#and like. there's a lot about soul balance and how it's not necessarily morally correct and about how he uses his office to do what good he

[karmaphone]

BOOK APP HAS BOOK I THOUGHT I LOST TO INPATIENT THREE YEARS AGO REPEAT BOOK APP HAS BOOK I LOST TO INPATIENT THREE YEARS AGO

[joachimnapoleon]

Hello, What were the opinions of the people who personally knew Murat? Thank you !

Murat tended to inspire strong feelings--both positive and negative--in those who knew him. He had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way and making enemies; I feel like I've said this before at some point on my Tumblr, but it's true: Murat wasn't everyone's cup of tea. At the same time, those who grew to love him, stayed devoted to him for the rest of their lives, like his childhood friend Agar who served him in Naples, or his former chief of staff General Belliard. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to say "you either loved him or hated him," because I've come across enough instances of people who knew him closely who held a balanced (or conflicted) view of him, but he could be pretty polarizing.

That being said, there are a lot of common themes that spring up repeatedly in the recollections of those who knew him. His vanity and ambition. His bravery. His softheartedness. His dislike of corporal punishments. His susceptibility to flattery. His pride and flirtatiousness. His love of his children. His emotional volatility. His indecisiveness. His lack of moral courage. His frankness and generosity. And of course, his love of outlandish uniforms. It's not unusual to see nearly all of these come up at some point in the accounts of him from both his critics and admirers.

Here are some of my favorite remembrances of Murat, by those who knew him.

***

Murat was a good man. He was dashingly brave, and possessed military talents together with a great desire to please and to be admired. He sought to have good manners and overdid them. One saw by his exaggerated dress and his attentions to the ladies that he wished to resemble the Villarceaux and Sévignés of the days of Louis XIV. These famous courtiers were the models he had chosen, but the rough hearty republican could not be completely hidden, and the mixture of the two opposite types of character would have been ridiculous at times if one had not been conscious of the honest, frank soldier in the background who reconciled the puppets one to the other. Consequently, in spite of his male and martial beauty he was a far less dangerous person than he imagined. He had an excellent heart, a mediocre mind, and the rise of his fortunes had been too rapid not to have slightly turned his head. Ambition without those qualities which justify it is a despicable thing, and only really great men can make it into a virtue. The ambition of Murat was a result of his good fortune, and after being a distinguished general he became a second-rate monarch.

-Hortense de Beauharnais, The Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol. 2.

***

Much has been said of this truly extraordinary prince; but only those who saw him personally could form a correct idea of him, and even they never knew him perfectly until they had seen him on a field of battle. There he seemed like those great actors who produce a complete illusion amid the fascination of the stage, but in whom we no longer find the hero when we encounter them in private life.... What, so to speak, idealized him was his truly chivalrous bravery, often carried to the point of recklessness, as if danger had no existence for him.

-Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon, by Constant, Premier Valet de Chambre, Vol. III, 1900, pgs 207-208.

***

The King put new blood into the public administration, not merely by the activity and firmness which he exerted, but by his practical anxiety to give a proper direction to public affairs. The natural clemency of his character, which even conciliated those who were least likely to be moved by it, facilitated the execution of his intentions.... Had Joachim better known how to organize his army, and to maintain discipline between the French and the Neapolitan troops, he would have succeeded in obtaining far better results. By nature generous, and by no means insensible to flattery, Joachim was extremely averse to inflicting punishment, and was prone to recompense not merely those who merited it, but to reward others whose conduct should have entitled them to very different treatment. This happened, because he could never resist the supplications of the courtiers, still less the entreaties of the ladies about the Court, and like all princes, he was extremely liberal to those whom he termed mes devoués, without reflecting that the less elevated man is by nature, the more devotion he affects to princes, the more he flatters their power. The beauty of his person, the charm of his smile, the natural urbanity of his manner--to which, however, he was inclined to add more importance than was consistent with his proper dignity--and the richness of his dress, pleased the multitude and the army, although self-reputed sages laughed at this last display, and pronounced it ridiculous. The affability and gentleness of his manners, which were such as could not have been anticipated from a man of low birth, endeared him to the Court.... Murat was a Charles XII in the field, but a Francis I in his Court. He would have regarded the refusal of a favour to any lady of the Court, even though she were not his mistress, as an indignity.... Unfortunately for him as well as for our poor country, Murat fancied himself extremely sagacious in the art of kingcraft, and above all, that he alone could manage his affairs in the then intricate political state of the times. I do not mean to imply by this that the King was deficient in a certain sagacity; on the contrary, he could at times reason very aptly, and according to the opinion of his minister, Giuseppe Gurlo, who was a man of no ordinary stamp of mind, the King when in council often reasoned in a manner far superior to any of his ministers.

-General Guglielmo Pépé, Memoirs of General Pépé, Vol I [Pépé served under Murat in Naples]

***

Fouché, who had a fairly good relationship with Murat, describes him in his memoirs as "a brave and noble-minded general, but a king without any firmness or decision in his resolves," and as a man who "always overstepped moderation."

-Memoirs of Joseph Fouché, Vol I (English translation, 1825)

***

Posterity will certainly blame King Joachim for some political errors, which in the end were the cause of his own ruin; but his goodness of heart, his frankness and generosity, command an affectionate remembrace. As a warrior, he became an object of veneration to all nations, from the Arab of the desert to the Cossack of the Don. He was loved even by his enemies, and would have been adored throughout the kingdom of Naples, without any exceptions, had not his officers and functionaries sometimes acted at variance with his intentions, and disgusted some classes of the people by vexatious stretches of authority. One of his foibles was, an incapacity to punish; and this, like an analogous failing in parents towards their children, engenders laxity and disobedience.... His desires were those of a King, but his mind was too much that of a soldier; his heart was that of a warm friend to mankind, and was, as said of the gigantic Sir William Jones, "even bigger than his body."

-Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of Colonel Maceroni, Vol II, 1838, pages 348-9. [Maceroni was one of Murat’s aides-de-camp during his reign in Naples]

***

(And the last few are from Napoleon. Because there really isn't any one quote from Napoleon that really suffices to sum up his feelings on Murat, but taken all together they provide a pretty interesting picture.)

***

He has a good heart, and at bottom he likes me better than his lazzarone. When he sees me he is mine; but away from me, he sides, like all spineless men, with anyone who flatters or makes up to him. If he had come to Dresden his vanity and self-interest would have led him into countless follies in trying to manage the Austrians. His wife is ambitious, and has stuffed his head with foolishness. He wants to have the whole of Italy; that is his dream, and that is what prevents him from wanting the crown of Poland.

-Napoleon, as quoted by General Armand de Caulincourt in With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, pages 39-40.

***

Murat was the man most cowardly of character; he was only good under fire: there, he was sublime!

-Napoleon, quoted by Montholon in Récits de la Captivité de l'Empereur Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Vol II, 1847.

***

Murat was endowed with extraordinary courage, and little intelligence. The too great disproportion between those two qualifications explains the man entirely.

-Napoleon, quoted in Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena by the Count de Las Casas, Vol II Part III, 1823.

***

Who is there who doesn’t know of Murat’s wild courage, and who would not believe that a warrior like that has a soul of steel, an indomitable character? Well, there is not a softer, more gentle creature in private life, even more weak at times. If in camp he receives a letter from his wife, he cries like a child. But at the sound of cannon his head is up, he rushes out and throws himself into the fray–on the battlefield that Achilles has twenty elbows.

-Napoleon to Molé, as recorded by the Count of Mosbourg in Murat: Lieutenant de L'Empereur en Espagne 1808, page 73.

***

Thanks for the ask! ^_^

[paganchristian]

Here are some more parasitic flowers, which grow on some of the oak trees in Florida apparently.  I think they’re really beautiful.  A balance between life and decay.  A balance between giving and taking.  And yes, you can say, well one is taking and one is giving, so it’s not a healthy balance. Maybe that is true and yet, how do you know in the bigger picture that what appears to be just a taker might not play some important invisible role in things?  Nature usually seems to have a reason for everything if you can see it, deeply enough in detail.  But we haven’t figured all nature’s reasons out and we’re discovering new ones all the time.  Even nature though, of course, has extinctions and perhaps as a natural species ourselves, we might upset a balance, and who can say nature is foolproof in every sense of the word, but then we look beyond this earth too and who can say?  It makes me think of the Hopi creation stories and the worlds that have been created then were destroyed and people created imbalance that led them to their failure, I think, if I recall it clearly what I read or watched, a video with Hopi elders speaking about the environment and things like that. 

