On Nov 10, 2016, at 12:26 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, 10 Nov 2016 12:06:33 -0500 John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

...

...

On Nov 10, 2016, at 10:58 AM, Razer <rayzer@riseup.net> wrote:

On 11/10/2016 03:47 AM, John Newman wrote some non-analytical nonsense:

...

Violence ended slavery in the South. Violence created the so called "land of the free" =)

Sometimes it's the solution.

John

Violence is a tactic. It can LEAD to a solution but it is not the solution itself

Yes , truly spoken.

The thing about violence is - science has advanced so many "wonderful ways" for us to kill ourselves,

Not meaning to re-start a flame war =P, but I think you mean technology, not science. Yes, technological development is (partly) related to what can be called 'basic' science but they are distinct.

...

it becomes increasingly obvious humanity needs to either disavow war altogether (how to do that I have no idea) or face the inevitable conclusion that we are going to fucking destroy ourselves.

That's a possibility, but it doesn't strike me as too consistent with the 'science' of 'biology' - How many examples of species that commit collective suicide are there? Why should human *animals* be different? Even inter species competition doesn't lead to complete destruction usually.

On the other hand, given the trends in 'networking' and totalitarianism, it wouldn't be too surprising if the human race became some sort of collective entity in which our ruling monsters (say google and clinton) would act as a 'brain'.

Bostrum (the simulation hypothesis guy) has some interesting thoughts on the future of humanity that basically boil down to a few possibilities, one of which is humanity locking itself (forever) into some sort of totalitarian dystopia similar to what you outline. Fundamentally I think this is the same thing as destroying ourselves outright.

...

Fermi paradox solved =)

John

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 11/10/2016 01:17 PM, jim bell wrote:

Governments killed an estimated 240 million people in the 20th century. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide , although this article does not cite the figure 240 million; I recall the figure from elsewhere.)

If you consider that to have been an unacceptable number, then I think you need to try to explain away any system that claims that it has the "horsepower" to stop such slaughter. If anything, the only criticisms I have heard of AP is that it would be TOO effective, not that it would not be powerful enough to get rid of the governments that kill. (And, ultimately, ALL governments.)

As with most elegant solutions to real world problems, the sticking point with AP is implementation. It requires anonymous payment protocols that are themselves "bullet proof", and would have to weather counter-attacks by a ruling class whose financial resources and ability to affect major infrastructure changes are astronomically higher than common sense would suggest. Bounties for killing the operators of an AP system, offered through more old fashioned means, would be extraordinarily high - requiring bullet proof anonymity in the presence of uber-motivated adversaries with global network surveillance capabilities. The betting pool itself would alert potential targets to take proportional defensive measures, which "at best" would inhibit the social progress promoted by the system. But other than that... :o) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJYJMcqAAoJEECU6c5Xzmuqr78IAL5LxsbtDLnG1NUXcW7G+5uO rNR/I5ae3059RQW+EwdoWWRlWXcZvd3qUTMietYWgLeYBs+VyaMZKra1VUn5ySb1 pTkSpXKSwKTUoVQJWQq/E2Iem7XrZE4waqe8DzgRPqQG4A8UvvrFSayJdBmtsPKV garNPvt7SdXdcv7Z4FvPvd/gp5dythHdI8hyVyUmYfDGI/bJGWhgjf/DdAlBC3y3 HbhudFXTSfrDPORRSVv0FHdS7GE6K4hcVDoqfn/VGexS/IlGeKckzD7eSyaaGC+H t0mngPVCfIU+ZO0v75RDDtPt78GaulprkdZ1DZmfOICteCkjSTwMT0F0s7cFL+M= =hjwy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

From: juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> On Thu, 10 Nov 2016 14:14:50 -0500 Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> wrote:

  Bounties for killing the operators of an AP system, offered through more old fashioned means, would be extraordinarily high - requiring bullet proof anonymity in the presence of uber-motivated adversaries with global network surveillance capabilities.

