On 1/14/16, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> ... The main criticism I had
>> of this was the fact that the system was said to have a minimum bid of 1
>> BTC, which at the time was somewhere around $1000.  This, contrasting with
>> my Assassination Politics essay of 1995-96 where I anticipated allowing bits
>> of 10 cents.
>> Assassination Market did not explain a lot of what I had considered
>> necessary for a functioning such system. How can a potential donor trust the
>> system?  How can a potential 'predictor' trust the system?  How to collect?I
>> never tried to research into this, because I judged that to do so would be a
>> little too 'hot' for me to do.

>i am curious how you arrived at a determination of what was "too hot" :)

>how do you pick where to draw that line?

>*he says with a toe on something very hot...*

It was more of an educated guess.  I knew that I hadn't been promoting AP, yet

somebody was seemingly trying to bring it into reality, or saying they were.  The

most likely scenario, given that this person had contacted me, is that he (they) were

simply trying to discredit me.  To avoid that happening, and to 'kill two birds with

one stone', I threw that hot potato to Andy Greenberg.  (I was not at all happy with 

Greenberg, who greatly misrepresented 'facts' about me in his book).   I figured

that Greenberg wouldn't do anything with this contact, which would allow me to use

his negligence to discredit him.  Very surprisingly, to me, Greenberg actually wrote

an article and published in Forbes!  Literally within hours, many dozen other 

articles appeared in other media, and in the end it probably was hundreds of articles

over the next year or so.

>there were a few targets added, "bid" transactions successful,
>yet my attempt to add my own life to list was for naught. :/
>maybe i didn't pay enough... ?
 > https://blockchainbdgpzk.onion/address/1P6yannm6Rx9kkMH5LxmAsi1GdZ4JZG73T

I expected to, within a few weeks or months, read many articles publishing details.  But no,

all the rest were seemingly just rehashes of Greenberg's.   So, I learned very little.  But

I _DID_ learn that that system wouldn't be successful:  At the very least, it would have had

to convince the public that they could trust the system to operate reliably, and that never

occurred.

The only public criticism I voiced was the fact that the system didn't accept individual donations

lower than 1 BTC.  Most people would be willing to throw a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, or

dollar into a wishing well.  But nearly $1000?  Highly unlikely.  It was one choice that virtually 

guaranteed failure, even if everything else was done right.

 I am now, however, paying attention to Auger and Ethereum, which if they meet their implied

promises, will actually do the job.
        Jim Bell