Destruction, and givers and takers in the natural greater cycle,..  that also makes me think about Shiva the destroyer.  Shiva destroys only so he can destroy what is false to start with.  If you think it terms of most religions, in some sense they perceive the whole world to be false in some ultimate sense.  But Shiva doesn’t necessary destroy all material things, of course, as he is supposed to be a benevolent god, who helps his devotees.  He and Kali are supposed to destroy whatever gets in the way of what you really need, your higher self, so that you can transcend your ego and find bliss and union with the higher reality, but only in the right time and way for you so you can’t just necessarily rush the whole process and there are all kinds of hardships and austerities you can impose your physical self to go through, to help you attain detachment, and understanding of higher realities, experiences of higher realities, dwelling in higher realities, eventually.  So that eventually one is hopeful they will attain moksha, freedom from the cycle of rebirth, union with god and extinguishment of this life in the lower self and all the false, artificial forms of this world, all the others and everything, to just merge into the energy of oneness with the highest.  Of course, eventually all beings are supposed to reach that higher bliss and unity so it’s not like you’re just abandoning them with malice or recklessness, but they have to attain oneness in their own time and way too, so maybe there is only so much you could do for them.  

There is so much we don’t know.  You have to let go of a lot, in spite of how much you can see, because however much you can see and do and control there will always be immense untold vast amounts of things you can’t know, see, do or control.  It could at any given moment derail and permanently destroy your best of plans.  Yet out of that very destruction might arise the secret ingredients for anew an d better reconstruction, for either yourself or for others on their paths, or both. Everything has to be done in the right time and way.  We don’t know enough of all the realms and aspects of everyone’s existence to know what is best and right an necessary, especially if you consider other realms, not just the earth realm, and other beings, and other lifetimes, if you believe in them.  What looks awful might serve some very mysterious and complicated, even many-lifetime purpose.  At present, I don’t necessarily know if I really believe in multiple lifetimes, beyond just the afterlife, and yet, it’s interesting to remember all the things I’ve believed and to think about all the things that o into others’ moral systems and explanations.  Even if I didn’t believe in all they believed it could have correlations to what I might believe.  It could open possibilities of what I can’t know and can’t judge as such as being wrong, even if they are highly taboo beliefs according to the religious path I’m exploring most at this time. 

Between decay, use, abuse, dysfunction, loss, death, and growth, healing, rest, learning, transformation, letting go, starting anew, and joy, love, self-love, affirmation, trust, hope, adoration, fun, happiness, laughter, silliness, and seriousness, fear, lack, restraint, self-denial... or for self-questioning, healing in ways I didn’t know were healing, healing my soul in ways I didn’t know would work or were possible and healing my personality and character and heart,...  advising or suggesting or being an example of how to change, grow, heal, correct yourself, improve yourself, or just accepting and supporting the state of lack he illness that can’t yet be healed, the wound too painful to even think about, much less try to heal or criticize, the immaturity too fragile to suggest it needs to change, but all it needs is love and validation, even if one day later on, when one is more mature they’ll look back (as I do now on my earlier self) and think, how awful, how wrong, how harmful and so on, I was.  But I don’t think I could have even stood to see myself as wrong, not only that but I needed to be validated in my wrongness, loved in my wrongness, even adored in my wrongness.  The way that a very young child’s tantrums need to be met with love when they’re too young to understand any different ...  And I really think it seems to me that sometimes adults in their states of pain and helplessness can be just as unable to see or change for times of their lives but desperately need love and validation.  Of course I don’t mean encouraging or accepting abuse but just love for the feelings, the biases, the chaos and confusion.  Even validation of wrongful feelings and perceptions if it’s needed to give them a sense of purpose, harmony and peace, but only as long as it doesn’t promote actual harmful behavior, and in time it can be corrected and awareness facilitated if possible (in some cases it might not be even possible, like mental illness or certain mental conditions or something, but as long as abuse is not triggered by wrong ideas, sometimes love and validation even in one’s wrongness might be needed.  We’re not always ready to see we’re wrong, but sometimes might become devastated by the awareness and lose our ability to function.  It’s a fragile, subtle and complicated thing to see, when is it ok to let wrongness be ignored or even loved and validated?  But having been the one who was validated in my wrongness by spirit itself, only later to change paths and gradually be led to see how I was wrong and want to change but be unable to change, and then led to another path still where I was able to change, not by my own power but by grace,... I see the place and time, slow oh so slowly, for each of these things.  I could not have skipped any of the slow phases of learning and development and healing, because even the dark and ignorant seeming or helpless and wrong seeming states seemed as if they were necessary healing phases that could not be rushed, any more than a person who is in a slow, long physical healing from, say cancer or some other slow process can rush it   

And so I wonder, and I ask God, between all these balances, in all this mixture, not clear lines defining a rigid boundary, in all these fluxing states, where do I find what to do, how to give, how to relate to God, and how to relate to life and death, and how to relate to my family, my child, my marriage, my God, my own life,.. 

[thesilverwitch]

WICCA: HOW TO BEGIN

*Please keep in mind that there are many different types of Wicca and traditional Wicca itself has no high authority and no bible to dictate its laws and beliefs. However, there are certain ideals that are typically honored amongst the majority of sects that make/keep Wicca, Wicca. This is a skeleton guide meant to help you begin to flesh-out your own path.                                                   

SO WHAT IS WICCA?

If you’re reading this post, you are probably looking for information about Wicca. Perhaps you are curious, perhaps interested, perhaps trying to learn… allow me to try to clarify so you can begin to understand.

Sometimes the very beginning is the hardest place to begin. Whenever someone asks me what Wicca is, it seems every answer brings about another series of questions. Wicca is an almost completely decentralized religion/way of life. Wicca has no high authority, no single leader, no prophet and no bible to dictate its laws and beliefs. Many, perhaps most, Wiccans are solitary practitioners. Others form small local groups called covens, groves, etc. Thus, there probably are almost as many sects of Wiccan beliefs as there are Wiccans.

This only proves the point that it’s hard to put an entire religion into a nutshell! Wicca is as complex as every other religion you may have heard of (and maybe more, in a lot of ways).

There seems to be so much information out there about Wicca that is just plain wrong; many people already have preconceived notions that are totally off base.

Wiccan sources can really be hit or miss. Some people are much more interested in making money by selling books or generating traffic to their site than they are about getting the record straight about Wicca. And some people mean very well– they love Wicca and want to share what they’ve learned with the world– but they have learned from those bad sources.It is hard to know straight away when you’re new if a source is going to be good or bad. I’ll do my best to lead you to reputable, accurate information.

WHAT WICCA ISN’T

Sometimes it’s easier to push aside the misconceptions about Wicca before getting to what it actually is. So let’s begin correcting some of the worst information. I promise to get much deeper into explanations about what Wicca is and isn’t as we go along learning in additional hubs; but for now, allow me to briefly touch on what Wicca is not:

Wicca is not an ancient religion, though it is an amalgamation of practices both ancient and new. It was once believed to be ancient, and that myth has unfortunately lingered and is still claimed by a lot of popular authors. But we know that Wicca is a thoroughly modern invention.

Wicca and Witchcraft are not the same thing. Back to when Wicca was being founded, again, it was believed to be the ancient religion of Witches. Once again, reputable historians and sociologists have debunked this claim. One can still be a Wiccan Witch, and traditionally Wiccans do practice The Craft (myself included). But it’s no longer a given.

Wiccans don’t worship the Earth. We revere it, but we worship our Gods. Wicca is, traditionally, a theistic religion. (My own version of the God and Goddess in Wicca is the Light and Shadow of the Universe; two energies interlaced in perfect unity to form one infinite “deity”. So it is without that it is within; meaning I am both the student and the teacher,the slave and the master, the art and the artist, the created and the creator.) 

