On 20 May 96 at 22:59, Jim Ray wrote:

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Is there a Detweiller FAQ somewhere?

There's even a page

I found one out. Interesting. Vlad might very well fit the profile.

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Interesting. Has AP ever popped-up in the conventional medias?

AFAIK not yet, but I could be wrong. If I were Slick W., it would.

I don't think Slick W. will make it pop-up. They know damn well that no matter what the media might pretend the population thinks, there will be enough peoples more than willing to spend a few bucks to cause major joepardy.

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Then, again, I know an awfull lot of people who would applaude Bell. But most of them are not computer litterate. They are from another generation, not brainwashed by "Don't ask what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"...

How do these people vote, though? [Prediction: majority statist.] you can't complain when the govt. gives what you ask for...

Theses peoples refuse to register their guns, although it is mandatory in canada (to be registered within 7(?) years...)

Possibly. Bell insists Libertarians like me shouldn't worry. I worry, because statists' money spends just as well as mine. Tim joked a while back about putting a "fire-and-forget" K out on me when I was misquoted as the "Cyberangel."

So, are you saying that you chose to not endorse Bell's system because you fear you'd be a target? Just asking...

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You'll note that the psycho-epistemology necessary to commit murder is quite close to the one necessary to coerce poeples to pay taxes.

This kind of thinking might authorize a massive Cherokee massacre if it spread, IMO.

Please, do point out the similarities and the differences... I think that the context is very different.

Not really, only the time in history. Their property was 100% taken, and they were marched to OK from GA. The IRS may be bad...but they aren't THAT bad...[disclaimer: I am (a tiny) part Cherokee.

You did not answer my question: When our local Mohawks accuse the white peoples to have stolen their land, I ask "when did I do that? I can't remember..." I refuse to be held responsible for things that were done several hundred years ago. Period. As I said, I *never*, not even in my early years, believed in original sin.

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Are you talking of an open war a la Bosnia?

Hopefully not. What I meant is "do you believe that the AP scheme can lead to such events?" I personnally believe that in the event AP is used against govt, no statist will be able to retaliate. They might possibly make a few examples, but nobody will get fooled. Anyways, since the system is completely delocalized, there is no target to aim at. And furthermore, I think JB is right in saying that the middle-management level is much more likely to be hit first. But thoses affluent statists are not middle-management. You have to figure out who will be targeted, and what are their means of reprisal.

and the legitimate self defense options which are peaceful have not been adequately explored. IMO

Well, pardon my lack of imagination but I never found out too many effective ones. I'll be delighted to consider any alternative you propose. Encryption and anonymity tools *are* widely discussed and could make AP obsolete (hopefully).

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Bottom line for me: "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Please state the basic premise that make you declare what is "wrong" in the context of AP.

"Thou shalt not kill..." [pretty basic stuff here...]

I am sorry, but I do not accept that as a valid argument. What if somebody came to take away your means of feeding your kids? What if somebody was menacing you or your kids? There are instances, as you seem to agree, when killing is justified. What is meant by the sentence is: Thou shalt not initiate lethal violence.

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but actually *obligated* to use physical violence in certain contexts? I guess not.

No, just not as first resort.

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But many peoples think they have to...

If they break my door down and want my gun or PGPkey, I shoot. No matter who, Jim Bell or Bill Clinton, they may die if they go far enough. I will not seek to kill anyone from afar, though, and I'd have to feel in fear of my life.

This is the dilemna that peoples in pre-war germany faced. I met a wonderfull old german gentleman who worked on the german radar during the war. I asked him about how Hitler was perceived by the general thinking population. He said that 60% of the population tought very little of him, and did not agree with war. Theses were the educated germans. But at the same time, since Hitler rallied the other 40% of the population, the thugs at heart, they lived in constant fear. Nobody dared to say anything because nobody came back from some interrogations... And I was told the exact same thing by a previous girlfriend of mine, doing her PhD in chemistry. She was iranian. She had an irakian boyfriend for a while. They were madly in love. but what a fuss it made... Anyhow, she told me that while in high school, seven of her schoolmate, sixteen years old girls, were taken from the classes by Khomeiny's political police. Nobody, friends nor family, heard of them ever again. AP simply turn the ethics of assasins toward other like minded. Unfortunately, it can turn said mind toward valuable peoples too. And this is good reason to object.

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I think that you simply try to evade the necessity of defining for yourself what exactly is what the govt is doing.

Taxation is theft, I fail to see your point. Well, depends.

