I read things like this and by fixing LIBOR they're treating a symptom rather than addressing the cause.

My belief--and many seem to disagree with me on this whenever I've brought it up before--is that we erred in allowing investment banks to incorporate.

IMHO investment banks need to act like law firms: as partnerships with unlimited liability. Currently there is no incentive to not pervert the system and manage risk because:

- no one is going to jail for criminal acts committed in these financial crises (eg loan documentation fraud and illegal foreclosings in the subprime fallout);

- there is no financial incentive to act responsibly because if you go bankrupt this year last year's bonus is already banked;

- central banks have been perverted into being welfare for investment bankers as a so-called "lender of last resort". Ostensibly they are ensuring the function of the financial system. In practice they are giving investment banks an unhealthy appetite for risk. Banks and funds need to be allowed to fail; and

- governments are complicit in this.

The first code I ever wrote, I wrote in Second Life.

The first interface I ever designed was for a HUD I built for the robot avatar I wanted to sell in Second Life.

The first time I ever heard the names Neal Stephenson or Charles Stross, it was in Second Life.

The first time I ever paid my rent based on work I had done entirely for and by myself, it was from selling hundreds of robots in Second Life.

I was 19. It was magic.

There's a substantial part of what I am today that I could not have become without what I learned from Second Life.

Yes, the developer tools are awful and the laggy experience can kill a lot of the fun. But fuck – I was selling killer robots to people and getting paid for it in what could become real money, somehow. Because that's how I wanted to use it. And it let me do all of that? Incredible.