From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 1996 14:02:12 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: is there no end to Murder Politics & Creative Wiretap Arguments?
Message-ID: <199610192101.OAA23889@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 02:14 PM 10/19/96 -0400, hallam@ai.mit.edu wrote:
>
>>Actually, no.  AP "stacks the deck" dramatically against those few who 
>>engage in war crimes.  People from all sides of a dispute who object to them 
>>can donate, and anybody considering participating in war crimes has to keep 
>>this absolutely secret.  
>
>You hve absolutely no idea of what is happening in Bosnia. There
>is widespread support in each of the communities for genocide 
>policies. 

After 4 years of killing?  I wouldn't be surprised, although what you say 
sounds like an exaggeration.  But that's four years of NON-AP conditions.  
Don't blame AP for problems caused by NON-AP practice.


>You do not demonstrate any reason why people would be more interested
>in murdering politicians than other people. 

Actually, I think I did, although I'll spell it out in more detail since 
it's so easy.  If looked at on a "per-dollar-stolen" basis, an individual 
would have no more reason to kill a given politician than a criminal.  
However, since politicians are typically responsible for thousands of times 
more theft than common criminal,  this will result in a vastly greater 
motivation.  For example, in the US, 535 Federal legislators preside over $1 
trillion in thefts, or about $2 billion per legislator.  If only 1/1000 of 
that money were spent to eliminate the problem, that would be $2 million 
per-legislator bounty, which should be far more than enough.


>You assume that contract murderers do not have political or social
>agendas of their own. A member of the KKK is much more likely to 
>become a contract killer than a liberal. 

That doesn't bother me at all.  It is the contribution system which will 
decide who the likely targets will be, not the killers themselves.  If 
anything, an ex-KKK person would have far less desire to lynch a random 
black, for example, if instead he can make thousands of dollars killing 
genuine bad-guys.    


>>How long do you think that such groups would last with AP functional?  
>
>Murder Politics (lets give your psychopathic scheme an acurate name)
>will never be functional. If anonymous cash implied muder politics then
>society would be right to reject anonymous cash. 

Except that the current political system is far worse.  The system has been 
hijacked by a small subset of the population, who manipulate it for their 
own benefit.  Once in control, it became in their interest to vastly 
increase the power and influence of government, which they did in America 
over the last 80+ years.  AP provides the prospect of making control of 
government useless and even potentially fatal, eliminating much of the 
corruption that is normally seen.  I think people will reject AP only to the 
extent that they misunderstand it.

In addition, one of the benefits of living in a world with many different 
countries is that each may try out a different system, with the successful 
ones tending to prosper, and the less successful ones dying off.  (Witness 
1989 and Communism, for example.)    I contend that the first society to 
adopt AP will be so dramatically successful, it'll spread inexorably.  
That's why the people in control of the current political systems will want 
to resist AP so strenuously.

>It is easily done
>since money only has value so long as it is convertable. 
>
>Not only are rights dependent on a social infrastructure that
>guarantees that they will be respected but currency is as well.
>Without the social and political infrastructure of the US 
>government a dollar bill has only the value of the paper its 
>printed on. An electronic balance has zero value. 

All you're saying is that the people who are currently in power will resist. 
 I know that.  But they will fail.


>If you want to live in a society where the political system has been
>"reformed" through murder of inconvenient politicians then go and
>live in Columbia. Its the nearest thing you will find on the planet
>to libertopia.

No, not nearly enough politicians have been killed in Columbia to result in 
a society that could best be described as an "anarchy."


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com