"Imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato that lives by itself in the dark in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It is covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and it makes them sting. It has no mouth, no genitals, it can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote or by voting in presidential elections."

A frightening word picture displaying the powerful creativity of Cory Doctorows mind taken from an interview.
(By the way he's wrong, I do have genitals.)

Also, here is a link to a social game called GNE who Cory Doctorow is an advisor for. (Man that guy gets around..maybe he is a ficticous character developed by the underworld to help us invent a new social paradigm...one including multi-jointed knees and our brains backed up to a hard drive?...neah.
A blog by one of the developers of the game (whuffie: Chrysler Design Award Nominee, and when an auto window is smashed by vandals he makes art from the broken glass, good car-ma?),
(What is the thing he is testing?)

Okay after a little more research I have realized that there are many group thinkers who have been mulling "reputation currency" for some time. And although it is not the source of my college thesis nor am I a PHD I still think Cory's spin is relevant. First off the idea of a popular uncomplicated popularity count with a friendly girlie name like Whuffie is more commercial. Secondly, I simple functioning reader fed with RSS forming virtual IDs could be created pretty quick.

I like the feeling of being swept into group think, maybe I am being idealistic but I like to imagine all those scientist in the Manhattan Project experienced a similar euphoria. (Again I am not a genius. Just a creative...or via Doctorow; an "imagineer".)