Wicca is not every New Age or Occult practice you can name. Certainly Wiccans are free to pursue the Tarot, astrology, crystals, herbalism, runes, I-Ching, phrenology, spirit animals, spiritualism, etc. etc… there are a number of different spiritual practices that go hand-in-hand nicely with Wicca. But that doesn’t make them Wicca.

It is important to realize that none of these things are required. And learning these things does not necessarily mean you are Wiccan, or learning Wicca. Think of Wicca as a pizza; these other things are just optional toppings.

Wicca is not “anything you want it to be”. Wicca is a specific religion with a specific framework. Granted, there are a lot of beliefs in Wicca that are flexible. But that doesn’t mean anything you want to believe, or anything you want to do, can be defined as Wicca. To say Wicca is everything, you may as well say Wicca is nothing… nothing but a catch-all phrase tacked on for “cool points”.

Wicca isn’t evil. While morals are always something you can debate, Wicca does not condone acts that could be described as “evil”. If someone thinks our religion is wrong, or untrue, they have a right to their opinion. But to call us something we are not is ignorance.

WHAT WICCA IS

Now we get to the meat (or, for you vegetarians and vegans, the tofu) of the post. Mind you, it’s not easy to do justice to any system of beliefs in a few short paragraphs, but I will attempt to bullet point it:

Wicca is a religion. First and foremost, Wicca is focused on a relationship with deity, how to live your life by certain principles, tenets, ethics, rites, holy days, etc.

Wicca is a Pagan fertility religion.  More specifically than just being a religion, Wicca is a Pagan religion. Worship generally revolves around at least one masculine and at least one feminine deity. How Wiccans may view the nature of deity can vary, but generally we are polytheistic Pagans worshiping the Gods and Goddess of many different Pagan pantheons.

Wicca is a modern religion. Gerald Gardner pieced Wicca together through the 1940s. He thought he stumbled upon an ancient Pagan Witch cult that had gone underground to escape Christian persecution. Gardner admitted his info was fragmentary The ancient underground Pagan Witch cult turned out to be a myth– yet Gardner had found something that worked: a modern religion, for a modern age, that reconstructed/reinvented ancient beliefs and practices. . He was well traveled and well learned in various occult and esoteric studies; he worked with Doreen Valiente– a writer, poet, and fellow student of the occult – to draw from various complementary sources to piece together a workable system. 

Wicca is an experiential religion. Most religions we’re used to today are revealed religions, such as Christianity and Judaism– religions in which people believe a God ‘revealed’ what he wanted us to know through scripture. Wicca has no scripture, and we do not believe any Gods revealed anything. Rather than specific instructions of what to do and not to do, Wicca provides a framework for tenets and practices through which the Wiccan can learn through personal study, observation and experiences.

So what is this framework? Wiccan tenets? Ethics? Philosophy? Well, that’s another post. Several. We’ll get there. Be patient.

IN PERSONAL TERMS

I feel, and have always felt, that Wicca is to a degree, a personal thing–a personal path, so I will include a more abstract view. For me, while you can describe Wicca in technical terms and history, this does not accurately convey what it means. Wicca is a celebration of nature and the magic of life which surrounds us all, it’s the whispers of the wind in the trees, the fire of Autumn leaves shining brightest in their last days and the slumber of an ancient oak in the depths of winter. All those moments which take our breath away, the reflective sunrises and the nights under moonlight that fill our souls with song, we celebrate and revere. Even in our darkest moments that connection is there waiting to be found, helping us to embrace the shadows and understand that light and shadow need each other to bring balance. Each person brings to the practices something new, a change to a chant, a new method, or just their own light, forming threads that weave together into a vibrant tapestry that can bring joy to those within.

GETTING STARTED

STEP 1. DO YOUR RESEARCH

Before you even think about converting to Wicca, or before you make any finalized decisions or declarations, you should spend some time studying. Sorry to report this—but if you don’t like reading or studying, you’re probably not going to like Wicca very much; or at least you’re not going to get very far. Wicca is a non-dogmatic religion; rather than telling you what to believe, it throws the ball in your court and tells you to think critically. This requires knowledge.

One book isn’t enough, but five or ten books is a good start. It’s generally recommended you read and study—actively—for at least a year and a day before making any decisions about whether to be Wiccan or not. 

Do your research and come to your own conclusions. Do NOT believe everything you read online or in books for that matter. Click here for 13 critical reading tips by Witchy Words that will greatly assist you on your own personal path.  

STEP 2. THINK

Once you really start learning about Wicca, it’s beliefs, it’s tenets, etc., it’s time to consider whether your beliefs are a match. Are your personal beliefs something that can fall within a Wiccan framework?

Wicca is not a dogmatic religion, this is true; so anyone coming into it looking for a book of scripture or a list of commandments is approaching it from the wrong angle. But Wicca is also not, as some poorer sources have of late been putting it, “anything you want it to be.” The problem with saying Wicca is anything is that you’re essentially saying it’s nothing. There are some things that just don’t fit very well under the definition. For example, if you believe in Jesus with all your heart as a savior, why do you want to worship him within a religion that teaches there is nothing to be saved from?

The beauty of Wicca is that there are really no mandates—there are no ‘accept this or take a hike’ philosophies. But in being part of an experiential religion, you are accepting responsibility to use logic and reason—which means really considering if your beliefs fit within Wicca, or that if perhaps the one or two things that attracts you to Wicca can be found in another religion that is more in line with your beliefs.

STEP 3: PRAY/MEDITATE

Once you get to the point at which you know you want to worship as a Wiccan, it’s time to begin worshipping. Start praying to your Gods/Deities/the Universe/etc. Introduce yourself and ask them to reveal themselves to you. Ask for guidance, for clarification, for understanding.

Start meditating—for as they say, if prayer is talking to your God, meditation is listening. A daily meditation regime can be very beneficial not just for health and wellness purposes, but for spiritual development.

STEP 4: OBSERVE

Start being aware of life from a Wiccan perspective. Observe the cycles of the seasons and the cycles of the moon. Start acknowledging them in small ways. Think about Wiccan tenets and ethics when you’re faced with choices. Consider your life, and areas in which lessons can be learned from Wicca.

Observe the world around you; the interplay between all living things. Begin to notice the cycles of the seasons, of the moon, of life. You may wish to get into a more regular routine with your meditations and prayers, or start some very simple, informal rites to celebrate Esbats and Sabbats.

At this point, reading and learning shouldn’t necessarily stop, but it’s important to begin some application of those principles. That’s how you start living Wicca.

STEP 5: BUILD

A mistake a lot of people make early on is rushing out to collect tools—but Wicca is not a scavenger hunt. But at this point, when you’ve begun to practice, you may want to begin moving towards more formal practice. You might wish to start collecting altar tools—you don’t need to get them all at once. In fact, it’s a good idea to study a tool and its purpose, then look for it, then begin to use it, doing this one at a time.

A lot of books will tell you to get this and that, but keep in mind that you won’t need every tool that every book mentions. This is why it’s important to understand a tool’s function before you even worry about buying it—it may turn out to be something you just don’t need.

It’s also time to start building your ritual. That is, building a more structured approach to your ritual. That doesn’t mean you have to plan ever single detail out, but by its very definition a ritual is a repeated act. It’s the repetition that helps you reach ritual consciousness. It helps you bypass the state of consciousness in which you’re actively thinking into that state on which you go into ‘autopilot’ so that you can open yourself to the various energies you’re trying to raise.

Start thinking about a standard opening and closing, invocations, casting a circle. Again, it’s not something you need to do all in one night, but every couple of months think about and add another element.

STEP 6: MAGICK

Magick isn’t necessarily the focus of Wicca and not all Wiccans practice magick, but eventually you may want to incorporate some into your practice. Someone interested in just learning magick doesn’t have to be Wiccan and should go straight to learning The Craft; however, if Wicca as a religion is what interests you, spend the time familiarizing yourself with the religion first. Once you get to the point at which you’re collecting tools and holding regular rituals, it’s a good time to begin practicing this fascinating and enchanting element. Begin including some minor magical workings in your circle, as well as beginning studies in the arts.

STEP 7: NETWORK

At some point, it’s good for you to get out in the Pagan community at large. You don’t have to wait until the end to do this, but if you haven’t yet you should try at this point.

