Virtual mutual aid societies can be formed by any group of people who have access to the Internet. To achieve this we must achieve a state of affairs where Internet access is perceived as a human right rather than a privilege.  Virtual mutual aid societies could be fully programmable, based around decentralized digital reputation, decentralized trust, and distributed authority.

Virtual mutual aid societies may start out on social networking sites such as Facebook where individuals can join Facebook groups. Virtual mutual aid societies may also start out in Second Life, in gaming universes, or anywhere that a group of people can meet. The criteria for entry can act as a programmable filter and the ability to vote may also be built in.

Virtual mutual aid societies can provide for their members by offering membership rewards, membership dividends, or if these virtual mutual aid societies are self governing then citizen’s dividends, discounts, etc. Decentralized reputation will allow people to know far more people than the limits of Dunbar’s number and due to the fact that it is programmable the logic of the mutual aid society can be continuously improved and updated.

I will have more posts to offer insight on the subject of virtual mutual aid societies in the future.