   Hey, but Jim's system (which Tim May 'invented' before Jim I  >   believe?) would be protected, by, GET THIS, TOR. That depends on how much you want to distort reality.  I was unaware of the existence of the CP list prior to about May 1995, as I recall.  (Someone I don't recall forwarded a copy of AP part 1 to the CP list, and then alerted me to the list's existence.)  Prior to that, I was unaware of anything about Tim May except that he had worked for Intel (in Santa Clara, California) in the late 70's and early 80's, and he had discovered that alpha particles (charged helium nuclei) were the main cause of 'soft errors' in DRAMs of that era.  As I learned, much later, May (and others) invented the idea of an "Assassination Market", at least what I now call the "Anonymous Person A hires Anonymous Person B to kill Person C" version.  Entirely unaware of their specific work (but, as I vaguely recall, aware of this general concept; I'd probably heard of it, indirectly, from a third person whose identity I don't recall), I thought of the "Hundreds, or thousands, or millions of 'Person A's', make anonymous contributions to a general offer to potentially any 'Person B' to reward him for 'predicting' the date of death of 'Person C'. Are these two models alike?  Kinda-sorta, I suppose.  But I think they would be enormously different in effect, for many reasons I need not go into here.  If 'Assassination Markets' were limited to the former model, very few people would be hated, enough, by only one person to obtain a donation sufficient to buy a death.  In the latter model, a few million 25-cent donations would get rid of nearly all potential targets. I suggest that I did indeed advance the rhetorical state-of-the-world.  

   Only very ignorant people would fail to realize that TOR    provides bullet proof anonimity, especially against the    pentagon. I didn't mention TOR to imply that it is, in its current form, entirely suitable for use in a functioning AP system.  Rather, my intent was to show that the kind of tools necessary to implement AP are being considered and produced.  Just "the kind of tools", not necessarily the tools themselves.  TOR should be made stronger, with more hops, more exit nodes, and more transfer nodes, filler traffic, for some examples of improvements.  Bitcoin needs an upgrade, for example to Zerocoin, to provide true anonymity, rather than mere pseudonymity.  

The betting pool itself would alert No, it would not.  Unlike the Federal Government's short-lived proposal in 2003, PAM "Policy Analysis Markets", (FutureMAP),  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market   in which the state of the betting itself alerts people to threats, a well-designed AP system would carefully avoid alerting the public (or anyone) to bets, ideally until later, after the event predicted had materialized or failed to materialize.  The 'money' for the bet might be inside an encryption envelope, without the name of the target or date.  Another encryption envelope, inside the first one, could contain the target and date information.  The AP organization could decrypt the first (outer) envelope, and be unable to decrypt the inner one, at least until the password is sent in by the predictor.   The AP organization would, however, publish the decrypted contents of the outer envelope, so that everyone would know that a prediction with $X of value came in on a specific date and time. Nobody, except the predictor, would know the identity or date.  Eventually, the inner password would be sent in, used to decrypt the inner envelope, with the results published online.  If the AP organization cheats, by not failing to perform one of these steps, the predictor could publish the inner prediction key himself, disclosing to the public that the long-since-published content of the outer encryption envelope was a valid prediction, and for some reason (fraud?) the AP organization did not play fair.   That would destroy the credibility of that specific AP organization; others would soon take its place.

potential targets to take proportional defensive measures, which "at best" would inhibit the social progress promoted by the system. The system would adapt.  Consider Le Chatlier's Principle.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier%27s_principle A working AP system might, for example, authorize spending (for concreteness) 10% of donations on defensive contracts:  Consider the effect of a $250,000 reward on the prosecutor in a case alleging an AP action, or $500,000 for a judge.   Or perhaps a reward of $100,000 for each juror who participated in such a trial, and voted for acquittal, where the outcome was such that a retrial would be impossible, or at least did not occur.    Such rewards could become very high, in large part because there would rarely be legal cases in which they would have to be paid.  

But other than that...\

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"         Jim Bell

From: juan <juan.g71@gmail.com>

...

 Entirely unaware of their specific work (but, as I vaguely recall, aware of this general concept; I'd probably heard of it, indirectly, from a third person whose identity I don't recall), I thought of the "Hundreds, or thousands, or millions of 'Person A's', make anonymous contributions to a general offer to potentially any 'Person B' to reward him for 'predicting' the date of death of 'Person C'. Are these two models alike?  Kinda-sorta, I suppose.