Meet with other Wiccans, attend classes or open rituals or drumming circles. Doing this can expose you to many new ideas, help you find people to talk to that you can relate to, you might even find a coven that you’d like to join if this is your ultimate goal. Religions are personal journeys, but they’re also meant to be experienced communally to some extent.

This list is by no means the only way to go about becoming Wiccan, but if you’re truly unsure of where to begin or where to go, it’s a good succession that will get you on your way.

Sources: WiccanSage and Rosewicket Coven

[pandirpus]

Anders, Klavier Gavin and Yami Yugi?

yooo

Anders:

I’m not too confident in my Anders character voice, combining cynical, flirtatious, dramatic, passionate, self-deprecating, righteous, intense, selfless and judgmental all in one is hard, but I have some themes in mind for writing him post-merging that are important for me to balance.

1. To explore the spectrum that is Justice and Anders, how their characters combine, sometimes evident in the way Anders talks, and sometimes more in more subtle ways. How his emotions resonate and get amplified due to all of “Anders” aligning, since usually all parts of him are of one mind, except in rare cases. How Anders has come to identify differing views, out of tune feelings/thoughts as Justice’s, especially since he knows both parts of himself before they merged. Since their thoughts are now mingled, however, it’s not like he can truly pick them apart, and he might be projecting his own guilt on “Justice” at times.

2. Guilt struggling with his determination, and internalized self-doubt struggling with the certainty of not only Anders, but a spirit who is inherently righteous. 

3. The theme of anger that Anders thinks he needs to suppress, with focus on how he is right in his anger.

4. That Anders is used to navigating the mess that is their combined memories, experiences and the very intense emotions of a spirit and a traumatized, mentally ill mage. How it will get overwhelming and disorienting at times, but especially how Anders manages for all these years.

5. How Anders is not quite mortal, not quite human, not quite a spirit now. How his perception of the world is changed and enriched, the way he feels, the way he sees things, the way his mind works.

-

Klavier, my child, my trash son! Partly stolen from livejournal, but revised. Not meant to be a complete character analysis, but what I keep in mind for his PoV and character voice.

1. Klavier deliberately puts on a show with his exaggerated rockstar persona, complete with his fake German, a passion for poetry and love songs and the air guitar soli. Not saying that he does not enjoy his rock music and his air guitar soli, and he is definitely flirtatious, charming, vain and conceited. But he is also sharp and calculating, not half as generous as one would expect of a rich rockstar prosecutor, and can be quite mean in his teasing. And, what is maybe most important:

2. Klavier is not as easy-going as he’d like people to believe. Despite his attempts to appear casual, Klavier is a perfectionist. He has to meddle in everything and to correct every mistake - also, he does expect everybody he works with to be perfect, too. As a prodigy who became prosecutor with 17 and who’s first hit single won platin overnight, he can’t deal with throwbacks and gets irritable when things go wrong.

3. Klavier is generally polite and political correct, and has very strict moral standards. As a consequence, he has little compassion for those who commit a crime, and is not ready to show any understanding. He can be harsh, and even cold. With his constantly friendly and so very polite attitude, he can be sarcastic and even pretty cutting, as he’s very ready to distance himself from anyone who disappointed him and would cause him pain.

4. Beneath all his superficial flirting, Klavier is actually a true romantic and craves soft and nice things and intimacy. He is all in for romantic gestures and he likes body contact, cuddling, soft kisses and whispering sweet nothings. He does love showing affection and recieving it. He’s a sensitive person, although he can hide a lot of things behind a maybe a bit too bright smile and his flashy attitude.

5. Klavier is aiming to appear and even be straight-forward and uncomplicated, but he is not. Klavier is in denial about a lot of things and trying hard to present himself a certain way, and he’s good at pretending. It’s hard to tell what of all this is fake and what is genuine, since it all has become second nature to him. Most of his issues are related to Kristoph, and while he does sense that there is something wrong, he refuses to take a closer look. It is a simple form of self-protection, because Klavier wouldn’t be able to bear facing the truth.The overall image I have in mind for Klavier is someone smiling brightly while there’s a gaping hole in his chest he is completely oblivious about. Also, someone who is head over heels for Apollo of course, and he’s fallen so hard, he can’t get up. :D

-

Yami Yugi, the puzzle spirit, the mystery, and what I think is important when writing him:

1. He is proud and overly confident, to a fault. He basically radiates confidence when it’s about games/competitions, and since that term is pretty expandable in YGO verse, that applies to a surprising amount of situation. Rocks jewelry and eye liner and extra clothes and capes, and I mean, this boy sat with his legs spread when wearing short skirts on a throne, jesus, single-mindedness plus confidence and obliviousness make him so entirely unselfconscious. Will never back out of anything, will bet his life (and Yugi’s life and body) without even hesitating, will force through even if he got himself in a pinch. When he got himself into an awkward or not-so-good situation, he’ll keep his composure up and just try to will power through it anyway.  It means he relates a lot to trash like Seto Kaiba, as they both speak dramatic duelist language fluently and have ridiculous priorities.

2. When it comes to his friends caring about him and being happy and with him - he’s just happy, pleasantly surprised, like the lonely teenager he actually is. Like, boy, he is so happy and grateful to have friends. Will listen to them, try to learn from them, and be as good as a friend as possible to them. Which means he is very intense about their bond and cherishes it with a very very earnest sincerity. Because he treasures them so much, and he’s very uncertain about his own weird, fleeting existence, he would always step out of the way of their relationships, though, and tries to support Yugi’s feelings toward Anzu and Jou (this is my writing I headcanon what I want) instead.

3. Righteous and harsh in his judgement, but does have questionable criteria and taste in people, since apparently being very serious and intense about duels excuses bad character traits. He’s aware that he himself is flawed and aims to improve himself, though, which does however not make him doubt his judgment at all.Is very biased towards his friends at all times. Not above using his powers and using questionable means of punishment.

4. Cocky and playful, especially during games, but also towards people he is at ease with, combined with being very straight-forward and blunt, and overly serious and intense with a flair for the dramatic.

5. Definitely a dork when it comes to pedestrian, non-competition, non-righteous-judging activities. Will be very curt and look very serious to mask that he’s out of his comfort zone. Not easily flustered by flirting, romance and sex, but oblivious when it applies to himself, both in terms of people crushing on him as well as him crushing on them. Also while not necessarily ace or aro (especially when he’s had his own body and liberty to use it ;), he’s now most of the time massively unintense about and uninterested in anything but games and friends. Avoids talking about insecurities, which includes any uncertainties he has about himself and any issues and problems he has about past decisions, his future, the depths of his soul that are unknown to him, that he is just a spirit lurking around that has been miraculously accepted in this group of friends, etc etc

[coin-news-blog]

The Jim Bell System Revisited

New Post has been published on https://coinmakers.tech/news/the-jim-bell-system-revisited

The Jim Bell System Revisited

The Jim Bell System Revisited

Let me re-emphasize that I have neither the knowledge nor the will to implement this system. I certainly don’t like the State, but I would rather concentrate my energies on constructive rather than destructive solutions. That said, I still think governments everywhere are going to be staring down the barrel of an encrypted gun in the near future, and this article attempts to explain why, in response to numerous objections received since my last article.

I also want to point out some areas where I think Jim Bell is completely off base. First of all, his insistence that AP is somehow residing in a loophole of the American legal system that only he is aware of, is absurd, as rightly pointed out by many of his critics. I have no delusions that AP would somehow survive its “day in court” or that even if, due to some arcane technicality, AP is a legal enterprise that that would stop the State from pursuing it relentlessly. Furthermore, I am mystified by Bell’s fascination with confrontation and martyrdom (as exemplified by his personal life) and do not think AP will be started by the self-sacrificing, or that it’s even necessarily a good idea to have that mindset when designing the system. Bell also overestimates the enthusiasm that ordinary people will have for AP by a long shot. I still have reasons to believe there will sufficient customers, but they are not going to be primarily heartland regular Joes, who Bell envisions watching AP’s deadly progress with amusement. Bell also gives some slightly cockeyed responses to a number of objections to his invention. In fact really the main thing I take away from his writing is the system itself, not necessarily any of his justifications.

