I keep coming back to the irony that we're on a trustless blockchain, building our personal brands by being trustworthy. When I click on your name I trust you're respecting my eyeballs with another well considered post.
When someone enters my Path of Exile race, they're trusting that I'm going to act fairly, and pay out the prize money. In both cases, its because we've acted consistently in the past, to build that trust.
It seems the more we dispense with those third parties (payment processors, editors, courts etc), the more important personal reputation becomes.
If I had to choose between losing all my SP, but keeping my name and reputation; or starting over fresh as a stranger but with the same SP, I'm not sure that'd be an easy decision.
I agree. I think that while there is the chance for centralized abuse, one of the things that blockchain will encourage is people who are consistently trustworthy and I reckon this is going to have some very large implications in the way things get managed in the future.
That is a very interesting thought experiment. I think I would go with SP as I back myself to be able to build a reputation again :D