From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 22:31:50 +0800
To: snow <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: TCM: mafia as a paradigm for cyberspace
Message-ID: <199605220934.CAA29479@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 03:55 PM 5/21/96 -0500, snow wrote:
>On Mon, 20 May 1996, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>
>> the assassination politics is quite Hitleresque at its root.
>> "kill our enemies, and everything will be better. it is our enemies
>> that are the root of all evil in the world. extinguish them, and
>> you solve all problems automatically"
>	
>	It is more the MAD theory brought down to the personal level.

With all due respect, I think that comparison is a bit flawed.  MAD (mutual 
assured destruction) is based on a model where you know the enemy (country) 
attacking you, in the national model by sophisticated radar systems.  It is 
also based on the (reasonable) assumption that there is no way to 
pre-emptively attack in such a way as to defeat the ability of the enemy to 
counter-attack.

With AP, and a world populated by 5 billion people, there is no way to know, 
for sure, who is targeting you.  You may _guess_, and you may be right, but 
such a guess must be based on external information that you've received 
elsewhere.  With AP, you CAN attack and destroy an individual in such a way 
he doesn't know who hit him.  A crook who has victimized many people would 
be an excellent example of a target who can't know, because he has many 
enemies.  A person who has just jilted a rich lover and has no other enemies 
would be the opposite.  
I contend that the kind of targets which are the most "deserving" will tend 
to be those who don't know who's targeting them.  Those that are least 
deserving will have a good clue about who's giving them the finger.  Since 
such prices are publicly known, a donor would have to be particularly 
careful about targeting a generally  good, well-liked person, if that person 
could reasonably guess who's naming him.  This is one of the many reasons I 
have a fair degree of confidence that AP will do a lot of good, and very 
little bad.

> The
>government has the power and authority to kill anyone of us, AP brings out
>into the open the fact that WE ALL HAVE THAT POWER. KIlling people is
>(physically) very easy, AP turns the THREAT back on those who hold the
>power.

This I agree with.  But remember that the ability to combine the desires of 
thousands of people counts for something as well.  If the only time you had 
to worry is if one individual was mad enough to see you dead, and would 
either do it himself or pay the whole bill himself, you'd feel relatively 
safe.  If, on the other hand, the cost could be split up 10,000 ways or 
more,  you'd better not be a crook!


>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.

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.

>> such is the total moral perversion of the thinking behind 
>> "assassination politics". most of the adherents work from the 
>> following argument, nicely summarized by JFA above:
>> 1. the government is corrupt
>> 2. therefore, it is okay to kill people who further that corruption.
>> wow, what brilliant logic. 
>
>	How about this:
>	Goverments, and the people in them are corrupt. This corruption,
>caused by acts of these people, lead to oppression and death. By THEIR
>MORALITY oppression and killing are ok, so it is ok to use their tools
>agaisnt them.

In part 7 I use somewhat different justification.  I believe that a person 
should be able to use whatever level is force is necessry to get rid of the 
transgression, with no upper limit.  In any case, I think that government 
corruption is way more than enough to justify whatever level of 
counter-attack is needed.

>> there is a trite saying, "two wrongs do not make a right" (trite
>> because most have mastered the simple truth of it in their pre-teen
>> years). a concept not grasped by some second-graders. some 
>> require a lifetime of lessons to comprehend it in the end..
>
>	Putting people in cages is wrong.
>	Stealing is wrong.
>	Is putting people in cages for stealing wrong?

Yes; I've noticed that people who oppose AP generally don't want to address 
the question of self-defense issues.

>> carefully the errors of those who have come before you. write
>> a long treatise with lots of footnotes to past assassination
>> difficulties and how you would advance past them. I tell
>> you flat out that any respectable assassin would be quite embarrassed
>> to be associated with you at the moment because of your arrogance
>> and ignorance.
>
>	I might be wrong here, but I don't think that Mr. Bell actually
>wants anyone actually shot,

Shot?  Not necessarily.  Let's not forget about blown up, poisoned, stabbed, 
beheaded, etc.  B^)


> well, maybe he does, but what he wants is to
>have the same power over members of governments than they have over him.

Right.  Moreover,  I believe that governments simply cannot exist as we know 
them under these circumstances.  Besides, they won't be necessary.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com