My friend and business partner, Bob Murphy presented some powerhouse arguments against my pet theory in our recent columnist debate over the infamous Assassination Politics concept. I contend that under closer examination, his insightful questions can be answered satisfactorily.

Additionally, Adam Young has presented a thoroughly researched historical analysis against AP, which I will address first.

Young has three main points. First, that assassination has been ineffectual in the past for destroying states. Second, assassinations will instead create a backlash against anarchism by government and citizens alike. Third, he does not like the moral implications of the very likely possibility of collateral damage from sloppy AP prize-hunters, given the relatively poor caliber of historical attempts.

The opinion piece ‘The Jim Bell System Revisited’ written by

The first point, despite all its exhaustive research, is I’m afraid to say, totally erroneous because the mechanism by which AP kills its victims is fundamentally different then assassination campaigns of the past. I am not at all surprised to read that a handful of suicidal ideologues gunning down a few unlucky aristocrats failed to exorcise the nation state. Assume for the moment that AP’s basic functions materialize (I will get to Murphy’s objections later). The pool of assassins has instantaneously expanded from only insane political extremists, to every single violent opportunist in the world who can access a computer. AP represents a veritable full scale war against the State, fought by the scum of society and funded by every partisan malcontent across the political spectrum. A dozen assassinations per century is certainly not going to give any politicians second thoughts about their career choice, any more than the dozen or so plane hijackings in the past 50 years makes me nervous seeing a turban in business class. However, logically speaking there must be some tipping point at which the body count is the most pressing statistic a politician has in mind. AP will surpass this tipping point, where history’s basket case revolutionaries were doomed to fail. The State will, of course, respond in nasty ways, but inevitably these will prove ineffective in the face of an impenetrable network supporting a sustained and widespread offensive.

Secondly, Young fears that AP will re-enforce the stereotype of anarchists as the 19th-century mad bomber and 20th century Starbucks arsonist. This will then erase any chance of our winning hearts and minds via soul-stirring online essays, and worst of all, get the lot of us gulagged.

What he fails to realize is the absolute lack of a reason for there to be any connection between anarchists and AP. If AP were actually launched, I for one would certainly not be publicly cheering it on (I probably wouldnít even risk staying in the country, having written this article). The people who will be donating will not be doing so for anarchist reasons, they will not assume they are furthering anarchism, they will not make the connection. The targets also, will not probably be prioritized as an anarchist would. Ancaps are too small a group for our bets (if any) to be a major impact, thus if occasional bettors are caught, they are statistically unlikely to be one of us. The assassins will also not be Ancaps, unless any of you have a mercenary streak youíre not revealing. If all goes well the admins will either not exist or remain anonymous, and thus their political angle is irrelevant.

With no anarchists predominantly involved in any of the core functions of AP, or visibly supporting it, I don’t see why Young thinks that the State will blame anarchists for the rise of AP. In fact, if my predictions are correct, the assassins will primarily be the existing criminal class. If the State picks any scapegoats, it will be black militancy, or drug users, or the militia movement, etc, i.e. the people who are actually attacking them. The Government did not condemn anarchists for WTC, they blamed Islamic fundamentalists. Ancaps aren’t being rounded up in detention camps, Arabs are. Despite the fact that anarchists have often said things in the aftermath that amount to “they had it coming to them.” Which is more or less what Iím saying here. Anarchists will have just as much to do with AP as they did with WTC. The people who are going to suffer the brunt of the State’s reaction are the actual instigators of violence, and if I read my audience correctly, that will not be any of you. Do you particularly care (aside from general aversion to Statist crusades) if the State launches a crusade against crack heads and professional killers?

If the non-betting population experiences revulsion from AP at work, its outrage will be directed at a disparate collection of political interests and unrelated thugs. The State will undoubtedly ramp up its enforcement regime in response to AP, however, there is no reason that anarchists would be singled out, when there are more direct threats available.

If the State does pick Anarcho-Capitalists as the source of all evil, instead of some other arbitrary group like, say the Republic of Ganjastan, then I advise us all to leave or prepare to be martyrs. At some point, things are going to get uncomfortable for non-statists whether it’s Ashcroft Inc’s regularly scheduled programming, or an AP frenzy whipped totalitarian drive. I plan to be an ex-pat at that time in either case. We can always come back in the aftermath, and start the equivalent of Awdal Roads Company in the former US of A.

The third is the issue of collateral damage, which can be creatively ameliorated within the AP protocol. Its conceivable AP players might get in the habit of waiting for a number of high priced targets to get in the same building, and then truck bombing the whole structure to claim multiple big prizes, without concern for the dozens of non-targets cut down along the way. The moral failure here, I believe, lies solely with the assassin. However, my opinion is irrelevant, because if the bettors themselves feel they are responsible and they have a conscience, they will not bet for fear that the target they put money on will take a hundred un-targeted coworkers down with him. Thus AP needs to alleviate the moral obstacles bettors will face in order to have the maximum revenue flow possible. The answer is to allow for pools to be started with any number of stipulations. For example, the prize for politician Z might include the following rule:

“If any bystanders are killed in the death of the target, 90% of the prize money will be donated to a fund for their next of kin. The remaining 10% will be distributed evenly to correct guessers via the normal method.”

Or some such wording that would serve to greatly motivate the assassin to be careful in planning his attack.

By this scheme, there could be multiple prize pools for the same target, each with different disclaimers. For example, in addition to the 90% victim payout pool for Mr. Z, there might be a no questions asked pool for the same guy. Presumably, the fewer rules there are attached to the prize, the more likely an assassin will be to take a chance at winning it. Thus bettors have to balance their moral qualms about collateral damage versus their desire to see results. If they care more about bystanders, they should bet into the rules heavy pool, if they care more about eliminating the target, bet into the open ended pool.

Unless there is overwhelmingly more money in the “kill by any means” pool, the mere existence of the “kill carefully” pool, should convince the assassin to be as discrete as possible so as to win both prizes. So even if AP bettors are on the whole more bloodthirsty than socially conscious, the few with some scruples will be able to have a large impact on how AP players go about their operations. In fact if AP players really did tend toward wanton destruction in order to hit their marks, it might be in the best interest of people, who either exist in close proximity to a top target, or have a general compassion for bystanders, to bet into the constrained pool, even if they have no desire to see the target dead, but for no other reason than to be sure that when he does die, the assassin will hopefully be motivated by the money in the conditional pool and avoid civilian casualties.

Young denounces AP on the grounds that it uses a tactic of the State, i.e. “terror”, against the State itself, and this is a reprehensible flaw. Saying that AP is terror because it kills tyrants, is like saying shooting a mugger is terror. Well, yes. If you were unfortunate enough to live in a neighborhood inhabited by gangs, and got a reputation for shooting harassers without hesitation, this would effectively “terrorize” the gangsters into leaving you in peace, or so goes the “armed society is a polite society” school of thought.

However, AP does not even qualify as terror in the political sense.

The precise political science definition of terrorism is “a group that uses force against an intermediate target in order to bring about a desired decision from an ultimate target”. In other words, a terrorist is ill-equipped to directly attack the hated government, so instead he blows up a school bus, and issues a public ultimatum that unless the government meets some of his petty demands he will strike again. The logic being that the government is incapable of protecting every school bus all the time, and the terrorist has nothing else to do but plan his next bombing, so he can essentially strike at will. He hopes that eventually the State will tire of this harassment and acquiesce, usually because the population becomes exasperated at the governmentís ineffectual attempts to stop the attacks, and it is in danger of losing its power, not due to any compassion for the school kids.

AP does not follow this model, primarily because, unlike the terrorist, it can indeed strike the ultimate targets directly and does not need to play deadly games with intermediate symbols. If anything, AP should be described as guerrilla warfare.

Even if the effects of AP end up being terrorist in the popular sense, this is wholly different from say Al Quaeda plotting together in some dusty bunker. AP is a decentralized system unlike anything ever before. Without a central decision making body like a terrorist cell, the targets selected by the AP patronizing public will reflect its user’s ideologies. AP will only use explicitly terrorist tactics, if its users overwhelmingly have terrorist inclinations themselves, which given the superior abilities provided by AP, is an unproductive course of action and a waste of money.

I hope that is a decent response to Young’s excellent article. On to Mr. Murphy’s piece.