 >   Well, the part about a date for a predicted 'accident' or event  >  is more original I think (though I certainly haven't researched  >   it thoroughly), however the bit about something being funded by  >   many people seems more like the standard working of markets and  >   so is rather old? Hey, I didn't claim to have invented the entire concept of markets!   <vbg>Anyway, in 1995 the terms "crowdsourced" and "crowdfunded" didn't exist.  AP could be described today quite simply as "crowdfunded assassinations".  

...

 But I think they would be enormously different in effect, for many reasons I need not go into here.  If 'Assassination Markets' were limited to the former model, very few people would be hated, enough, by only one person to obtain a donation sufficient to buy a death.  In the latter model, a few million 25-cent donations would get rid of nearly all potential targets. I suggest that I did indeed advance the rhetorical state-of-the-world.

    I think Steve's point about high value targets being hard to  >   attack is valid. But on the other hand what would happen if    'law enforcement' 'agents' were targeted? The price to get rid    of lowly anonymous cops would be a lot smaller. Working as a cop    would stop being appealing. And with no state 'law'    'enforcement' there are no state's 'laws' and ultimately no    state. I don't disagree that "high value" targets would be more difficult.  But not that much.  And if they are indeed "high-value", that implies that large numbers of people would be ready and willing to donate to see them gone.  And the fact that the AP bounty can be collected by ANYONE makes it hard to defend against.  Even a person's bodyguards (and especially them!) would be able to stage an attack, and collect the reward.

...

 Rather, my intent was to show that the kind of tools necessary to implement AP are being considered and produced.  Just "the kind of tools", not necessarily the tools themselves.  TOR should be made stronger, with more hops, more exit nodes, and more transfer nodes, filler traffic, for some examples of improvements.

   Tor is a brand of the tor corporation which in turn means the    pentagon. It's pretty much a dead end (and that's the way its    owners intend it to be, obviously) And that's a real shame.  It's still useable, within its limitations.

 Bitcoin needs an upgrade, for example to Zerocoin, to provide true anonymity, rather than mere pseudonymity.  

    Yes...     (rest of your message is a reply to Steve so I won't comment)

...

The betting pool itself would alert

No, it would not.  Unlike the Federal Government's short-lived proposal in 2003, PAM "Policy Analysis Markets", (FutureMAP),  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Analysis_Market   in which the state of the betting itself alerts people to threats, a well-designed AP system would carefully avoid alerting the public (or anyone) to bets, ideally until later, after the event predicted had materialized or failed to materialize.  The 'money' for the bet might be inside an encryption envelope, without the name of the target or date.  Another encryption envelope, inside the first one, could contain the target and date information.  The AP organization could decrypt the first (outer) envelope, and be unable to decrypt the inner one, at least until the password is sent in by the predictor. The AP organization would, however, publish the decrypted contents of the outer envelope, so that everyone would know that a prediction with $X of value came in on a specific date and time. Nobody, except the predictor, would know the identity or date.  Eventually, the inner password would be sent in, used to decrypt the inner envelope, with the results published online.  If the AP organization cheats, by <snip> failing to perform one of these steps, the predictor could publish the inner prediction key himself, disclosing to the public that the long-since-published content of the outer encryption envelope was a valid prediction, and for some reason (fraud?) the AP organization did not play fair.   That would destroy the credibility of that specific AP organization; others would soon take its place.

...

potential targets to take proportional defensive measures, which "at best" would inhibit the social progress promoted by the system. The system would adapt.  Consider Le Chatlier's Principle.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier%27s_principle A working AP system might, for example, authorize spending (for concreteness) 10% of donations on defensive contracts:  Consider the effect of a $250,000 reward on the prosecutor in a case alleging an AP action, or $500,000 for a judge.   Or perhaps a reward of $100,000 for each juror who participated in such a trial, and voted for acquittal, where the outcome was such that a retrial would be impossible, or at least did not occur.    Such rewards could become very high, in large part because there would rarely be legal cases in which they would have to be paid.  

...

But other than that...\

"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"         Jim Bell