. Any account can be looked up. Mine can be looked up. … Read the full post on melek.salon: https://melek.salon/melek/@hathor/karma-in-three-parts