In 1995, an essay entitled, "Assassination Politics" ignited a storm of controversy that still exists to this day.
It detailed how a cryptocurrency backed anonymous marketplace for assassinations would end all government.
It's author, Jim Bell, was continually harassed and spied upon by the US government soon after and ended up spending 13 years in jail and was recently released.
We were the first to get an interview with him since his release.
It's a fascinating discussion that is not for the feint of heart.
You can see it here:
Topics include: early computing and internet, bulletin boards, the cypher punks, solving David Friedman's 'hard problem', Bitcoin makes assassination politics possible, how it would work, the societal implications, practical anarchy, smart contracts, Ethereum and Augur, assassination lists and the non aggression principle, liable to evolve into a dispute resolution system that would replace the justice and military systems, reversing the ever increasing regulatory burden, putting an end to war.
Jim Bell's Essay Assassination Politics: http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/jimbellap.htm
Andy Greenberg Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/11/18/meet-the-assassination-market-creator-whos-crowdfunding-murder-with-bitcoins/
Anarchast: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAnarchast
Anarchapulco 2017: http://anarchapulco.com
While Assassination can seem a solution
Non-Aggression Principle deems pollution
If there were a way to justify such act
Could it be never stopping would be fact
Cyberpunk is a William Gibson creation
From the book Neuromancer a migration
When do we resort to assassination as the way?
Is it true one death to save many saves the day?
Where does that fit within our Anarchist mind
Are there times it is morally acceptable we will find?
Today with crypto-currency and the blockchain
This is indeed possible, yet do we think it sane?
There are plenty of people I'd like to see dead
Yet how long before others pay also for my head?
This is still a hard problem from the morality stance
Let us debate and solve this, let us all dance
Jim Bell did address the Non Aggression Principle. His suggestion that his system is form of self defence holds some weight, but its hard to imagine that such a system would be abused.
Self defense against regime that exists
Sure I can see that being a case
Yet once it is gone would not this persist?
Once this tool is aimed at my face
Would it still truly be used in self defense
Perhaps they don't like my garden
You see on this tool I am on the fence
I could simply be replacing the warden
My first unflagged post since I've been on Steemit! Where's the champagne?
Just finished watching the whole Interview. Very insightful @dollarvigilante a great conversation on retrospects. Wonderful Scoop!
I've never heard of Jim Bell before, and had never given much thought to "assassination politics". Thank you for the upload, @dollarvigilante. This is very insightful and raises many thought-provoking questions! :)
ps... when is STEEMIT going to host it own video content? There is money to be made/spread via content that has ads that pays the viewer, or the view gets ad FREE video but no payout. STEEMIT is the place for that. @dollarvigilante you might help instigate that as I sit hit watching your Youtube video on Steemit.
This really does need to happen. When we use youtube and other places some of our content can still be censored at those locations. Someone needs to find a way to do some form a distributed video system. Something similar to magnetic links with torrents maybe.
This first p2p-youtube prototype I've seen:
http://bit.no.com:43110/15QCUnCyYRW3b16YSvjwGvw3AYDD5JZXqC/?Topic:3_15ut3jo5bqiURh7QZnajDmC9GG2o9psEjB/Test
Maidsafe
ipfs, storj, sia ...
ipfs has been discussed quite a bit.
i think the idea is to have a decentralized approach to the hosting of the content (hence ipfs).
@complexring I envision the day, where say I want to buy a .jpeg file or some other low cost item, say 1U.S. Dollar or less...and I see your "Steemit Seller's Rep. Star" or something like what our posting blogging rep is now, and it is 5 out of 5 stars or 99.99% or sometype of scale as such. I have enough confidence that you will not tarnsih your hard earned "Steemit Sales Reputation" for a mere $1. I send you that $1 worth of STEEM, it's logged on the STEEM Blockchain. You send item, and everyone is Happy. I know about steemMarket or something. But that is not STEEMIT.
So same with the video. I am not sure or who or how or when, but If it is done, in my opinion, it would have to be done some how via STEEMIT. I just think people are hard headed and getting onto another platform will not be easy. My 2 cents any how, literally.
full $teem ahead!
