Re: AP Revisited

[lucifer@dhp.com (lucifer Anonymous Remailer)]

Mike Duvos wrote:
 
> In a world with an indestructible Net, anonymous digital cash,
> and strong privacy tools, AP will ultimately evolve, first in a
> relatively benign form and then, once it becomes ubiquitous, in
> the form envisioned by Bell.

{excerpt from WebWorld 24}

"Assassination Politics," originated by Jim Bell, had been just a 
theoretical exercise during his lifetime, dismissed by most who read 
it as a thinly veiled joke, at best. Bell, however, had developed a 
workable autobot which instituted his system, albeit in a very 
rudimentary way. 

Basically, his procedure was analogous to a lottery system where the 
players were contributing to a prize that could be collected, not by 
chance, but by anyone who fulfilled the preconditions of those 
contributing. And the precondition was that, in order to pocket the 
'prize', one had to assassinate the person targeted by the contributors.

Since Bell's system used anonymous remailers, his system would allow 
individuals and groups to anonymously defend themselves from all types 
of aggression. 

Eventually someone modified Bell's 'Assassination Bot' to serve as a 
useful tool for political polling. Someone else took it a step further,
and it became a valid electoral tool. Then, inevitably, just before 
the Channel Revolution broke out, it's newly refined features were 
once again modified to serve Bell's original purpose, and all hell 
broke loose when established geo-political figures began dropping like 
flies, or resigning in terror when they realized that the people were 
indeed speaking, and doing so by putting a price on the heads of their 
oppressors.