Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Assassination Politics (1997)

cryptome.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 66 posts

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#31

Post by msandford »

anthonyb wrote: post #18
aidenn0 wrote: post #12

If you and contribute funds to pay an anonymous assassin, you've committed attempted murder. If the anonymous assassin succeeds, you can be tried for murder even if they never locate the assassin.

Interesting that the libertarian solution to someone violating your rights seems to be to violate their rights back in even more spectacular and violent fashion.

In a just world do you lose rights when you violate another's?

Most people would accept that it's moral for someone who's threatened with a gun by another to kill that other person, thus preserving their own life.

Many would still accept as moral the same situation, but where the assailant has a knife.

Many would again accept as moral everything the same, except instead of someone intent to kill with a knife, an assailant who only intended to rob.

Robbery is taking a thing against the wishes/desires/rights of another.

Some might argue that the government collecting taxes is robbery by that definition and thus they have the moral right to defend their property with deadly force. The government certainly will use force to ensure that it gets it's taxes. They won't shoot you but they will take away your freedom and the only way they can do that is with force or the threat of force.

At what point do you disagree with that line of thinking? Why? I'm not trolling you, genuinely curious.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#32

Post by rdl »

I got "invited" to federal court over this (I ran the mailing list archive at MIT which USG used as evidence). I was outside the US at the time, working on anon ecash in the Caribbean, so it was a request, not a demand. I met Jennifer Granick as a result, and learned the "if you can possibly avoid it, never ever set foot inside federal court" rule, which has subsequently served me quite well.

Jim Bell probably tops weev as an unsympathetic defendant.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#33

Post by anthonyb »

msandford wrote: post #31
anthonyb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the libertarian solution to someone violating your rights seems to be to violate their rights back in even more spectacular and violent fashion.

In a just world do you lose rights when you violate another's? Most people would accept that it's moral for someone who's threatened with a gun by another to kill that other person, thus preserving their own life. Many would still accept as moral the same situation, but where the assailant has a knife. Many would again accept as moral everything the same, except instead of someone intent to kill with a knife, an assa…

In this case, there is no overt threat - the government employee is not holding a gun to your head, so you have no right to kill him.

Most people are not very even handed when they feel that their rights have been violated, so it tends to lead to escalation, and tribal/gang style violence, tit-for-tat.

It's much better IMO for a society to deal with disputes by legal means, not by stalking, harassing and killing each other, eg. if I shoot you in self defence, then that's 1 person's worth of productivity lost to the world, similarly if I harass you and threaten you at your home address (0.5 x PP?).

And yes, if you consistently violate other people's rights, or act with poor judgement, then you should lose rights. For example, if you're in the US and threaten people with a gun, you should lose the right to carry a gun, or the right to not be searched.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#34

Post by angersock »

rdl wrote: post #32

I got "invited" to federal court over this (I ran the mailing list archive at MIT which USG used as evidence). I was outside the US at the time, working on anon ecash in the Caribbean, so it was a request, not a demand. I met Jennifer Granick as a result, and learned the "if you can possibly avoid it, never ever set foot inside federal court" rule, which has subsequently served me quite well. Jim Bell probably tops w…

I met Jennifer Granick as a result, and learned the "if you can possibly avoid it, never ever set foot inside federal court" rule, which has subsequently served me quite well.

Would you be able to elaborate on that any further?

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#35

Post by msandford »

meepmorp wrote: post #27
msandford wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah all valid points. That's one of the unintended consequences of the system: someone with enough money can short-circuit the "voting" process to get anyone killed. Let me reiterate: There's a very interesting nugget in there. Namely one (possibly of many) ways for ordinary citizens to provide less asymmetric incentives to politicians and bureaucrats. I'm really interested in alternative methods of achieving simila…

> For example the guy after Obama could win by a 90% landslide, then immediately launch an all-out war against Iran, Syria and say Jordan Or, to turn that around the other way, something happens just after the election which causes 80-90% of the electorate to support an attack on Iran, Syria, and Jordan. The president after Obama, after some consideration and discussion with people in her/his cabinet decides to not a…

An excellent point. I've always assumed that most people don't want to expend dollars and lives on wars but that doesn't necessarily hold true.

Personally I'm more interested in the nugget of insight than necessarily the exact methods he outlines.

For all the million little ways that the government involves itself in our daily lives there is huge asymmetry and thus plenty of opportunity for injustice.

For the really big things there is also huge asymmetry. If something is a really big deal and even 10% of the US population went to Washington to protest you'd probably see a swift reaction. That's a really good thing and it's one of the reasons that many systems of representative government do work.

The question in my mind is: What is the price for big freedoms in terms of little freedoms, and is this a good bargain? Personally I'd like to have my big freedoms AND my little ones too. So any kind of thought along those lines is interesting even if it's not ultimately good.