@streetstyle
There's a fundamental difference between the decentralized storage of content and an interface to said medium.
I never said anything about having to not use the Steemit interface for viewing the jpeg you want to sell me.
It's a matter of understanding that various technologies already exist that accomplish what you are asking.
The important question is which ones are the most appropriate (in terms of ease of use, code merging, hiding details from the common person who doesn't care how content is stored or where but just wants to be able to see it on some interface -- maybe Steemit, maybe a dedicated site that offers additional features beyond what Steemit is for video content production) for integrated usage within the Steem ecosystem to make the process (appear) seamless to non-techies who just want to watch their videos.
Thanks @complexring . And I get it now... Steemit would just be the interface somehow, but of course logistics.
And it is knowledge like yours that makes you a BOSS and obviously a Whale.
full $teem ahead!
@streetstyle
I have been thinking the same thing, videos on the Steemit platform... Looks like we're not the only people thinking about it. OPPORTUNITY comes to mind... others see a problem, I see OPPORTUNITY.
@trendwizard . I agree that this will eventually be an opportunity. As @complexring was saying, STEEMIT will most likely be the interface for the video, but for now who knows what's in the works. Anyhow, stop by My Blog and checkout the madness I carry.
full $teem Ahead!
@streetstyle
The maintenance tasks might not make it worth the while though based on the current amount of people in charge
Probably when they have some form of advertising or major market adoption of steem. Video is a lot of storage and bandwidth and that doesn't come for free. Although there are some projects to try and leverage P2P blockchain technology to serve as a CDN though so maybe that will solve the issue.
@contentjunkie You're right that video hosting would be expensive and demanding on it's own, I can imagine trying to incorporate into a system like STEEMIT would be insane.
Thank you! Good job! An inspiring post!
Someone seriously needs to call you out @dollarvigilante
The guy was full of shit. You are recycling bullshit to get upvotes and sheeple followers.
Here is why your version of "anarchy" is bullshit. debunked. line by line
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@kyriacos/a-little-something-for-the-dellusional-anarchists-of-steemit
disagree fully
You can't debunk a concept. An idea.
I could claim I debunked your name, or your hair color, makes as much sense.
I actually was fine with the interview. If the guy he interviews is OFF on things is not @dollarvigilante fault. He is an interviewer and the guy he interviewed was long winded. Sadly kind of the same thing I'd likely be in an interview. :( My only real problem is the HIT AND RUN approach of the past two posts by dollarvigilante. He posts them, leaves them in the air and does not engage with discussion about the work, I didn't check to see if he is using his voting power at all. That stuff helps grow steemit as well. Even if he is not doing these things he is bringing in a lot of people, so he may not be checking off all the boxes, but perhaps that doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. I'm glad he is here.
I disagree also..... Kyriacos, dude, chill out, take a pill or something ... After reading your linked EPIC RANT,
I'd recommend that you watch some of the three hundred interviews Jeff has done, and see just how many really sane AnCaps there are in this world, you see what they are saying and you can talk to them in the comments section after any of the videos ....... if you go around in a total hair on fire RAGE no body is going to listen to you, and you are simply reinforcing the idea that anarchy is for crazy people .......
I dunno, I'd say with his Super Shemitah stuff DV is the one reinforcing the idea that anarchy is for crazies. That plus he's a Grade-A shyster and snake-oil salesman who takes his money in good ol' FIAT currency: dollarvigilante.com accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover! I'm with kyriacos, even if his hair is on fire.
You really shouldn't comment on things which you know nothing about, the investors that follow Ed Bugos, (who works with Jeff), have already made over 200% ROI , and he uses the Shemitah info constantly, (as well as other info) ....... And what, specifically, is wrong with accepting plastic and cash, as well as Cripto ?? Are you trying to say that if you don't live off of Cripto exclusively, and then call yourself an AnCap, that automatically makes you a scam artist ?? Just exactly what kind of snake oil does he sell ?? .... Also, I'll admit that I have limited experience with the writings of Kyriacos or yourself, but so far I just see a whole lot of name calling and ranting about Sheeple...... What NEW information or ideas are you bringing to the table ??