First Murphy doubts the feasibility of AP with the very legitimate concern that if the system were truly an impenetrable secret to all investigators, there is nothing stopping the AP operators from pocketing all the donations, yet claiming winners had been paid, resting on the impossibility of discovery, and the robbed winner’s desire to remain anonymous (since he’s probably got blood on his hands). A better scam might involve creating artificially high bounties, and then only paying out what’s actually in the pot. Since if there are multiple bets on the same day, the prize is split evenly between them, the assassin will not know if he has been cheated or if there are actually were enough other random guessers to dilute his prize down to the share he actually gets. The administrators could also skim off a healthy chunk too, and no one would be the wiser. This would probably be the best way to for the admins to dishonestly game the system, so that they enrich themselves; the assassins are disappointed but not given proof of treachery; and the bounties are higher than normal, thus enticing more gullible thugs.

So is this really a problem? Seems to me the system still works exactly as planned whether the admins are honest or not. The only problem is getting people to trust the system in the first place, which I’ll cover in a minute.

If we assume that the admins’ purpose in creating AP is to make as fat a profit as possible, then they will not want to blatantly rip off hitmen, for fear that word will inevitably get out among the criminal population that AP isnít on the level. However, even in an extreme case where the admins do embezzle every penny, it doesnít matter. Since very few people involved with AP will be actually killing anyone, only a tiny minority of users will feel they have been cheated, while the greater number will be convinced they got their money’s worth. Thus they will continue to use the system. Future assassins not in communication with their gypped colleagues will also be led to believe others have been paid. Thus everything still works, money goes in, prizes are accumulated, and targets are eliminated.

If the admins really are capable of hiding all evidence and expertly conning the system, then the system will indeed be conned, and so well conned, that it will continue to run despite being conned over and over. The only problem is if this possibility prevents people from ever starting to bet and becoming convinced they are being dealt with fairly.

There are two answers to this: the AP business can slowly build trust with less extreme versions of itself, and also the overlooked fact that people have a surprisingly high tolerance for potentially fraudulent online services.

To establish itself as an authentic operation, AP might be introduced not as a full fledged death machine but instead as a low key betting pool system whereby users could put money on sporting events or guess the day certain celebrities will get divorced, and other trivial wagers. The selling point is the hardcore anonymity feature for users in harsher nanny states. In this relatively low risk phase, winners could have the option of being publicly announced for ego’s sake, and this would prove the system operated as intended. Then gradually more and more sinister bets would be allowed until it becomes completely un-moderated and AP is born.

Such a system would not be nipped in the bud, as Murphy predicts, as there are countless underground betting organizations currently in operation, and proto-AP would arguably be even more secure from law enforcement, by benefit of its exclusive existence on the internet with solid encryption and no face to face contact among users. Even at the intermediate semi-morbid phases its possible proto-AP would not garner significant government attention. Look at this http://www.stiffs.com.

Clearly harmless, but the fact it has garnered no legal complaints is a good indicator that real-AP would be able to go on the offensive for some time before the Feds figured out where the threat is coming from.

I also still think the best idea is to design an autonomous system with no publicly identified administrators even in the proto phase, whether this will become feasible with future developments in cryptography remains to be seen.

Even if AP did not go to the trouble of gradually building a customer base, it does not necessarily mean it will fail. Examine the case of online gambling. Here we have people putting their money on games where the “house” can completely manipulate the odds in its own favor simply by changing a few lines of code, and the user will never know unless he takes detailed notes on winning percentages. They do not even have a reputation at stake like a traditional Las Vegas casino, which could do the same with its electronic slot machines. If a Vegas outfit says its slots payout 99% or something, people who have no good reason to trust that, still play by the thousands. Many people are unaware that the Nevada Gaming Commission even exists, and virtually none have any idea how good a job they do at enforcing gambling regulations. And inexplicably they play online versions of these same dubious games too, where they have far less control, and nowhere near the trust of a “reputable” brick and mortar casino. Online gambling rakes in millions, despite obvious security holes and opportunities for abuse. An indicator that even if AP is not foolproof as far as protecting bettor’s money from the admins, people will still donate and predict. Maybe they’re just stupid, and maybe the online casinos are actually honest.

Murphy also points out that if politicians resort to holding Congress inside a NORAD bunker, then any information about deaths inside the mountain can be easily manipulated by the government, thus disrupting the rewarding of correct guessers. I doubt this will be an effective countermeasure against AP. If the outside world never knows that the Feds are lying about death dates, then potential assassins would not be aware their successful hits might be in vain. They would then still have the motivation to mount their attacks, and only afterward realize the government’s press corps has cheated them out of their prize. However, the people donating money have still gotten what they want: a dead politician, and thus will continue donating. Since the assassin will presumably either be dead, captured or in hiding, he will not be able to warn anyone that the government is using information warfare against AP. Thus the system continues as planned.

On the other hand, if it becomes common knowledge that the government is not a reliable source of information, then it will be up to the assassin to make the real death date known. Perhaps acquiring a tissue sample from the victim and anonymously forwarding to independent media, or videotaping the kill shot with some kind of provable date stamp. This means the assassin has to take extra risk in getting close enough to the body to grab some proof, or accidentally providing incriminating evidence on tape, and also risk further exposure in contacting the media. If the AP server is run autonomously, it will have to be programmed to take into account the relative trustworthiness of misinforming government sources versus potentially nutcase indy media, and then make a decision as to the actual date of death. If the information is too ambiguous, then it might extend prize percentages to predictions on neighboring days, based on the probability of being correct. In light of this possibility, the assassin would be smart to take out high interest loans and dump his entire net worth into bets on days all around the planned kill date.

This opinion article

In light of this development, the assassin will have to take more risks and thus insist on a higher prize before taking his chances. Thus this government strategy will only serve to increase the equilibrium price of assassinations, just like their moving into the bunker itself.

Matt Apple brought up a similar potential scam on the forum:

“Another problem is the targets could fake their deaths. Suppose I’m a powerful person you’ve targeted. I just buy a day and then fake my death on that day. I put out a phony death certificate, maybe I even provide some gruesome staged photos of me lying dead. The media reports me dead and the operator releases the dough to the “guesser” ie me. As soon as the anonymous transaction is completed I appear on camera at a live press conference and announce that the plans of the evil electronic terrorists have been foiled and that in an ironic twist I’m donating the bounty they had on my head to the FBI. If this happened just once then all the people pumping up those bounties will lose their faith in the system.”

If the media is so blatantly lied to, then more so than the AP bettors, the media itself will not believe future death reports. They will want to take pictures at the autopsy or do whatever it takes to have ironclad proof that this guy really is dead. If the media becomes an overt tool of the state, there will still be people who demand an objective news source, whether they are AP sympathizers or not. This demand will support the Matt Drudges of the world who will find a way around mainstream hegemony, and AP can be programmed to ignore statist media.

Murphy doubts that my army of gutter trash will be able to make a dent in the ruling class. Perhaps he’s right that the average street hoodlum will only be successful in killing mid level bureaucrats that the State can’t afford to lavish security on. However, if that were true, is it really such a crucial flaw? If AP bettors come to realize that the tiptop of the pyramid can find impenetrable missile silos to hide in, then it’s no longer cost-effective to chase them with ever higher donations. Like any institution, the State clearly needs support personnel, and even if they do choose to hide in Mt. Cheyenne, they still need people on the ground at the very least to crack heads and collect taxes to keep the lights on down in their hole. If AP bettors become frustrated that the juicy targets are out of range, the next level down is going to take the brunt of it in the face. It might be fun to be a stormtrooper, but if suddenly you, due to lack of options, become the priority target for the assassination market, maybe its time to turn in your badge and go back to a vocational school. Additionally if you are an ordinary citizen who has up to this time not been involved with AP at all, but suddenly you notice that the tax collectors who stay above ground are getting executed with alarming frequency, you might be more inclined to gamble on fudging your returns or not paying at all, and hoping that the constant harassment provided by AP will prevent the revenue harvesters from noticing you.

If the State is denuded of its agents and means of interaction, then it is just as harmless as if it had been chopped up directly.

