From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Thu, 23 May 1996 11:47:51 +0800
To: snow <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
Message-ID: <199605222032.NAA04351@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 10:02 AM 5/22/96 -0500, snow wrote:
>On Wed, 22 May 1996, jim bell wrote:

>> more,  you'd better not be a crook!
>
>	Or turn in too powerful a crook.

Since ratting on people can always be anonymous (and especially so after the 
advent of good encryption and remailers, assuming they survive!) I don't 
think it'll be a problem to turn in somebody "too powerful."   In fact, the 
AP system will probably spur the simultaneous development of a system to 
anonymously reward people who identify and locate bad people of all kinds, 
even if all they do is this.  But unlike the current form of rewards, the 
snitch won't have to reveal himself to anybody.

> Law enforcement won't just go away. 

That's true, but with a caveat:  Post-AP, there will be no such thing as 
"laws" per se.  What there will be is an amorphous world of various 
interests, of people who feel stepped on if you abuse them, etc.  
Cumulatively, those interests will constitute "laws," but not like a list of 
hard-and-fast rules.


>There will always be those of us who feel that most crimes _don't_
>deserve the Death Penalty, and that some sort of penal system will
>continue to be necessary. In your system this would not be possible
>because most people would be afraid to turn people in for fear of
>reprisal. 

Unfortunately, I still haven't written up a description of a replacement for 
the current "criminal justice system" that I anticipated, and another person 
on a different list independently though of and described in much greater 
detail:  A set of independant, privatized court systems which an agrieved 
victim can go to (perhaps anonymously) to charge the "defendant."  The 
defendant, however, doesn't have to show up because it's a voluntary system. 
 The punishment will probably be usually a monetary penalty, which if not 
paid is numerically added to the reward fund against that person.  A 
defendant is motivated to defend himself to prevent such an eventuality.  
The accuser is, likewise, motivated to use this system because if the 
defendant is exposed as an unchallenged criminal, potential assassins (and 
AP organizations) will presumably work cheaper for their deaths if the 
defendant doesn't pay the fine.

>	I think that the biggest flaw in your system is the belief that
>people will act rationally. Do you think that the Menendez(sp?) brothers
>would have hesitated one second in having there parents offed to collect
>the inheretance? 

Did the Menendez family have relatives who might have wanted retribution for 
the killings?  If so, they could have gotten their revenge very cheaply.  
How about other rich people who didn't want their to be a precedent that two 
sons could kill their rich parents and get away with it?


>> >Note: I don't necessarily think that AP is a good idea. I think
>> >that people should do their own dirty work.
>> 
>> In practice, I think this would be comparatively common as well.  What 
>> currently deters such "take the law into your own hands" is the fact that 
>> police (being, essentially, in the business of protection) don't want you 
to 
>> provide for yourself by protecting yourself.  They make it hard on people, 
>> in the same way they did with Bernard Goetz, the guy who shot four muggers 
>> on the New York city subway system.  Once AP gets rid of the police, it 
will 
>> be much easier to protect yourself and not risk jail time, etc.
>
>	Umm... I think that the biggest reason that the Police don't want
>you taking the law into your own hands is that civilians tend to screw up
>badly. They get the wrong target, they don't stop when they should etc. 

While I can't quote a specific study, I seem to recall a statistic that 
civilians were actually MORE likely to shoot and/or kill the RIGHT person, 
as opposed to the wrong person Remember, most police show up substantially 
after an incident starts, and they don't know who's in the wrong.  A person 
who's in the right KNOWS this already; he's seen the incident from the 
beginning.

Also, you said civilians "don't stop when they should."  Who decides when 
they should stop?  Well, more likely than not it's the police, who would 
prefer to NOT obsolete themselves, and a dead criminal is far less valuable 
to the police, prosecutors, and jailers than a live one.  I'd say that's a 
conflict of interest, wouldn't you?  (a live criminal results in profits to 
all these groups, plus lawyers, etc.)

>	The POLICE usually don't have a problem with an individual
>protecting themselves (as long as the response fits the crime, killing a
>shoplifter is a no no.) It is the court system that frowns on it.

It doesn't really matter which group is making it difficult on the 
civilians, if they are doing it,  it makes it harder for the civilians to 
protect themselves.


>	Is there the ability to predict a "mild beating" with your system?
>or a "severe beating", or simply a killing? Having one level of punishment
>is not a very good legal system. AP cannot replace it. 

It can with the competing, privatized system with punishments based on fines 
that I described above.

>> Superficially, a person might argue that the lack of police would also make 
>> it easier for the muggers.  However, a "professional mugger" would make a 
>> LOT of enemies, and it wouldn't take long before he's dead.  He'd only have 
>> to be caught once.  Any victim of any mugger would be happy to donate to 
see 
>> him gone.
>
>	Give me the name of a mugger. 

Offer to pay money for such information in most inner cities, and you'll get 
plenty of takers if the reward's high enough. (and can be collected 
anonymously.)  Remember, AP works because certain people with access to 
information are given the financial motivation to either kill the criminal 
or simply reveal (possibly anonymously) who he is.  The current system uses 
money rewards only sparsely, and does not publicize them very well.


>> Right.  Moreover,  I believe that governments simply cannot exist as we 
know 
>> them under these circumstances.  Besides, they won't be necessary.
>
>	See, you have far more faith in humanity than I do. 

I have plenty of faith that once the centralized, heirarchical political 
structure is demonished, things will be better.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com