The thing I took away from the article most is that there probably are ways to give the people more freedom on the little things without necessarily compromising on the big ones. Not necessarily via Assassination Markets, but SOMEHOW.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#36

Post by msandford »

anthonyb wrote: post #33
msandford wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a just world do you lose rights when you violate another's? Most people would accept that it's moral for someone who's threatened with a gun by another to kill that other person, thus preserving their own life. Many would still accept as moral the same situation, but where the assailant has a knife. Many would again accept as moral everything the same, except instead of someone intent to kill with a knife, an assa…

In this case, there is no overt threat - the government employee is not holding a gun to your head, so you have no right to kill him. Most people are not very even handed when they feel that their rights have been violated, so it tends to lead to escalation, and tribal/gang style violence, tit-for-tat. It's much better IMO for a society to deal with disputes by legal means, not by stalking, harassing and killing each…

So immediate threats aren't OK but eventual ones are? I guess I can see how a person might think that way.

What if the US had a post-earning tax where the tax collector had to physically come to your house and demand the money that the government said you owed it. And he was armed. And he made the threat of violence personally rather than through a large bureaucracy? Would that change things? Why or why not? Again, not trolling but genuinely interested.

Agree 100% that people don't react well when they feel their rights are being violated. The loss of agency and personal sovereignty is a really big deal.

I'm with you on the loss of rights examples you give up to a point. I'm totally on board with situational loss of rights (I threaten you with a gun and you're in the right to shoot me) but I'm less in favor of doing that systematically. Mostly because of how safe things are these days (I think quite good) versus the potential for abuse (I think quite high).

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#37

Post by msandford »

krapp wrote: post #30
msandford wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also an excellent point. I'm a libertarian and I'm thoroughly fed up with both parties; neither hold true to their supposed core ideology when faced with the choice to do the right thing or to accrete more power. As such I'm really interested in ways to scare the shit out of politicians in the hope that they'll think LONG and HARD about whether what's being proposed is RIGHT or EXPEDIENT. As such the whole notion has…

>For example you might see $50mm worth of bounties on a lot of higher-ups at the NSA for letting this spying-on-innocent-as-well-as-guilty Americans business go on for so long. Those programs might then get shut down, or at the very least those people might retire to very private places immediately. Or you'll get bounties put out on postal workers because the Post Office is secretly reading everyone's mail. I would s…

The Post Office example isn't very good because most mail carriers don't serve more than a few thousand people (maybe a lot less in the 'burbs) so it would be very hard to get enough money together to make it worthwhile to kill any one individual. But the greater point, that people could act irrationally and cause entirely innocent people to be killed is still a possibility and tough to refute.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#38

Post by anthonyb »

msandford wrote: post #36
anthonyb wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, there is no overt threat - the government employee is not holding a gun to your head, so you have no right to kill him. Most people are not very even handed when they feel that their rights have been violated, so it tends to lead to escalation, and tribal/gang style violence, tit-for-tat. It's much better IMO for a society to deal with disputes by legal means, not by stalking, harassing and killing each…

So immediate threats aren't OK but eventual ones are? I guess I can see how a person might think that way. What if the US had a post-earning tax where the tax collector had to physically come to your house and demand the money that the government said you owed it. And he was armed. And he made the threat of violence personally rather than through a large bureaucracy? Would that change things? Why or why not? Again, n…

I'm not sure why people with a libertarian bent have to keep bringing guns into arguments. The Rule of Law is one of modern societies great inventions, as long as all parties agree to abide by it. When they don't, organised opposition (eg. protests) and negotiation are usually far better at instigating change than randomly shooting back.

It's very much an i-win-you-lose mindset, I don't think it's really based much in reality and I'd rather not live anywhere near a society based on those principles.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#39

Post by krapp »

msandford wrote: post #37
krapp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example you might see $50mm worth of bounties on a lot of higher-ups at the NSA for letting this spying-on-innocent-as-well-as-guilty Americans business go on for so long. Those programs might then get shut down, or at the very least those people might retire to very private places immediately. Or you'll get bounties put out on postal workers because the Post Office is secretly reading everyone's mail. I would s…

The Post Office example isn't very good because most mail carriers don't serve more than a few thousand people (maybe a lot less in the 'burbs) so it would be very hard to get enough money together to make it worthwhile to kill any one individual. But the greater point, that people could act irrationally and cause entirely innocent people to be killed is still a possibility and tough to refute.

I really do find it difficult to believe that an assassination-for-hire marketplace would be mostly utilized by reasonable people anyway.

Re: Assassination Politics (1997)

#40

Post by betterunix »

aidenn0 wrote: post #12

If you and contribute funds to pay an anonymous assassin, you've committed attempted murder. If the anonymous assassin succeeds, you can be tried for murder even if they never locate the assassin.

That is why this sort of thing requires the sort of anonymity that modern cryptography can provide. An anonymous payment sent via an anonymity system, from some publicly accessible location, would be very hard to track.
Post reply on HN