No, I'm not saying if you don't live off of Cripto exclusively, and then call yourself an AnCap, that automatically makes you a scam artist. I'm saying that if you sell conspiracy theories for hard cash, that makes you a snake-oil saleman. Share your theories all you like, but once people start buying in, it means you're selling out. DV is the L. Ron Hubbard of anarchism. That's not name-calling, by the way; that's analogy...
I love how you did your sig. @dollarvigilante Man, I am gonna have to step it up. Check out My Blog If you can thanks. And awesome post, glad you are here and this is going to blow it out of the water.
full $teem ahead!
@streetstyle
Make peace, not war.
It's all about freedom of investment :)
Video Link just stopped working.. now I'm even more intrigued..
Augur combines the magic of prediction markets with the power of a decentralized network to create a stunningly accurate forecasting tool - and the chance for real money trading profits
https://www.augur.net/
Yes, @dollarvigilante, cryptocurrency will cure cancer.... keep on smoking.. no problem.. to the moon!
I interpreted assassination as a malicious cyber attack against the plutocrats. A seismic hit so hard that the overall system crumbles; and the emergence of the populace runs freely. If governments can have their own special operatives, computer hackers then why can't the people have so as well?
So much edge :P
No matter what the issue is, there's always a stateless solution. :)
I've been following you on YouTube forever glad to see some @dollarvigilante stuff on #steemit. You are the reason I know of this site,
got a few of my friends and girlfriend on to this platform now .
great interview... gresham's law ;-)
I could totally envision a dystopian or cyberpunk story based around this concept. Imagine if you could contract anonymously for the death of some one. Now carry that over to the up vote, down vote situation. If enough people down vote you and the pot for your removal is high enough for someone wouldn't potentially anyone's life be in danger of this?
I actually don't think this concept works very well with NAP as I tried to hint at with my @chaospoet post.
If you pull the genie out of the bottle, will it be too late to put it back, and where would it stop?
I actually do think that assassination is preferable to war, but I haven't quite worked out how I would justify that in a truly anarchistic society.
So yes it solves David Friedman's "Hard Problem", yet I believe there is still a Hard Problem. How does this fare when it faces NAP?
I'm interested in reading his actual essay. It's too late for me to get through it tonight, but he claims in the video to make the argument for it being compatible with the NAP. His initial proposition makes it apparent that anyone could be in danger with this type of system, but when you make the distinction that only people who work for government can be targets, it makes being on the wrong side of this a choice once people become aware it is functioning. The whole thing scares the living crap out of me, but it sounds like it could be technically feasible without "the little guy" being susceptible. It think that's why it's so scary. It really is a Pandora's Box. Once someone sets something like this in motion and it gains critical mass, there's no turning back.
There's also the consideration that any organization like this would have competitors who would have an interest in stopping the leaders of other dispute resolution organizations that allow the targeting of benign individuals by said systems. Also as a side note, you could charter the organization in such a way that it would be required to dissolve itself if governments were in fact eradicated, or that it would be required to at least "hang up its guns" and transform into a DRO whose function isn't to assassinate people, but to just help people resolve disputes in peaceful ways.
It's an idea which can easily be abused by whomever has the most money and who has the most money right now? It's the top 0.1% of society.
So what would change? They'd have a decentralized killing machine? It's an idea which in my opinion will cause more war and conflicts because it will make funding death much cheaper. How does that make people safer? And what force is going to keep it from violating NAP? The goodness of mankind?
Well on the other side of that coin, the weapon can be used against the 0.1% of society, specifically because of its decentralized nature. Therein lies the incentive to avoid violating the NAP. Covering your own ass. And the 0.1% of society has a lot more to lose than the rest of society, especially on the bottom half socio-economically speaking. I'm personally not interested in participating in anything like this, but as a thought exercise it seems to have internal consistency IMO.
Exactly... I am the 0.1% and I read your comment. I have put a contract out on you.
The problem with weapons is they can be turned upon the people who create them. :)
Fascinating interview. Two thumbs up I say!
Cheers!
