RE: Crypto-anonymity greases HUMINT intelligence flows
Huh? Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
Assume that you could nearly guarantee a profit of $5mil or more by shorting your stocks before a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Would you perpetrate such a crime, and frame the "sand-niggers"?
What's the cost/benefit here?
How much potential profit would be necessary for a crime like this to occur with profit as the only motive?
I have NO IDEA what this strange post has to do with the original question. I'm a libertarian. As such, I see no problem in doing well by doing good. Just because I would jump at $5 million (plus Witness Relocation) to finger Bin Laden does not mean I would do something evil for that amount or more. Remember, the original question was, would a $5 million reward plus a new identity under the Witness Relocation Program be enticing enough to get someone to roll over on Bin Laden. My best guess is 'yes' and I merely used myself as an example. Look, I don't CARE about the purity of the motives of someone who would give up Bin Laden. The only question in my mind is whether or not there is somebody who would do it for the stipulated inducement. That was--and is--the question. S a n d y
On Sat, 15 Sep 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Meyer Wolfsheim wrote:
What's the cost/benefit here?
How much potential profit would be necessary for a crime like this to occur with profit as the only motive?
I have NO IDEA what this strange post has to do with the original question.
It's only tangentally related.
I'm a libertarian. As such, I see no problem in doing well by doing good. Just because I would jump at $5 million (plus Witness Relocation) to finger Bin Laden does not mean I would do something evil for that amount or more.
My apologies; I never meant that as the implication. I highly doubt that you, or most people, would ever be capable of evil on 1/10th the scale of this attack. However, if you assume lack of conscience and moral indifference, this does become a cost/benefit situation. What if one owned a large amount of stock in Visage Technology[1]? What if one had embezzed a large sum from Morgan Stanley, and needed a diversion? Or one simply wanted to manipulate the stock market? One of the problems with capital punishment is that it isn't much of a deterrant, except to the Christians who believe in Hell. If one could increase his wealth exponentially, and did not care about other human life, would the potential benefit be worth the risk? You can only be executed once. Americans will do everything they can not to believe that this could have been a domestic action. We want to blame the "sand-niggers" and the "rag-heads." The fact that this could have been a sociopath with the ultimate get-rich quick scheme is unthinkable.[2] -MW- [1] http://www.techreview.com/screaming/article.asp?SMContentIndex=3 [2] I'm posing this question as an academic exercise. I think that the attack was most likely exactly what it appeared: an act of terrorism by a foreign party.
participants (2)
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Meyer Wolfsheim -
Sandy Sandfort