From: IN%"mkj@october.segno.com" 28-APR-1996 10:29:40.72

Most other arguments put forth so far in this thread, about how people "won't stand for" certain government behaviors and so forth, I don't find convincing. Modern military technologies, especially in the U.S., make the prospects of a sucessful popular uprising dubious.

Well, atomic bombing your own populace is not exactly the way for a nation-state to survive. Most other high-effectiveness means of taking out internal rebels also don't work very well. Why do you think a lot of areas with civil wars are kind of destroyed by the end of them? Even with the low level of military technology at the time, the South was quite thoroughly devastated by the end of the Civil War - and it would have been even without such "atrocities" (so-called by Confederate sympathizers) as the burning of Atlanta.

Which brings us to the "flight of capital" issue. Will nations be able to compete freely for the loyalty of the rich? Or will the most powerful nations form effective coalitions, and perhaps simply bomb "rogue" nations into the stone age?

It depends partially on whether those "rogue" nations have nuclear weapons (or, like Japan, the economic equivalents). I suspect that the best way to have a country with fully anonymous digital cash in widespread, legal use will be to have that country be a nuclear power. Thus, discussions of how to construct a backyard nuclear device (the subject of earlier debates on here between Jim Bell and others) may be quite relevant. Having those loyal rich types around to fund such an effort may make such possible, especially with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the resulting availability of nuclear material. -Allen