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Re: Bell, Detweiler, Ravings, and Whatnot

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At 03:38 AM 3/10/96 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>Not my "trademark," though it was my coinage (in 1987). I'm happy it's
>gaining usage, by people as diverse as David Friedman, Dorothy Denning, and
>various journalists.

Well, it's a very apt invention.

>(By the way, I also figured out the anonymous markets for assassinations
>bit, too, in 1988, and discussed it in detail then with Eric Drexler, Marc
>Stiegler, Mark Miller, Robin Hanson, and others. Several of us on the
>Extropians list discussed the implications, countersteps that might be
>taken, etc., several years ago. 

Well, until about  3/4 of a year ago, I spent no time on Internet except 
through a FIDO gateway on Libernet and Libernet-d, so I missed all that.  I'm a 
bit ashamed to admit that I haven't read the vast majority of Cybernomicon, 
although somebody was nice enough to email me a section on the  subject of 
anonymous assassination markets.  I wondered why you hadn't extended the 
idea to a more general system, but then again that was a bit early if you 
talked about it in 1988.  Without the invention of digital cash, it's a bit 
hard to reward the assassin.

>I recall incisive comments by Robin Hanson,
>David Friedman, Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, and others. And on this list, the
>topic was discussed a bit later. The archives may be helpful...though I'm
>not sure I want to help Jim Bell figure out the holes in his logic!)

You might be surprised:  There is far more to this than I've described so 
far.  I go into as much detail as a person asks, but it turns out that there 
are many more apparent "problems" that I've already solved long ago which 
have never been anticipated by anyone else, "problems" that I've never 
publicized because by the time the idea was ready for publicity, they were 
not "problems" anymore.  This disappoints me, a little, because I'd hope 
that somebody (for example, a critic) would be a more effective discoverer 
of such problems/holes.

>And your insulting comments about people whom you disagree with, or people
>whom you think are not taking your ideas seriously enough, are reminiscent
>of the ravings of the last victim here of late stage Detweiler's Syndrome.
>--Tim May

Well, maybe at times I do get a bit testy, but most recently on this Leahy 
bill I'm disgusted to see organizations that SHOULD be sounding the alarm 
actually express only mildly guarded support for that bill, "wart and all."  
I'd love to see _most_ of the bill pass, but the one bad section is a real 
killer.

Jim Bell
[email protected]


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