From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 21:40:31 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Why is cryptoanarchy irreversible?
In-Reply-To: <199611080116.RAA17853@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <v03007804aea877ef27a6@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 5:12 PM -0800 11/7/96, jim bell wrote:


>accessible to the common man?  Suppose, say, the approval of one million
>citizens was the only thing necessary to have an assassination legally
>accomplished?   Or, more likely in practice, the vote of a million citizens
>was interpreted as a kind of terminal veto over that particular politician
>or government employee, who would have to resign or face the (lethal)
>consquences!  In that case, assassinations wouldn't be seen as bad, they'd
>be the natural consequence of a politician who overstays his welcome and
>ignores numerous warnings.

Nothing in any version of AP I have seen makes any stipulation that the
payment is "one person, one vote."

Thus, if saw a politician killed (and if I believed it to be an AP-related
kiling), I might think:

"Well, one hundred thousand people just voted with their one dollar each to
have him killed."

But I might just as easily think:

"Or one special interest group just paid one hundred thousand dollars to
have him killed."

That is, "assassination politics" boils down to be being a minor variant on
a well-established topic: the use of untraceable payments for contract
killings. Whether there was some fiction of a betting market or just a
direct payment is immaterial.

--Tim May





"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."