The human threat model is intended to help humans better understand the threats that they face and the tools, available and in active development, for defense. Threats are assumed to be any activity designed to prevent humanity from accomplishing its mission to make the world delightful.
The desire to accomplish this goal and the most effective strategy, honoring private property, is an innate characteristic of all humans.
The system of property rewards productivity and enables complex systems of coordinated production to be established and managed effectively.
To a human, any violation of property, starting with a human's own body and extending to the goods he has produced with his labor, is an injustice.
Humans, like other social mammals, appear to have an entire circuit within their nervous system that detects and responds powerfully to injustice.
Although this justice drive is not functional in some humans, they are looked upon by their fellows as inhuman beasts. It is considered an incomprehensible abomination that must be the result of a fundamental defect. In other words, they are no longer considered fully human by their fellow men.
Because humans are so well suited for their mission, attacks on their mission will affect them deeply and cause anguish.
Human progress towards making the world delightful is called production. The tools produced to make humans more effective in their labor are called goods.
In order for an attack to be effective it must meet two requirements. First it must make the victims less productive. Second it must provide the attacker with more goods than he consumed in executing the attack. This is because if he becomes poorer as a result of the attack he will be incentivized to stop and if he continues he will eventually starve to death.
Human production can be neatly divided into producing goods, choosing goods to produce, and rewarding production. We will look at each of these functions and the applicable attacks.
Finally we will look at strategic attacks that use an ingenious combination of attacks in order to be more effective than any one attack alone.
For each attack we will examine its major properties and the safety features in place, or under active development, to make these attacks less effective.
Humans produce goods when they use their bodies, existing goods and resources found in the world to make new goods. In order for the produced items to be "goods" they must be more useful than the goods used as inputs.
Because humans are fragile, they can be damaged by breaking their bodies, or putting them through mental anguish. If an attacker is able to damage a human enough he will become unproductive and unable to assist in the mission of making the world delightful.
Safety Features
- Humans are incredibly adaptable. Even if an arm or leg is removed or they suffered great mental anguish, they are rarely incapable of producing more goods than they require for survival.
- Even damaged humans have such a strong desire to be productive that their injuries will not allow them to avoid anguish if they do not produce.
- The division of labor, a side effect of property, allows damaged humans to avoid tasks they are not capable of performing.
- Humans are social creatures and instinctively defend one another.
- Humans are incredibly creative and have a talent for inventing goods (weapons) that make defense more effective.
- Humans have a strong desire to punish attackers. This deters attacks and reduces the power of attackers, after the fact. Punishments range from decreasing their property to death (destroying their most fundamental property, their very bodies).
- Humans will often sacrifice themselves for their closest and weaker associates (husband for wife and child, wife for child, younger for older, etc.) in defense.
- Humans invent highly efficient and effective systems to produce tools used to prevent attacks (defense), accurately identify attackers (justice systems), and reduce the influence of known attackers (punishment).
- The thousands of daily human interactions reward peaceful actions and punish attacks or even the slightest indications of a desire to attack.
- Genetic defects that create a predisposition to attack is bred out of the human species by reducing the property, and therefore the opportunity to produce offspring, of attackers.
Past attacks
- Cain and Able.
Expenses: High
- An attacker would likely suffer death if they attempted to attack a human. Either immediately in the course of defense, or after the fact in the course of justice.
Income: Low
- Unless this attack was performed in combination with another attack there is no income for the attacker beyond the pleasure of a degenerate.
Profitability: Unprofitable
- Because expenses are high and income is zero this attack is unprofitable.
No significant impact on mission
- Isolated murder and violence has had little impact on humanity's mission to make the world delightful. It must be cleverly combined with other attacks in order to be effective.
If an attacker is able to take all of the goods of a human, and he is far from assistance, he will die because he is to acquire the goods he requires directly from nature.
If the attacker only takes a portion of his goods he has effectively eliminated the contribution made by that human while he was producing those goods. This has the added effect of producing mental anguish upon the particular human and every other human that becomes aware of the attack. This mental suffering also impedes future production.
In order to make this profitable the attacker must possess overwhelming force and he must be able to flee from the justice system. Two quintessential examples are finding a victim isolated during travel and a traveling band of attackers.
When attacking a victim "on the road" the attacker has the advantage of waiting until he is unable to avail himself of many defensive tools that are impractical to bring while traveling. The attacker is also able to select a location that makes it difficult for the nearest justice system to find him.
Roving bands of attackers are also able to select victims that are relatively isolated. A small village, for example, may not be able to resist a larger group of attackers. Because the attackers are continually traveling from victim to victim, the isolated village would not be able to appeal to the justice system of neighboring humans before the attackers were able to escape.
These attacks are possible only when the victims fail to produce enough security goods for their circumstance. In the modern world, this implies a high degree of poverty (at least for the initial victims) because humans have a strong desire for security goods. Once the attackers have attacked poor victims they can use the goods acquired to attack ever better equipped victims.
Few, if any, early writings shed light on the evolution of simple theft into more and more profitable crimes, but this logical progression is a helpful aid:
- Theft started small and opportunistically and occurred rarely.