If you agreed to be taxed, then, maybe not. But suppose it is: what are the essentials of theft and what are the justified actions againts it? Now, does a kid stealing apples the same as the state stealing individual's earned wealth ? Does the same measure apply? Is the offense comparable? (You must first define the exact context of each)

Murder isn't the sole, or even first, option to prevent theft when you can do things like lock doors. [encrypt]

In the case of govt, it have the legal monopoly on the use of violence. And it does not seem to hate using it. But if you shoot some govt official who decided that he wanted you PGP key or your gun, you'll pay for it dearly even if you win in court. The most precious thing in life is time. And the way we found, as rationnal animals, to exchange time is to condense time into money. Money is an abstraction for productive time of our life. The govt is working very hard, at the victims expense, to make anything that can act as a lock illegal. And they enforce that with guns. So, do not surprize yourself if many people find AP fully justified or is the only way left to them. I do not advocate AP, notwithstanding what some others pretend (LD?). I think that inducing the death of govt as we know it by financial starvation through encrypted transactions is the way. But I also think that AP is impossible to prevent from happening because so much peoples agree with the preceding paragraph.

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Even then, I prefer the judicial process to the oligarchy this scheme would entail

This scheme is *not* an oligarchy. Pay a visit to any good dictionary near you. Words have precise meaning and it is *much* better to stick to it...

I said entail, *you* read a dictionary. The scheme relies on $, and more $ gives you more votes on who to kill. Oligarchy, a rule by the rich. I stuck exactly to it. Read more carefully.

Sorry, I don't have an english-french dictionnary. But I think it means "might lead to" or "might imply". Grand Larousse en 5 Volumes, Vol 4, p. 2229 : (I translate from french) Oligarchy: noun, feminine. (gr: oligarkhia) 1) political system in which power is held by a small number of individuals who constitutes either the intellectual elite (aristocracy) or the owning minority (plutocracy ?), theses two aspect often coinciding. 2) when a minority accaparates a power or an authority. I have to do some more thinking on that. I concede that I used the wrong words. To me, even if AP would fit the operationnal definition of oligarchy, it is not. Maybe because the definition had as a basic premise that it is impossible to structure power without communication. I think that anonymity technologies might force a re-definition of the word in more precise terms. In AP, it is completely different in the sense that nobody agrees to the ideas of other peoples. They simply pass *their own* judgment using *their own* reason and make *their own* decision to put a few bucks on this or that head. In oligarchy, the "intellectual elite" share some common premises, ideas. In AP, although you can derive a probability distribution of the values held by the anonymous donators, they do not actively share ideas. And neither do the assassins. There is no collusion, no exchange of information, no peer pressure, no conspiracy, no nothing. The only factor is the wealth a given donator is willing to donate. And this makes it a "buckarchy", i.e. the ideas and values of peoples who made it to wealth are statistically more likely to be implemented. But again, it is only a statistical, macroscopical truth. Only, theses peoples achieved wealth by sticking to a certain type of values (considering that it takes years to build a reputation and seconds to destroy it); they must have a stong tendency toward a set of values that are pro-freedom, pro-economy, and pro-productivity. Laissez-faire, the french expression, means "let do".

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and I think I'd be an easy target for wealthy statists, who could also use the system.

But OTOH, if you remain silent, you'll attract no one.

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At first look, of course. But operationnally, you have to consider the mind of the statist to figure out the likeliness of their using the system? I do not deny that it is very likely that a few statists will use the system. But most won't because they don't like to slain their milk cows.

That's not how I view statists. your faith is admirable, but I won't share it soon.

Faith: zero, zip, none...

hitler, Stalin, Clinton, they all would see me as hamburger just as soon as milkcow IMO. I have seen how history describes the minds of statists who don't get their way, it's not pretty.

(Did you read the complete AP essay?) Yes. But you also have to recognize that *never* in the history of mankind a media like the net ever existed. The net is, IMO, a turning point in the history of humanity, just as the discovery of toolmaking was. I think it will change the human history even more than the invention of the printing press.

Many statists have the $ to kill me without AP, this would make me cheap and compromise the privacy of the remailernet probably, or just cause them to be outlawed.

A few questions here: Why any statists would want to target *you*? There are plenty of guys like you who hates the guts of govt, have big mouths, and they don't get offed. By being a C'punk, it is even more dangerous for them: if they try to make an example by killing you, the others CPunks will go underground, set up AP remailers and get rid of them. At least, they recognize that the last thing to do in such circumstances, is to make martyrs. Compare the number of active posters to the number of readers, and you'll see that a lot of C'punks stay in the shadow, without making any waves. Now, to deal with that volume of e-mail, one must have *some* sort of interest. Unless the silent majority *all* work for NSA... Ciao JFA PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST DOES NOT MEAN THAT I ENDORSE MR. BELL'S SYSTEM. MY RATIONNAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT IT'S INTERNAL MECHANICS AND IT'S INTRINSIC LOGICS DOES NOT MEAN THAT I LIKE NOR ENDORSE THE SYSTEM. I SIMPLY CONCLUDED THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PREVENT THE SYSTEM FROM BEING IMPLEMENTED. IMO, IT IS UNAVOIDABLE. DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891