5 ms·

Assassination Politics (by Jim Bell) + Bitcoin = ?

6 points by mike_esspe 16y ago

mike_esspe 16y ago
Original essay: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm
- Udo 16y ago
  This is very, very dark stuff and it has absolutely no upside. Though the essay states the advantages of being able to assassinate another Hitler or Stalin in order to prevent them from abusing their privileges, the reality of a real Assassination Market would look quite different. People would be assassinated all the time, even if they're not really in a position of power. Can you imagine the last three American presidents surviving a system like this? What about the current president? I think a large number of lunatics would donate insane amounts of money towards his assassination just to see it through. The idea that this is a constructive mechanism to put more checks and balances in the hand of the general population is horribly misguided. Who would like to live in a world like this? Also, it wouldn't even fix the most pressing problems, like corruption and abuse of power. An Assassination Market would just shift corruption and abuse to another group. The average citizen would be totally screwed, even worse than today (I know, it's hard to imagine sometimes). There are so many worthwhile ideas to improve the concept of government. For example, I believe it is worth looking into abandoning the concept of representation or at least de-emphasizing it in politics. So many ideas worth discussing. Anonymous Assassination Markets is not one of them.
  - mike_esspe 16y ago
    President of the current liberal democracy obviously can't survive in this system because he is the head of organization, that extort money from its subjects by force.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
The difficulty with an "assassination market" is that markets facilitate the transmission of information to everyone. Suppose an assassin wishes to purchase futures for, e.g., Obama dead on 5/15. If she purchases more than the normal amount of Dead Obama 5/15 Futures (DO515F), there will be a price impact. All of a sudden, the price of DO515F will spike and an observer will conclude there is an elevated probability of assassination on 5/15. A system designed to disseminate information as widely as possible is not that useful for conspiracies.
- mike_esspe 16y ago
  As far as i understand, the prediction date is encrypted, until you want to cache-out and send the decryption key.
  - 3pt14159 16y ago
    How does the buy-ask resolve if there is information hidden?
    - mike_esspe 15y ago
      The predictor should send his decryption key, after prediction was successful.
flashgordon 15y ago
Sorry but where do bitcoins come in all this? Neither the wikipedia page or any of the comments here mention bitcoin (until now).

6 points by mike_esspe 16y ago

mike_esspe 16y ago

Original essay: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm

Udo 16y ago
This is very, very dark stuff and it has absolutely no upside. Though the essay states the advantages of being able to assassinate another Hitler or Stalin in order to prevent them from abusing their privileges, the reality of a real Assassination Market would look quite different. People would be assassinated all the time, even if they're not really in a position of power. Can you imagine the last three American presidents surviving a system like this? What about the current president? I think a large number of lunatics would donate insane amounts of money towards his assassination just to see it through. The idea that this is a constructive mechanism to put more checks and balances in the hand of the general population is horribly misguided. Who would like to live in a world like this? Also, it wouldn't even fix the most pressing problems, like corruption and abuse of power. An Assassination Market would just shift corruption and abuse to another group. The average citizen would be totally screwed, even worse than today (I know, it's hard to imagine sometimes). There are so many worthwhile ideas to improve the concept of government. For example, I believe it is worth looking into abandoning the concept of representation or at least de-emphasizing it in politics. So many ideas worth discussing. Anonymous Assassination Markets is not one of them.
- mike_esspe 16y ago
  President of the current liberal democracy obviously can't survive in this system because he is the head of organization, that extort money from its subjects by force.

yummyfajitas 16y ago

The difficulty with an "assassination market" is that markets facilitate the transmission of information to everyone. Suppose an assassin wishes to purchase futures for, e.g., Obama dead on 5/15. If she purchases more than the normal amount of Dead Obama 5/15 Futures (DO515F), there will be a price impact. All of a sudden, the price of DO515F will spike and an observer will conclude there is an elevated probability of assassination on 5/15. A system designed to disseminate information as widely as possible is not that useful for conspiracies.

mike_esspe 16y ago
As far as i understand, the prediction date is encrypted, until you want to cache-out and send the decryption key.
- 3pt14159 16y ago
  How does the buy-ask resolve if there is information hidden?
  - mike_esspe 15y ago
    The predictor should send his decryption key, after prediction was successful.

flashgordon 15y ago

Sorry but where do bitcoins come in all this? Neither the wikipedia page or any of the comments here mention bitcoin (until now).