Someone at the Pentagon read Shockwave Rider over the weekend

[Steve Schear]

At 15:13 2003-07-29 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>On Tuesday, July 29, 2003, at 04:20  PM, John Young wrote:
>
>>Tim May wrote:
>>
>>>Yes, a bunch of "ideas futures" markets have existed for nearly a
>>>decade. An acquaintance of mine, Robin Hanson, was actively promoting
>>>such things in the late 80s and may have been involved in some of the
>>>Extropians-type markets which arose a few years later (I recollect
>>>several efforts with varying degrees of success).
>>
>>Yes, Robin Hanson worked on DARPA's PAM program. Here's
>>his e-mail about it in May 2003:
>
>Too bad, as he should have seen the shitstorm which would materialize as 
>soon as this actually reached the public radar screen. Now that's gone 
>public and been deep-sixed less than 24 hours later, it will likely be the 
>end of this particular thing.
>
>An official, above-board version is likely to be ipso facto illegal for 
>the same reason office baseball pools are illegal: illegal gambling. If 
>the Pentagon can run a betting pool for its employees on when some event 
>will happen, office workers can bet on the outcome of the World Series, 
>and anyone can bet on the numbers revealed by the Mob.

I believe DARPA sought and received an opinion letter from the SEC and DoJ 
regarding this venture which provided that, being the government, they were 
"immune" from prosecution for violation of gambling and unregistered 
securities violations.  You are correct, however, that should the DoD 
venture have gone forward there would have been quite an uproar from 
domestic and international gaming companies questioning the authority to 
grant this sort of dispensation to the Feds.  Fo example, the WTO (World 
Trade Organisation) this week granted Antigua and Barbuda the right to a 
hearing over its long-standing complaint against the United States, which 
has restricted the right of US citizens to gamble online - a major lifeline 
for the Caribbean jurisdiction's economy. 
http://www.tax-news.com/asp/story/story.asp?storyname=12733

steve


"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think 
things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and 
taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he 
lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable."  --H. L. Mencken