I remember reading about this when I was in middle school, a lot of people thought the cryptocurrency idea was a pipe dream. And now look where we've come as far as anonymity and crypto alike. I'm not saying Jim Bell is the new Nostradamus, but then again Jules Verne was a forward thinker too, and people said his ideas were quackery. Now every major country has submarines....
Awesome formatting, and a wonderfully detailed & hyper-linked post @dollarvigilante! I look forward to watching the video when I get up in the morning :-)
Baby to sleep then i will listen.
This is incredible, the power of crypto money reaches these levels and many of us playing online .....
Thanks dollarvigilante to bring us this great story
thank you for the amazing post!
Great post. keep it up:)
@dollarvigilante - your Skype message sounds in your video had me looking all over my computer to see who was trying to talk to me. :)
I'm too scared to upvote or watch the video. I don't want to spend time in Club FED like that guy. Big Brother is watching.
If Big Brother is watching, he must watch. All of us. Together.
No one can stop a movement or an idea of we all collectively believe in it and have love as a driving force.
Don't hide away in the shadows. Stand up. Be counted. And don't allow the fear that they perpetuate overcome you. Not now. Not ever. Rise.
Jim Bell is like the super computer in an old abandoned warehouse, running the world.
Nice sharing @dollarvigilante , really good discussion.. more knowledge
My thoughts on "solving the anarchist problem" is simplistic in nature. As long as "greed" is the central motive factor there will always be wars,
famine, disease and all the present ailments that have buried the innocent in times past.
Anarchism seems like a present attempt at controlling aggression by the "bullying of the big centralized conglomerates" but that in the end will not stop these monsters because of this one statement made by the centralized killers of democracy--- "let me have control of the money and I care less who makes the laws."
The only catch in that plan is that the would-be crypto-central-banker has to put together something that millions of people have to think is the opposite of this to arise. The problem is that the very kind of people who pop up in the early phases of these projects are also likely the kind of people who can devise means to find out who actually starts these things up and dig up dirt about their real agenda. Assassination in politics can also mean outing someone's secret communications with their co-conspirators. Look at what's been happening with guccifer 2.0 and the DNC email leaks. In fact, this kind of assassination politics requires nobody to die and simply destroys their military advantage of surprise.
And didn't Assange just put out a bounty for information to convict one of these victims of a very connected political figure's machinations? The situation is ripe for the appearance of an anonymous version of this.
Is anyone starting a pool on this dollarvigilante guy, he has over 16K steem power. Given the 100 some odd people flagging the anti-BernieSanders post I think one of those people might place a bet... Just kidding, keep yourself safe dollarvigilante, and keep in mind money is power. I like your content, but every time I go to vote up I see it is already above $1K.
@dollarvigilante thank you again for a BEAUTIFUL interview!
I'd love to see you spreading the love more.
Your steam power could help those of us out of work.
Nice post, all your posts seem to generate a lot of interest. Like you said, why post anywhere else!
Yeah... but there could also be an anonymous crowd-funded protection fund. If some leader was a really polarizing figure they would have lots of people who would pay to keep them alive and perhaps kill the assassin or people paying the assassin.
How is it any different from the military as it is now? How is it not just another racket, only with mercenaries?
this post is OUTRAGEOUS. Seriously.
I had know about assasination market for years but never extrapolated its effects. Incredible.
If you want to link video content that doesn't reside on YouTube, my suggestion is to upload it to steemitup.eu.
Their player will embed into a post on Steemit.com just like YouTube?
Hmm failed for an mkv so I tried an avi which failed and finally an mpg failed. Nothing works.
The technology to do it now fully exists. Zero Knowledge Proofs. The potential for a someone with a lot of money to put out bounties on whoever they want to, now exists. A fully competitive market in bounties could be implemented.
After all, it's not like assassination isn't a business of politicians. A lot of critics of a certain black widow power figure seem to be suiciding. And assassinations don't have to be snipers in the upper story... a seeming mosquito bite, a heart attack...
I'm not advocating it but I think that sooner or later, now that everything this hypothesis depends upon exists, we could see this actually happen. There was in fact a few hitmen, or at least scuttlebutt to this effect, on some of the black market sites some years ago.
