Re: e-$ and AP

[The Sheriff <sheriff@speakeasy.org>]

>>While your point about concealed weapons is clear -- and as far as
>>I'm concerned, correct -- the rest of the two previous paragraphs
>>were a little fuzzy.
>
>Well, what prevents minorities to put a price on majority's head?

I suppose I wasn't saying something like that isn't popular.  I am
worried, however, about the plight of the minority (intellectual or
otherwise).  Something like this, I think, makes it easy to
exterminate undesirables, that's all.

>>Au contraire.  I make quite a few enemies simply even when I DO
>>mind my own business.  I've had the...pleasure of meeting a certain
>>number of individuals who would be happy to execute me for my
>>choice of religion, should they find it out.  It wouldn't matter
>>if I was living under a rock when those folks found me out -- they'd
>>yank me out from under it and have their way with me.
>
>No.  They'd execute you today, but not in an AP world for if you publicize
>your
>situation, they'll have so much on their head that they won't be living to
>enjoy their victory.  It seems that you keep looking at only one single
>side of
>the equilibrium and claim that it will shift on only one side.  What's
>good for
>the gander is good for the goose, the same mechanics applies.  Do you think
>that people won't think about it twice before putting a price on somebody's
>head, knowing fully that this very act will certainly bring disgruntled
>relatives to put an ever bigger price on the initial jerk?

Well, given the reaction of the common man to my choice of religion,
I sincerely doubt it.  Even the people who don't harass me think of
what they see portrayed in movies.  Considering the treatment I get
today, I really have to consider the worst possible scenario.

And, heck, what happens of someone steals someone else's identity and
uses it to place a bounty, or can do it anonymously?  Therein lay your
theory about accountability, the idea that the funding comes from an
identifiable source.  If it's illegal when it becomes a viable system,
I would think anonyminity would be a standard.

>I cannot talk about the fineness of American ethics.  We don't have this
>problem here.  We still say to our friends "See you later!" instead of
>"Sue you
>later..."

Oh, ouch.  Two points for artistic expression. :-)

>>I'm just saying that our government
>>was created the way it was for a reason, one of those reasons
>>being that raw democracy, even where it's money doing the
>>voting in alt.anonymous.ap, doesn't work the way this country
>>was intended to.
>
>I agree.  But the question, IMO, is not _if_ AP appears but _when_ it does...
>Could you give me one single argument, from the moment fully anonymous e-$
>exists, showing me that it will not emerge?

I've seen way too much of what society has to offer to say that
anything is particularly impossible.  I don't doubt the possibility
of AP becomming reality.  I just don't like it.

>>To be perfectly honest, I simply don't think that'll work.
>
>I don't advocate it as a working system, I only say that there is no way to
>prevent it to emerge and that it will 'work' as in 'exist and probably
>flourish', notwithstanding that it is 'good' or not.

Ah.  That was a point you made that I must have missed.

>>When
>>you're anonymous, if you place money on the wrong head, where is
>>the error correction?  Where is the reconing?  Where is the appeal?
>
>I suppose that one could prove his innocence publicly.  I hypothetize that
>"ethical hitmen" will emerge, I hypothetize that non-ethical hitmen will get
>not eliminated but at least inherently limited by AP itself.  And I suppose
>that there will be the offer and demand that will work too.

Where's the limitation for unethical hitmen?

>>The legal system, though not perfect, is far better
>
>Compared to what?  Compared to the way it _should_ work, I agree.  But
>compare
>it to the way it _did_ and _does_ work in reality, all over the world (early
>1900 Russia had a fantastic constitution modeled on the USA one...) is
>another
>story.  The Roman empire had it's republican principles trampled upon, and so
>did every other countries in the last 3000 years.  AFAIK, only the Swiss
>succeded in keepping their republic intact for at last 700 years.

Yeah, but the 80% tax rate is something that makes me hesitate.

>> than an AP
>>system because, in most cases anyway, it's public, there are venues
>>through which you can persue the rectification of wrongs against
>>your person (even on the part of the system itself), and given the
>>number of judges who will review a case in the process of appealing
>>percieved in justices, the legal system as it stands today is far
>>closer to being failsafe than an AP system will be any day of the
>>week.
>
>Have you checked how judges, which apply Admiralty Law all over the
>ex-british
>countries, really behave?  Did you ever asked yourself why they wear black,
>what is the history of their clothes, rituals and habits?
>
>Have fun!

<grins> I know a few people who delight in disseminating factiods
like that, but I was speaking more of their understood purpose
(when it comes to acting as legal referees) than their history.
There are a lot of ugly stories behind things people take for
granted these days, of course.

>>That doesn't eliminate the risk of abuse.
>
>Life is a terminal sexually transmitted condition...  Go talk with a few
>libertarians and ask them about the present riskless situation...

I'm just sticking with the evil I know.  I'm a Libertarian, too.

>Usually, effects have causes.  I don't think that people will put a
>contract on
>a given name flat with no explanation.  I suppose people will seek to
>remediate
>to the problem they caused if they are truly responsible.  An accute sense of
>Natural Law will suddenly come back to even the stupidest of scummy rats...

Are you talking Natural Law as C.S. Lewis defines it?

>>At best, it's domestic terrorism.
>
>Isn't it what the govt does anyway?  Taxes are voluntary to freemen of
>commoner
>status, but obligatory to taxpayers.  In the US, you become a 'taxpayer' when
>yo acquire your SS number.  You sign on the dotted line your life away.
>In Kanada, it is when we sign our Federal Income Tax form.
>>From then on, you enter the realm of contractual law, away from the
>>Common Law
>that gives you rights.  Show the finger to the IRS and try to define the
>spirited talk that will ensue as anything else than domestic terrorism...

To sum it up in one sentance -- a new system that is domestic terrorism
is no worse than an old system that is same, but that doesn't make the
new system any less evil (or at least abuse-prone).

To be perfectly honest, I wince for Canada -- Probably because it's a lot
like looking into a mirror.

Love, luck, and marijuana lollipops,
The Sheriff. -- ***<REPLY TO: sheriff@speakeasy.org>***
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