Excuse me for top-posting, but it is my message I'm doing it to, here.  I wanted to add an additional comment.  I take back nothing I said about the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the case that ruled that it was protected-speech to advocate criminal, even violent activity, except in case of imminent action.  (Say, in a riot.)
However, I should point out that legal decisions do occasionally tend to go in and out of favor, particularly when there has been major changes in the makeup of the Supreme Court.  All the positions of the Supreme Court have been replaced, at least once, since the Brandenburg decision was issued.  And some twice.  http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/members.aspx

If I still had easy access to the process of "Shepardization" of legal decisions  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard%27s_Citations  , I could look to see various citations of the Brandenburg case in subsequent Supreme Court cases, to see if it has been limited or modified in any way.  Right now I am unaware of any such changes, but it would be wise to do that Shepardization if you can do so.

Even so, I can agree that given the rather volatile times in which we live, a little caution is still in order.  Perhaps we should call them "Well-funded anonymous unlimited prediction markets."   Well-funded?  Essentially unlimited in amount that can be donated to the prediction fund, and are available to potential predictors.  Anonymous?  Ideally, so that ordinary people could use them without fear that the NSA or GCHQ be able to identify either the donors or the winner of the prediction contest.  Unlimited?  So that there are no relevant restriction placed on these markets:  either externally or internally.  If an individual or individuals want to place a prediction on the death of even the most well-known or politically-correct person, they should be able to do so in unlimited amounts without fear that a government or governments can effectively act to stop that.   And this should be true, even if the operation of individual predictions may seem to be accelerated by external events.

Most importantly, the organization or organizations that run these prediction markets should not be able to reject any proposed prediction market; they should be initiated by individuals outside the organization, and cannot be stopped by the organization itself.

Recently, there was a news item about Microsoft getting involved in Ethereum.  http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/28/microsoft-partners-with-consensys-to-use-ethereum-to-provide-blockchain-as-a-service/    Whatever its role today, I fear that Microsoft would find it more useful to impede the development of  "well-funded anonymous unlimited prediction markets".  In effect, Microsoft might be buying contol of Ethereum, and then using that influence against the development of this vital technology.  

              Jim Bell

From: jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com>


From: grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com>

On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 3:26 AM, coderman <coderman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> you might simplify further, and say that ideally this reduces to
>> transaction costs alone, as lower bound.

>Some contractors might work for free, they might even
>pay to be fed juicy marks... establishing a rep, grandstanding,
>love of the hobby, whatever.

While the first few collected rewards would probably be in the tens of thousands of dollars range, after a few hundred are collected I think the price could easily drop to the low thousands.  One reason is that once it is clear that government has no effective defense, it will also be clear that soon enough, the government(s) will surely fall.  The main reason a given "special bettor" might hesitate to act is the possibility that he will be stuck in prison, if identified and caught.   But the entire process could be over in just a few months, with the government(s) yelling, "We surrender!".  One condition for that surrender will certainly be the release of all the hostages.  

Another tactic which could be used to strengthen the resolve of potential AP winners is to arrange the bounty system so a portion of all bets also will be used to target anybody who is part of the prosecution of any caught persons, or for that matter anyone who kills or even arrests them:  The judges, prosecutors, and other court staff, as well as hostile witnesses.  Even unsuccessful defense attorneys:  The possible threat of death would provide an automatic appeal issue.  What about a standing publicly-offered reward for $10,000 for any juror who votes to acquit, if that vote doesn't result in a subsequent prosecution.  (And it can't, if the vote is unanimous for acquittal.)  Anyone who holds out for a conviction wouldn't get any money.

 As was stated in the movie Dr. Strangelove,  "Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the FEAR to attack".  If the only tool they have is to prosecute people, make them FEAR to do so and soon enough, they won't dare.  

What is the economics of all this?  Consider that in 2014 a record 3 trillion dollars in taxes was collected by the Federal government.  If those who paid those taxes were willing to donate 1% of that value once, to have it stopped, forever, that would amount to $30 billion.  If the average amount that had to be paid for a single death was $50,000, that would amount to 600,000 deaths.  Does anybody seriously believe that the USG (or any other government, for that matter) would even try to survive such a blow?  Clearly not:  They would resign.

            Jim Bell


Note to the ones monitoring:  1969 Supreme Court decision Brandenberg v. Ohio   https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444  guarantees as 'protected speech' under the First Amendment even encouragement to others to commit crimes, as long as a riot-type situation is not going on.  There is no riot here, and I haven't encouraged anybody to commit any crime. There is no imminent lawless action anticipated.

"These are not the Cypherpunks we're looking for.  You can go about your business.  Move along"


[Quote from Brandenburg:]

The Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Statute was enacted in 1919. From 1917 to 1920, identical or quite similar laws were adopted by 20 States and two territories. E. Dowell, A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation in the United States 21 (1939). In 1927, this Court sustained the constitutionality of California's Criminal Syndicalism Act, Cal.Penal Code ยงยง 11400-11402, the text of which is quite similar to that of the laws of Ohio. Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927). The Court upheld the statute on the ground that, without more, "advocating" violent means to effect political and economic change involves such danger to the security of the State that the State may outlaw it. Cf. Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380 (1927). But Whitney has been thoroughly discredited by later decisions. See Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, at 507 (1951). These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. [n2] As we [p448] said in Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290, 297-298 (1961),
the mere abstract teaching . . . of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.
See also Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U.S. 242, 259-261 (1937); Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 134 (1966). A statute which fails to draw this distinction impermissibly intrudes upon the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control. Cf. Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937); Stromberg v. California, 283 U.S. 359 (1931). See also United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258 (1967);Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589 (1967); Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U.S. 11 (1966); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500(1964); Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U.S. 360 (1964).
Measured by this test, Ohio's Criminal Syndicalism Act cannot be sustained. The Act punishes persons who "advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety" of violence "as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform"; or who publish or circulate or display any book or paper containing such advocacy; or who "justify" the commission of violent acts "with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism"; or who "voluntarily assemble" with a group formed "to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism." Neither the indictment nor the trial judge's instructions to the jury in any way refined the statute's bald definition of the crime[p449] in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action. [n3]
Accordingly, we are here confronted with a statute which, by its own words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action. [n4] Such a statute falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The contrary teaching of Whitney v. California, supra, cannot be supported, and that decision is therefore overruled.
Reversed.