On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 12:21:44AM -0400, Steve Kinney wrote:
On 07/10/2016 08:50 PM, jim bell wrote:
*From:* Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> Over time, I believe that the "ethical" organizations would have advantages, so they could do the equivalent of offering lower prices: The amount of their awards could be lower. The "unethical" organizations would "do" anybody, but it would cost much more.
I have my doubts. The cost of overcoming the defences of a President would be astronomically higher than the costs and risks of overcoming the defences of, for instance, an independent journalist. This would mandate a much higher bounty on the former. Conversely, public demand for removing an unpopular President would also be proportionally higher - a mitigating factor. Conversely x2, that President's backers might consider certain journalists worth paying over-market prices to remove, as her efforts might eventually aim the AP process at them personally.
Is this a fundamental weakness of AP? Descent into hell for anyone with intense motivation to change the existing system for the better - just one example being "no journalist safe from a vengeful William/ Bill Browder" for example: http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/oh-browder-almighty-he-passes-laws-con...
They would take higher profits, meaning that people who had a If, hypothetically, I was running such an AP system, I knew that I couldn't stop anyone else from also running a different AP system, different rules. I imagined that this wouldn't (couldn't) be a monopoly, it would amount to a competition. Some organizations (I'll label them "unethical") would accept bets on anyone. Others, such as my own, would initially just have the initial "does he work for government" standard. genuine beef with someone else would tend to employ "ethical" systems. "Business" would tend to shift. Over time, the market will shift from "unethical" to "ethical".
It seems to me that replacing an unjust and inequitable system of governance enforced by the threat of murder, with a more just and fair system of governance enforced by murder would not produce results that most would consider ethical. Not to say that, if successfully implemented as envisioned, it would necessarily be worse than what we have today.
I agree. I am starting to see absolutely no guarantees of an outcome of "better".
Eventually, what amounted to "court systems" would be included, to decide whether a complaint was valid. These "court systems" would, of course, be "voluntary", in the sense nobody would be required to appear, but the consequence of failure to appear would be that 'bare AP' would operate: If enough donations appeared to motivate somebody, that would happen.
A "Court" is a forum governed by a sovereign authority, where petitions and arguments are heard and decisions on the application of sovereign authority are made. A Court whose sole function is to authorize murder could dispense revenge, but never justice: Every sovereign in every war throughout history has presented its casus belli as the defense of human life, and the fact that war is tolerated by enough people to make it possible demonstrates that application of a "non-aggression principle" in conjunction with decisions to hire and direct murderers can not be entrusted to either sovereigns or a peasant rabble.
Sounds correct. Is it possible to remove the emotional "revenge" element, and surely the extremely wealthy would be most able to act in accordance with any "emotional revenge" element that they personally experience, or that they can manipulate the public into experiencing by the oligarch's control of the media consumed by the masses... Looks pretty bleak on the face of it..
But again, the devil is in the details: Thus far it looks to me like the twin problems of anonymity that is not reliably anonymous, and the vast scale of financial resources presently controlled by the segments of the population who are AP's likeliest targets, are outstanding problems complicating AP's implementation.
Also, it "feels" 'unenlightened' - "surely there's a better way" etc
Back in 1984 I was interviewed by a non-human intelligence, who briefly explained why it was self evidently necessary to remove 90% of the Earth's human population and asked for authorization to proceed. I could not fault his case, but I did impose a condition on my acceptance of his offer: Proceed only if everyone faces an equal chance of removal - no favoritism or exemptions of any kind allowed. Apparently a compliant solution is taking quite a long time to implement. But as and when it is, many of the problems AP would combat would be greatly reduced, as would the practical barriers to AP's implementation.
Although a "better future" was not promised or even implied, I am cautiously optimistic...
I do not share your optimism on this one.