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  • From: Jason Laughlin <jason AT jasonlaughlin.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Re: truly weird, does not appear to be a hoax...
  • Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 12:04:35 -0400

Maria Winslow wrote:

"Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in - and is sponsored by the government itself - people could go in and bet on the assassination of an American political figure?" - SENATOR BYRON DORGAN, Democrat of North Dakota, in disclosing that a Pentagon office has proposed an online futures market in terror attacks.


Has nobody ever heard the term "deadpool" (http://www.stiffs.com/) or even "fucked company" (http://www.fuckedcompany.com)?

People make these bets all the time, all over the world. The only difference is that this is being promulgated as a government intel tool instead of a game for bored punters.

Intel (the analysis of information, not the chipmaker) has always been an exercise in probability, not predetermination. I believe it's already common wisdom that open markets and decentralized distributed groups will always be more successful than governments at picking winners and losers based on available information. It's impossible for all the intel analysts in government to have their fingers on the pulse of every place in the world, so let the distributed political deadpool sort it out.
The smart terrorists already profit from their predictions anyway. Wouldn't you expect them to bet on the performance of stock markets of countries where they're planning activity? Don't you believe there are already some deep pockets to fund the bounties on assasinations anyway? This is simply bringing everything out in the open.
Since more information is almost always better, and you can't keep your ear to the ground everywhere, I'd say this is a wonderful tool to alert officials in targeted countries when to increase security and for how long. It's simply too honest for our rose-colored world. :-)

Jason





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