From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 1996 10:45:56 -0700 (PDT)
To: Hallam-Baker <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: is there no end to AP & Creative Wiretap Arguments?
Message-ID: <199610191745.KAA15143@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:52 AM 10/18/96 -0400, Hallam-Baker wrote:
>Steve Schear wrote:
>
>> How about as a means of coercing war criminals ethnic purgers, as those in
>> Bosnia/Serbia, to turn themselves in to proper tribunals for judging.
>> Having AP bettors wager $100,000s on your untimely retirement, unless you
>> turn yourself in, could induce one to consider conventional justice.
>
>On the other hand it would provide said war criminals with a convenient
>mechanism for carrying out their crimes. 

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.  


>It does not work for Bell and his appologists to wave their hands and
>say "trust me it will be better". There is absolutely no reason to
>believe that AP markets would be used by anyone but psychopaths. 

>No mechanism is proposed which restricts the purposes to which the AP
>markets can be put. They would inevitably be used by the KKK and
>neo-NAZI groups for hate-crimes.

How long do you think that such groups would last with AP functional?  
Consider all those bleeding-hearts who are going to be voting for Clinton 
this year.  I expect that many of them would gladly donate money to see 
organizations like the KKK dead.    How effective will these 
hate-organizations be if they're running for their lives?


>> All human rights are Naturally derived as are the 'Laws of the Jungle'.
>> Governments instituted among men should derive their rights from the
>> soverignty of its citizens.  Unfortunately, many countries choose to ignore
>> this.  AP should serve an occassionally competitive system to keep the
>> 'duly consistuted' system on its toes lest those in authority reap the law
>> of the jungle.
>
>Rights do not exist outside a legal framework that supports them.

Many if not most philosophers disagree.  My _opinion_ of my rights exists, 
and for the vast majority of the  people that's quite enough to remind them 
to steer clear.


>Arguments
>from natural law have been discredited for 300+ years. Such arguments
>merely reify the prejudices of one society into axiomatic rights without
>the bother of having to justify them. There is no logical basis to
>prefer the "rights" of th US constitution over the "rights" recognised
>by the Islamic Jihad.

Since "they live there" and "we live here" there doesn't have to be any 
contradiction in this.

>If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its
>authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be
>"self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be
>justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word
>"God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural
>law argument. 

AP is not dependant on any sort of "natural law" argument.  It doesn't 
really matter where you got the opinion of your rights that you have.  
"Natural law," or "gift of God," or anything else.  Most of the time things 
will work out just fine.  True, if you start believing that you have a right 
to a dozen free doughnuts per day from the shop down the street, and the 
owner of that shop disagrees, there may be a dispute.  However, I suggest 
that disputes of this kind will be rare and short-lived, for reasons which 
should be obvious: You may have wanted a dozen doughnuts, but you'll end up 
with a dozen holes!


>AP is self-contradictory. It claims to uphold "rights" by infringing
>them massively and disproportionately and in such a way that no rights
>would remain. 

It's odd that you would say this.  Most societies operate today against 
crime by putting people in jails, which would (absent a crime to justify 
this) be a violation of THEIR rights.  

As for whether this is "disproportionate"...   Let's see, a person can 
easily get a few years in jail for doing a bank robbery where he gets a 
thousand dollars or so.  Yet, there were a number of bankers in the 1980's 
in the US who got no greater sentences for stealing tens or even hundreds of 
millions of dollars.  You find the "proportionality" in this and send me a 
note.

My solution is to allow the victims of a crime to purchase the punishment of 
the criminal, which I claim will be a fair fairer solution, and one that 
will accomplish far more deterrence than the status quo.


>It is impossible to justify AP except in extreeme
>authoritarian terms that could be used to justify any system of
>government. 
>	Phill

Some of us seem to disagree.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com