I mean, it even doesn't have to be literal assassination, it could be bounties for someone to get credible information leaked that destroys someone's political career.
the young man suspected of leaking the DNC crap to Wikileaks was shot dead in broad daylight.
Hitman?
No, most likely FBI.
As the reality of an anonymous, decentralized assassination market sank in, nation-states wouldn't collapse so much as surrender, devolving into smaller and smaller states until the free market supplied all necessary services.
For a brilliant analysis of, among other things, the role that insurance companies would play in this regard, see Hans-Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed": http://www.riosmauricio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Hoppe_Democracy_The_God_That_Failed.pdf
Кек
how many of you remember Zork?
I played it on a Commodore 64 (kilobyte) system. All text. Very well done, very descriptive. The graphics were fantastic because they were IN MY MIND.
:^)
Humanity flows toward the path of least resistance.
That would be to "truck, barter, and exchange" (Adam Smith) for mutual benefit, government endlessly resisting this natural process: http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html
Just a spontaneous observation: How did he know about cryptocurrencies in 1995? The internet was still just a bulletin board for geeks back then.
Hmmmmm
He had read Tim May:
The pursuit of an independent digital currency really got started in 1992, when Timothy May, a retired Intel physicist, invited a group of friends over to his house outside Santa Cruz, Calif., to discuss privacy and the nascent Internet. In the prior decade, cryptographic tools, like Whitfield Diffie’s public-key encryption and Phil Zimmermann’s Pretty Good Privacy, had proven useful for controlling who could access digital messages. Fearing a sudden shift in power and information control, governments around the world had begun threatening to restrict access to such cryptographic protocols.
May and his guests looked forward to everything those governments feared. “Just as the technology of printing altered and reduced the power of medieval guilds and the social power structure, so too will cryptologic methods fundamentally alter the nature of corporations and of government interference in economic transactions,” he said. By the end of the meeting, the group had given themselves a name—“cypherpunks”—and the superhero-like task of defending privacy across the digital world. In just a week, cofounder Eric Hughes wrote a program that could receive encrypted e-mails, scrub away all identifying marks, and send them back out to a list of subscribers. When you signed up, you got a message from Hughes:
Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence.
Hughes and May were deeply aware that financial behavior communicates as much about you as words can—if not more. But outside of cash transactions or barter, there’s no such thing as a private transaction. We rely on banks, credit card companies, and other intermediaries to keep our financial system running. Will those corporations save and even share a dossier of your spending habits? Even using cash requires trust that the bill will maintain its worth. Will governments print too much currency or too little? Many cypherpunks would say that the only way to answer these questions is to build an entirely new system.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/bitcoin-the-cryptoanarchists-answer-to-cash
This should be of interest. Pittsburgh PA is now home to a large housing, retail and studio space for writers who have become political dissidents of their native countries all paid for by state and private funding. We should work to help encourage the organizers there to bring about awareness to America's own jailed writers and thinkers such as rececntly released Jim Bell and still sitting in a cage Ross Ulbricht.
https://www.facebook.com/cityofasylumpittsburgh/?fref=ts
http://cityofasylum.org/donate/
The point of The Dollar Vigilante's post is to bring about awareness of how to free a jailed humanity, writers and thinkers included.
https://steemit.com/anarchy/@allycat/city-of-asylum
Great interview. Given that we might have an assassination marketplace before we have anarchist regions on Earth, it would have been interesting to hear his views on how the marketplace might have been used if it existed in the past. For example, could the people who live in Iraq have used it to take out George W. Bush to stop the US from invading? Might they have used it to take out Saddam Hussein to make it harder for the US to justify the invasion?
dollarvigilante, Share with me, you're not a greedy capitalist
Assimilate or Assassinate has been the tried and tested methodology of successive regimes and governments since the year dot. They have never wavered from this position.
But the question to ask ourselves is Do they have to be our teachers? Must we copy them? I suggest not.
As Einstein put it: You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it on the first place
Evolution, not Revolution. Peace is an idea whose time has come.
so many great people in jails, the state stealing their best years, maybe it hones the person, refines something, so many come out sharper and more powerful, great show