However, it would naturally be more efficient to strike the root. AP would reach its end goal quickest, with the least collateral damage, if assassins were able to hit the politicians even in their super-bunkers. There’s an argument that there is some upper bound beyond which additional funds will no longer influence the odds of an assassination taking place. Meaning that if $500M is not enough to convince anyone to take a chance on the target, $5B probably won’t either. That may be the case for individuals, but not for groups of AP players. If a mercenary or terrorist group became interested in mounting a multi-person operation like the WTC attack, then the higher the bounty gets, the more equipment they can buy and more personnel they can recruit for the plan. If say, there were multi-million dollar bounties on Saddam Hussein (a safe example) and all his top generals and lieutenants, making their bunker a concentrated mega bounty, it could become worthwhile for some para-military unit to risk a raid. The highest paid professional mercenaries in the world are employed by Sandline International and, according to the UN (who wants to ban their line of work), they make no more than $300,000/yr. That’s not chump change, but for someone who rides shotgun in a chopper chasing down African guerrillas for a living, the extra risk driving into Baghdad might be worth the hazard pay offered by AP.

Taken to its logical conclusion, if there were enough extremely high bounties on a country’s leaders, who were all clustered into one spot, no matter how well defended, it could be cost-effective for army sized forces to be mobilized to seize the prize. So even if the top brass did hole up in the ultra bunkers, entire legions of militiamen or other adventurous chaps might come a-knocking to snag all those billions.

Murphy goes on to say that the average Americans will be horrified by the idea of AP. True, the 50% of the population who don’t bother to vote probably will not feel their time is well spent influencing the political system by AP or any other method. Of the other half, probably the majority has no deep interest in the issues or understands anything beyond doing one’s civic duty. Of that slim percentage that actually has strong to passionate views, whatever they may be, therein lies AP’s demographic. What Bob fails to realize is that AP bettors will not know what they are doing, long term. Very few people are going to consciously decide they want to get rid of government and put money on it. Instead, they will donate money against specific politicians in the hope it will help advance whatever pet cause they clutch so dearly. Think if AP were in place back in the 2000 election. Are you a greenie who can’t stand the thought of oilman GW raping poor Gaia? Give AP some of your weed money and see what happens. Are you a good ol’ boy who thinks eco-feminist Al Gore will send the beloved US of A the way of the Roman Empire? Put off buying that new truck and see what AP can do. Even the most authoritarian bastard who ever cast a ballot can list some Statists of a slightly different breed than rub him the wrong way. Do you doubt the gun culture would pass up on an opportunity to bury some liberals, or for the religious right hypocrites to take out some of the godless queers in Washington, or radical feminists putting their 79 cents on the dollar against Deep South carpetbaggers? And more importantly than private citizens, don’t forger corporate-statists, like Big Ass Subsidies Inc who’s pocket politician might lose to the candidate who’s platform calls to spend the loot on some other boondoggle. Surely they can afford a million dollar write off if their spot in line at the trough is at risk.

The point is that maybe Mrs. Soccer Mom has no strong opinions and would never think of placing a bet, but there are many, many people with strong political views, regardless of what they are. Surely the more diehard or less moral will see that they increase the chances of their guy winning, if the enemy is scared off by a rising AP tab.

And the boiling frog effect comes into play as AP makes its mark on the world. When the state predictably increases its enforcement measures, more people will see it in their best interest to bet against encroaching fascists.

If you doubt Americans will buy into this system in relevant numbers, I will repeat the point from my first article that Murphy did not address. I can concede that Americans will refuse to play, or that the Feds will manage to protect themselves (I don’t) but that does not mean AP cannot be effective. Ignore the NATO countries for a minute. Imagine AP taking root in some exotic locale like Nigeria for example. I bet a lot of those relatively well to do white farmers might take the opportunity to go online and put some money against Mugabe. I also think that one of his sadistic henchmen might be able to do the math to see that the AP prize is greater than his entire combined future earnings. The downside of the Third World is the lack of communications infrastructure, but in the coming years, ever cheaper electronics will make that less and less of an obstacle. The upside, of course, is that the leaders are rather absurdly unashamed of their predations, and very frequently there are large contingents of people who adamantly hate them. Furthermore add that these States have less sophisticated means of combating online activity it disproves of, and the fact that the population is used to politicians forcefully attempting to grab the throne. The conclusion is that many of the potential objections that apply to America and the “civilized” world are not to be found at all south of the equator. This could be an interesting testbed for the protocol. If it works, we get another blossoming Somalia. If it fails, well, the country was a hellhole before anyway.

Murphy says that if AP works well enough to destroy the state, it wonít stop there and will completely shred civilization.

He claims for example that just as disgruntled citizens can axe politicians at will, laid-off workers can axe their cost cutting former employers and that any defenses the private individuals can use, will be even easier for the state to use.

This is wrong on both counts. Not only is it harder for capitalists to be killed, they can defend themselves from AP easier.

First of all, there are vastly more high ranking business owners than there are high ranking bureaucrats. If the AP betting population suddenly gained an all consuming irrational desire to destroy capitalism, it would take a far greater monetary investment against businessmen than politicians, to reach that tipping point where targets are scared away from their positions.

Furthermore, each individual businessman has a much smaller pool of people affected by his decisions. Whereas everyone in the country has to deal with the onerous decrees of the gang in Washington, there are many orders of magnitude fewer people dependent on any given board of directors. Presumably, people who don’t work for that company will not be very inclined to donate money, just as not many Americans would bet against Italian party chiefs. Therefore if the boss does manage to royally piss off the workers, he has much fewer potential bettors against him. These are people who have just lost their source of income (with no welfare to look forward to), and have fewer co-conspirators; they will not be able to produce nearly as enticing bounties as those that public officials will accrue. Keep in mind that people who bet against politicians will be expecting their incomes to rise in the absence of taxes, and thus be more likely to bet higher.

More importantly, the boss knows who they are. If murder is being considered it’s likely due to them being whipped into a fury by some mafia goon union boss. The CEO has much more money at his disposal than an unemployed working class gang. If the union leader agitates his followers to wreak AP based revenge against the CEO, he canít expect to survive either. Anyone who attempts to rally workers to donate their already dwindling cash reserves into pointless vengeance will see his own name rising on the list faster than the CEO’s. The population of an entire state will be large enough that the number of independent people willing to put money against their powerful enemies will not require there be anyone egging them on. In order for smaller interest groups to get their petty revenge, a more coordinated effort is required. Harder still is that the potential victims have a much more conveniently sized body of suspects to watch, compared to politicians who are being targeted by anonymous bettors hiding among millions or billions.

And better still, if the CEO knows whom he fired and who is threatening him, then everyone else knows as well. Would you hire workers who had paid for the assassination of their last employer? If a group of people are fired and their ex-boss is subsequently the target of a fat AP prize, then the entire group will immediately be blacklisted by every other employer. This will provide a huge incentive for individual workers not to toe the union line. Their own reputation and future employability rests on breaking their professional relations civilly or at least without bloodshed.

This situation might instead just serve to impress upon corporations the need to be more careful in their hiring and firing. Only take on workers you really need, and only let them go after careful consideration, and in that event, possibly firing them in smaller batches, rather than mass layoffs. Nevertheless, this may indeed grant more power to workers. We must remember that not all corporations are nobly building wealth in spite of government machinations. Occasionally there really are scumbags who abuse employees, is it such a disaster if such people fear lethal retaliation for their misdeeds?

Another dystopian fear is that AP will support murders between non-famous people over petty frustrations. A scumbag husband wants to get out of a divorce without losing half his wealth, so if he thinks an AP bet worth a quarter of his wealth will get the job done, and does so. An unrelated party kills the wife, scumbag cuts his losses nicely, and the wife is horrendously aggressed against with no chance of justice for her family.

Yes, this is a problem that AP would exacerbate. Choosing your spouse carefully has always been good advice. However, if the wife’s lawyers checked the AP records and found there had been a substantial prize, despite her being a generally well liked individual, they would decide that the “unrelated” killer might not be such a random tragedy after all. And proceed to hire detectives to investigate the ex-husband’s financial records to find a similarly sized hole. Even if he expertly hid all his transactions with encryption and such, the sheer lack of other suspects may lead an arbitration committee to demand the husband prove his innocence. I assume hiring an assassin to initiate aggression will be a crime in Ancapland, but I will let others debate that.

