On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 12:16 AM, jim bell <[1]jdb10987@yahoo.com>
   wrote:

   From: Sean Lynch <[2]seanl@literati.org>
   On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 10:47 AM, juan <[3]juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

     On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 22:35:47 +1000
     Zenaan Harkness <[4]zen@freedbms.net> wrote:
     > On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 02:47:08AM -0600, Mirimir wrote:
     > > How about we implement a working AP system?
     >
     > As I said in a previous thread, I now believe that to be
     fundamentally
     > flawed - that it will not achieve anything resembling justice,
     even in
     > the long term.
             The idea of finishing off criminals like cops, soldiers,
             politicians, corporatist 'business' men, etc is pretty
     sound.
             The problem is of course how to implement it. If AP can be
             turned against honest people then it's obviously not a good
             implementation.

   >Of course AP can be turned against "honest people." It's a system for
   turning money into death without knowing where the money came from.
   >Rich people make out like bandits in such a system, because they can
   hire bodyguards non-anonymously and pay to have their enemies killed
   >anonymously.
   You didn't think you could say that without arousing my defensiveness
   of my 'baby', AP?
   I think your error is that you are mixing pre-AP reality with post-AP
   reality.  In
   today's world (pre-AP) in order to make a societal change, ordinary
   people generally
   have to speak up, to yell, to protest, and (sometimes) to vote.  And
   usually the former
    hasn't been easily done anonymously, so arguably the big, powerful
   people learn who these
   trouble-making little folk are.  In principle, this would allow the
   important people to
   kill the ordinaries:  Except that it is generally expensive and risky
   for such a thing to
   occur, and the protestors usually greatly outnumber the rich ones,  so
   the typical
   protestor is relatively safe from harm, today.
   In an AP-functioning world, it would seem that the important, rich
   people would be
   able to kill off the complainers.  But remember, in an AP world it
   would no longer
   be necessary for little ones to loudly complain:  A donation by AP (and
   those of
   thousands of other 'poor' people?) would provide the 'convincing'
   necessary, and do so
   anonymously.  Further, modern technology will allow, relatively easily,
   anonymous
   complaining, so people will be able to rouse others and solicit
   assistance with little
   risk of identification.  The Cypherpunks list is a fair example of
   that, despite the fact that
   some of us choose to post under our own, true names.

   I don't think "killing off complainers" really matters that much. You
   only have to go after leaders and highly visible figures like Snowden.

   For these reasons, I am convinced that 'the rich' would not have any
   great power over
   the far larger number of ordinary people.  'The rich' wouldn't know,
   precisely, WHO
   their enemies are.   They have more money, rhetorically similar to
   having more bullets
   to shoot, but if they can't see the targets that advantage matters
   little.

   More bullets, more bodyguards, better alarm systems, better security
   generally.

   >Ironically, AP would work best in a society with a high level of
   wealth equality. If there's high inequality, it just makes that worse.
   Well, I don't see that.  Perhaps you would care to explain this.
   'Rich' people die
   as readily as the rest of us, and unless they somehow know who their
   'enemies'
   are fairly powerless to prevent us from if they genuinely trespass
   against what
   we consider are our rights.

   But they don't die as readily as the rest of us. They all get CCWs and
   bodyguards and armored cars and on-staff medics to treat bullet wounds
   quickly. And they get massive investigations by their local law
   enforcement agency of any attack for "free".

   At the same time, I don't object merely because somebody gets rich, as
   long as
   he does so in a fair, unbiased fashion:  Put another way, I don't
   object if somebody
   gets rich selling Epi-pens,  as long as many other people are free to
   enter the same
   market, generally without government restriction.  The patent for
   Epi-Pens probably
   ran out years ago; the current restriction is simply that the FDA has
   arrogated the
   power to decide if any given manufacture should be allowed to sell his
   version of
   the Epi-pen, or not.   Too many 'nots', and what you have is not a free
   market at
   all, but twisted version of that.  (Clearly, if Mylan Labs is able to
   jack up the price for
   a pair of Epi-pens from $100 to $600 over a period of 6 years, there is
   no way that
   a true 'free market' can be operating.)

