Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
ichudov@algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes:
Also, think about this: lots of people have someone they'd like to assassinate but do not actually do it because of lack of anonymity and associated hassles (like dealing with assassins non-anonymously, abundance of traces, possible confession of the assassin and so on). With your assassination clearinghouse these hassles go away. I think it would present an excellent prospect for reducing the population.
Igor, have you ever read novels about British life in 18th century? (I'm using this as an example because every good Russian reads them. :-) Have you noticed how exaggeratedly polite they were to each other, in comparison to Americans today? Do you know why? Because back then, every gentle person was armed and might use violence in sufficiently provoked.
Actually, here in Oklahoma almost everyone has a gun (not that they use them though, but many carry). Incidentally, everyone including most down to earth truckers is exceedingly polite. When I went to NYC first time, I was shocked how less polite people were in comparison with Oklahomans. Are the folks in Flushing, NY or around Avenue of the Americas allowed to possess firearms? :) Russians in Russia are even less polite, and guns are outlawed. Maybe your hint really makes sense and after initial depopulation the citizens will use different, more considerate, ways of dealing with each other. Or, alternatively, maybe people will hide behind anonymity most of the time to avoid becoming vistims of jimbell's clearinghouse. Really, it is very hard to assasssinate username@alpha.c2.org, although it is possible to hire nyms to write programs and pay them hard earned digicash. If we think about anonymous computer contractors and anonymous employers, the interesting question is how to maintain reputations and how to check references. - Igor.