Like the threatened businessman who knows who his potential threats are, in the case of an innocuous unknown being the victim of AP, it will be easy to discover the few or single person that has the motivation to invest the significant money involved. AP, in fact, hurts the chances of the anonymous petty murderer, because the record of one’s prize is public. Anyone who cares to investigate the death of an AP victim can see exactly how much it cost. If the victim had few enemies, it is a simple matter to make the connection between the specific sum and the likely suspects.

Compare this to the case of a low level bureaucrat that Murphy complains is just as vulnerable as the rest of us. He is right in saying that it doesn’t require one big bet, only lots of little bets. However, unless the bureaucrat has managed to piss off all those people placing the little bets, they won’t happen, and he is safe. If the bureaucrat has managed to do so then there’s probably a reason he deserves it. People in the phone book though, probably do not have multitudes of enemies, and thus are safe from all but an exceptionally wealthy psychopath, which I imagine are few and far between.

As for the extortion scheme that Jim Bell rather awkwardly argued against and Bob accurately deflated. The problem there is that the extortionist needs to have enough money of his own to actually place the bet that will attract assassins to his victim.

Fortunately, extortionists usually ply their trade because they don’t have any money. The thug could bluff, but if called on it, he has no bargaining chips in this case, like an old fashioned significant other duct-taped in the basement.

If he actually does have the money and the victim calls his bluff, if he goes through with his threat, he has just spent a shit load of money to kill someone for no reason, and with no return benefit to the extortionist. Not a very profitable scam.

If he does convince the target to play along, he still has to communicate his threat. Such exchanges usually involve some amount of negotiation, or complicated instructions that require communication. The extortionist has to sacrifice a lot of anonymity to pull his crime off. This weakness gives the presumably deep pocketed target plenty of opportunities to spend some of that ransom on private detectives to locate the extortionist. The criminal, in this case, has no human shields to prevent a raid.

The benefit of AP is to allow anonymous assassination contracts, in both the case of the vengeful labor leader, and the crafty extortionist, both lose that shield and leave themselves wide open to retaliation from the greater resources of their chosen enemies.

Another concern mentioned on the forum, is that the State, with its trillions of revenue will actually invest money into AP to off its political opponents. This is a pretty ridiculous proposal.

First of all, the enemies of your enemies are not necessarily your friends. If the State pays an AP assassin to shoot some, say, ultra-lefty criticizing them, are we really that much worse off? In fact, I’d be overjoyed to see politicians taking out AP bets against their opponents for the most part. Why should a democrat spend valuable campaign money on advertising when he could just pay to have his republican opponent drop out of the race permanently? Libertarians are rare enough that I doubt we present a serious enough threat to the State compared to their fellow parasites scrambling for the best suck spot, that theyíd spend money to attack Harry Browne instead of their opponent in the primary who has a real chance of ousting them.

Another problem with this supposed counter strategy is that it’s entirely unnecessary. If the State really wants to kill someone, they already have all the tools; they don’t need to spend money on AP. They could just give Lon Horiuchi his normal paycheck and have him snipe whoever they don’t like. It’s not as if they ever get in trouble for it, even when they aren’t exactly subtle. It doesn’t make sense for them to pay for secrecy they don’t need.

Finally, this plan would backfire, because if the admins are anarchists, and they take a commission, then the State, by playing AP, is directly enriching someone who will re-invest his profit against State targets. Also, the assassins donít care who they kill if the money’s right. The State is also enriching people who will be just as happy to come back and shoot Statists, now with more resources to plan hits too.

Bob concluded by essentially saying that the only way to anarchy is an enormous campaign of rational evangelism. He disapproves of the whirlwind anarchy in Somalia and similar power vacuums. I disagree. I see much more hope for building Ancapland out of the lawless ashes of a Somalia, than of gradually subliming the promised land out of the monolithic State in an America. If AP does prove the alarmists right, and crashes society into an apocalyptic period, (I do not think this is the case) still, such a turn of events will be in the long run an easier path to Ancapism than the intellectual erosion strategy. Murphy points out the example of the bloodless revolutions in Eastern Europe. To which I respond derisively, what revolution? They traded hard-line Russki-communism for soft line Euro-socialism. That’s even more of a joke than American style Republicrat lesser-evilism. Stasi agents all retired on embezzled millions, and now the Great Terror War is inviting domestic espionage back in force all across the Continent. The only revolution that arguably has ever made recognizable progress is the American experiment, which is notable for killing employees of the previous regime by the thousand. If Thomas Jefferson could have emailed digicash to pub brawlers in London, or scheming heirs in Buckingham palace, mad King George’s confused reign would have come to a deserved end before he could futilely attempt to reclaim his rebellious colonies. The point being, in order to get anarchism, I don’t think it’s a question of getting the balls to start sledge hammering the Berlin Wall and hope the Kalishnikov toting border guard respects the numbers presented by all your fellow civil disobeyers. If the only fall out is a different set of thugs being in charge tomorrow, there will, of course, be less State resistance than if the entire thug industry is being called into question. If you want real change as in no more thugs, ever, then the top thugs aren’t going to budge until they have no other choice. The ultimate conclusion then is that if anarchism takes a revolution of the non-bloodless variety, there’s no reason why the fighters shouldn’t be backed up by a means to get at the higher ups. Or better yet, replace the fighters entirely with anonymous assassins and strike exclusively at the heights of power. I know I don’t want to spend much time huddling in trenches.

It undoubtedly sounds arrogant, but I would say that less than 1% of the global population has any concept of how the world (i.e. economics) really works, and of those that do, most have got it horribly wrong. However, when they are forced to suddenly make do for themselves in the absence of authority, as is the case of Somalia, Ancapism spontaneously appears without the presence of wise graduate student mentors preaching Mises. It sure would be nice, naturally, if Bob could go over and warn them off from accepting UN overtures of providing “stable governance”, but the point is they were able to find profitable anarchism on their own, with little to no knowledge of economics and certainly no deep respect for pacifism. All it took was the total destruction of their state, the means notwithstanding. On the other hand, if Murphy expects to get some percentage of the population to side with him before picking up a hammer, he will definitely be taking the long uphill route.

Murphy says that a generation growing up surrounded by headlines full of dead famous people will be disastrous. I fail to see how this could be more damaging than the scores of generations stretching back into history that grew up with headlines of how great the State is. The Somalians lived through generations of war, where life was made quite cheap, yet now they are Africa’s best chance.

If AP worked perfectly and stripped the state away by force in a relatively short time frame, people will be thrust into unfamiliar territory. No doubt in their confusion they will attempt to recreate State functions. These will be torn down again and again. Like a child getting its hand slapped every time it reaches for the hot stove, AP will discipline the world that concentrations of power are bad. In the meantime, if Murphy is able to patiently explain to the bewildered why this is the case, so much the better, but either way, there will be no more State, and they will not have a choice in the matter. Murphy is essentially advocating a Taking Children Seriously approach to enlightening the collectively childlike population. I would rather just smack them until they stop and maybe explain briefly afterward why.

Lastly, it seems clear to me that AP is superior because it is a market process. People exchange value for perceived value. They invest their money for the benefit of removing aggressive people from society. On the other hand, Murphy is advocating an “educate the masses” routine that depends solely on him and his colleague’s dedication to the cause. Not to disparage his efforts, honestly, if anyone can do it, the current crop of anarchist intellectuals has got my fullest confidence. However, I really don’t think anyone is going to listen until they are already living in it. I see the economic wizard’s role as after the fact guides in the new wonderful world of anarchism wrought by AP and other market strategies. Once everyone is stuck in their regional equivalents of Somalia, and wondering what the hell just happened, Bob and co, will step in and say, “Hey, isn’t this great, look how much more we can get done now!”

And people, who have been forced to find alternatives to formerly government offered services, and no longer obey regulations or sacrifice taxable income, will sit up and finally notice Bob, and say, “What the fuck? Why haven’t we always done this? Thanks, Bob!”

Bob will then smile knowingly and go on a world wide lecture tour.

Then from time to time, a few clueless bastards will try to “get all the guns and take over”. AP will mercilessly smite them. Life goes on. In the meantime, I await the next round of objections.

Source: news.bitcoin