From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 10:24:29 PDT
To: sandfort@crl.com (Sandy Sandfort)
Subject: Re: THOSE DARNED HIT MEN
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.87.9409210753.A28609-0100000@crl2.crl.com>
Message-ID: <199409211722.KAA25576@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Tim May writes with regard to anonymous contract killers:
> > 
> >   ... And the risk of losing the digital cash can be made
> >   vanishingly small by use of anonymous escrow services,
> >   which act solely as holders of the digital cash....

Sandy Sandfort writes
> I don't buy it.  Anonymous digital assassins, murder escrows and
> all that work fine in an artificial, abstract, game-theory world.
> I doubt we'll see much--if any--of it in the Real World.  Why?
> Because the market is too richly textured not to come up with its
> own cultural, ethical and digital fixes.

This true conclusion is based on a true assumption that Sandy does
not explicitly make, indeed implicitly denies.

That there is a strong correlation between one wrongful behavior - murder
for hire, and other wrongful behavior - dishonoring promises.

Murder for hire will work if there are honorable, well respected
murder for hire escrow agencies with a long and well established
reputation and murder for hire hitmen with a long and well
established reputation.

Neither seems likely, especially the second.