Assassination market
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An assassination market is a (theoretical) market wherein any party can place a bet (using anonymous electronic money, and pseudonymous remailers) on the date of death of a given individual, and collect a payoff if they "guess" the date accurately. Because the payoff is for knowing the date rather than performing the action of the assassin, it is substantially more difficult to assign criminal liability for the action(s).
Jim Bell's article assassination politics first described the concept in detail concluding that as well as an unholy mix of encryption, anonymity, and digital cash (according to Wired magazine ) the concept could also be utilized for massive civil disobedience. Timothy C. May, Carl Johnson and Matthew Taylor later developed the protocols to implement it online to the point that the FBI, Secret Service and Tax investigators investigated their motives for doing so. This amused most educated commentators, who note that assassination is already commonly bet on in the financial markets. In particular, the oil market, where the assassination of major figures such as King Fahd of Saudi Arabia would have an immediate impact--very profitable for anyone anticipating it.
These issues left the realm of the theoretical when U.S. stock markets based in Manhattan took a trillion-dollar hit in September, 2001. A serious investigation was launched in fall 2001 by the U.S. government's Securities and Exchange Commission to determine if large blocks of short-sold airline stock could be traced back to the Al Qaeda organization it believed responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the U.S.A.
The extensive cooperation of militant Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups, and suggestions that they were in fact trading targets and objectives in different nations, gave rise to the idea that a covert assassination swap market may well already be in global operation. A group would perform an action in one place and a seemingly unrelated group in another place would profit from the act. Meanwhile, the political motive would actually be that of a third group in the background.
If such a market structure has in fact matured, it seems that only profound changes to global financial markets and the clearing of financial transactions could reveal systematic profits made from predicting military action, political assassination, or social unrest. If the concept is taken up as civil disobedience as suggested by Jim Bell then this could easily lead to the end of all open and above ground government anywhere on earth.
See also
External links
- Jim Bell, "Assassination Politics" (http://jya.com/ap.htm)
- The Usenet discussion containing the initial publication of the first part of "Assassination Politics" (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=4l6ln8%24msk%40news.pacifier.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dg:thl596876084d%26dq%3D%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D4l6ln8%2524msk%2540news.pacifier.com)
- Michael Albert "Post-War Roundup" (http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/albertold7.htm)
- Academic discussion of the idea from an anarchist perspective (http://anti-state.com/series.html)