   Agreed.

   This doesn't mean that I object to the current patent system.  In her
   book Atlas
   Shrugged, Ayn Rand came out on the side of private intellectual
   property, objecting
    to the theft by government of metal-maker Henry Reardon's special
   metal alloy,
   "Reardon metal", by means of blackmail.

   I think she was wrong about it. And even if you support patents
   generally, they are heavily abused in their current form and in at
   least some industries it's not at all clear whether they are a net
   benefit. There are other funding models for research that don't require
   granting a temporary monopoly to whoever happens to write down an idea
   and pay the fee first.

   Of course, I understand that by citing Ayn Rand's reasoning (and I am
   by no means
   a Randian, having learned I was a libertarian years before knowing
   about Ayn Rand
   and her books) it may seem I am committing the rhetorical sin of
   'appealing to
   authority'.   And, I realize that there is something of a conundrum
   about advocating a
   'free market' and yet implicitly supporting the one remaining control,
   that of
   a patent system somewhat akin to what the world uses today.  (Who
   enforces such
   a patent system, except a government?)

   Appeals to authority are perfectly fine in informal discussions. And I
   can imagine, at least fuzzily, intellectual property systems that don't
   rely on an organization with a monopoly on violence. I suspect that in
   trying to set one up the market would demonstrate that it's more
   expensive than it's worth, though.

   Let me propose an outline of a solution which could square the circle:
    At some
   early point, say age 18, each person would be asked whether he wishes
   to live
   his life WITH Intellectual Property rules, or not.  He can choose
   either way, but
   if he refuses, manufacturers can band together to agree to sell only to
   people
   who agree to those rules.  Correspondingly, those who sign the
   pro-Intellectual
   Property agreement agree thereby to bar themselves from buying products
   from
   non-intellectual-property agree-er manufacturers.  Violations could be
   policed by
   an AP-type system.  This wouldn't have to be a permanent decision, for
   any person.

    Other manufacturers may make products that are made
   for sale to non-Intellectual Property agree-ers, but they will be shut
   out from dealing
   with what I expect will be the majority, let's call them
   "Pro-Intellectual Property"
   people and manufacturers.  I am fairly confident that the advantages of
   dealing with
   what I believe will be the majority, those that comply with
   Intellectual Property rules,
   will be sufficient to keep all but a small minority of the public
   willing to live
   voluntarily with such rules.  Put simply, I suggest that there are some
   rather powerful
   advantages to having a system which rewards inventors.

   The voluntary systems I imagine work similarly, though mostly focused
   around whether or not one has recourse in particular private court
   systems. I am hard pressed to think of any previous system where people
   all agreed not to sell that didn't require violence or eventually break
   down. OPEC has only worked because it's an extraction industry and its
   members have mostly been dictatorships where the dictator or their
   descendant would likely be in charge when the oil finally runs out. And
   it's starting to break down as Iran starts thinking about being more
   democratic.

   I agree with the last sentence, but a temporary monopoly granted by the
   government is not the only way to reward inventors, and people are
   constantly inventing things which can easily be copied, which I think
   goes to show that you don't have to do *anything* to ensure that
   inventors are rewarded.
   I think patents may have made more sense when it was much harder for
   individuals and small groups to get funding to develop an idea, and the
   only people with the resources to develop them were the guilds and
   state-sponsored corporations like the East India Company. Patents were
   a way to protect the "little guy." Now it's much easier to get your
   hands on funding than it was then, whether it's a small business loan,
   SBIR, venture or angel capital, or crowdfunding. It makes the "first
   mover advantage" much more significant when you can move as fast or
   even faster than a large company that has the same idea, and those
   larger organizations tend to be risk-averse anyway.
   It's quite possible I'm biased from working in Silicon Valley, where
   most patents get applied for not for protection from having your idea
   "stolen," but for protection from other patentholders. Or because
   they're seen as valuable by potential investors/buyers, but that mostly
   matters before you have a customer base and infrastructure.

References

   1. mailto:jdb10987@yahoo.com
   2. mailto:seanl@literati.org
   3. mailto:juan.g71@gmail.com
   4. mailto:zen@freedbms.net