- Possibly the result of unusual circumstances, some attackers became well funded.
- Well funded attackers could combine murder in order to obtain a larger portion of the goods stolen without fear of a justice system.
- Eventually "war" for "spoils" could happen at the scale of hundreds or thousands.
- Once it was combined with enslaving the victims so they could be robbed regularly (called tribute or taxes) it became even more profitable.
- Slavery evolved and added additional deceptions (such as democratic representation, social welfare or constitutional restraints) that made it even more cost effective and more profitable.
Safety Features
- The safety features designed to prevent this attack are identical to the safety features found under "An attacker could damage a human."
- The justice system is designed to ensure that this attack is unprofitable even if it is only occasionally detected because the punishment involves a multiple of the amount stolen. For example in ancient Israel a thief was required to repay seven times the amount stolen.
Past attacks
- The earliest recorded attacks on property are strategic attacks that include murder (1.1 An attacker could damage a human). However, it is reasonable to assume, as is done above, that opportunistic theft of isolated individuals, or goods left unprotected due to strange circumstances, took place before our earliest preserved writings.
Expenses: High
- An attacker takes a significant risk that they would suffer a reduction in property, through the justice system, if they attempted to steal from a human.
Income: High
- If an attacker is able to target humans with significant savings they could obtain valuable goods through theft.
Profitability: Very Profitable
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Although the risk is high in most cases, the attacker can select victims and circumstances that allow this attack to be profitable.
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This is the only attack that is profitable on it's own. If this attack could be made unprofitable it is possible that all strategic attacks would also become unprofitable.
Significant impact
- Simple theft must be cleverly combined with other attacks in order to be effective. However, because this attack is probably a prerequisite for all other combinations of attacks it has significantly slowed the human mission to make the world delightful.
How Bitcoin will make theft unprofitable
- Simple theft is profitable because humans are periodically unable to defend themselves against attack or access the justice system after an attack. Because savings must be physically stored and transported, it can be easily stolen.
Bitcoin allows humans to store their savings in a way that is totally undetectable to attackers and much more difficult to access (if they guess that it exists). This greatly increases the cost involved in obtaining the goods while simultaneously decreasing the amount of goods an attacker is likely to gain. It is hoped that this will make simple theft, unprofitable.
This attack is most effective when used against children. If an attacker can expose the human to the proper stimulation, he can be deceived and lose his desire to be productive.
Common deceptions include:
- Convincing the human that production is actually not a good, but a "bad." For example: that the world is perfect and any changes made by humans are negative by definition.
- Convincing the human that he is broken and incapable of production. This is often done by giving him "assignments" that are naturally opposed to his nature. For example: asking a young male to sit still for long periods of time or asking a young female to play aggressive sports and then making it clear that their performance is disappointing.
- Convincing the human that the human race, as a whole, is only capable of destruction.
- Convincing the human that production is pointless. The cosmos is really chaos and whatever humans produce will soon be returned to the void.
Safety Features
- A desire to produce and to care for oneself and other humans is extremely strong. Even with indoctrination from as young as 4 years of age, these ideas are often rejected in early adulthood.
- The cost involved in making this attack marginally effective is very high. Essentially it requires becoming the child's parent.
- The instincts of mothers and fathers to care for their own children is great. It is uncommon in most of human history for parents to willingly permit their children to be raised by strangers.
- Hunger and suffering are the natural results of a desire to be unproductive. In order to meet these needs the human would need to become moderately productive. Becoming moderately productive often rekindles the human drive to be fully productive.
- The human drive for reproduction is very strong and the human mate selection process is essentially a "productivity" selection process. This "sex drive" can often overcome any desire to be unproductive.
- Human relationships encourage production. Humans often thoroughly examine the productivity of associates through conversation. Unproductive humans are often either pressured to become productive or excluded from society.
Past attacks
- There are no known past attacks that did not involve skillfully combining it with other attacks. This attack is most useful in order to discourage existing victims from producing defense goods that would increase the cost of theft.
Expenses: High
- Because humans have a strong drive to produce, and the natural world reveals itself to need improvements (through death and disease), this attack requires great expense. The attacker must fund the "education" of the victims and must control the victims lives for a large period of their developmental years in order to be even moderately successful.
Obtaining a human to victimize is also extremely costly. Stealing a human child is at least as costly as damaging a human physically. If the attacker produces the victim through mating, his mate would defend the child and call upon the justice system for assistance.
Income: Low
- By producing a human that is not productive the attacker does not gain any goods.
Profitability: Unprofitable
- This attack is impractical on its own, highly expensive and produces no goods for the attacker.
No significant impact on mission
- There are no known instances of this attack being attempted. However, when skillfully combined with other attacks it can be effective.
Humans need to determine what goods they should produce at any given time. If they choose to produce goods that are not as in demand as goods they used as inputs they have actually been destructive. Even if they produce goods that are more valuable than the inputs, if they produce goods that are not as valuable as other goods they could have produced with the same inputs, they have, to some degree, failed. Therefore it is as critical for humans to be free to discover what goods to produce as it is for them to be free to produce goods.
Humans determine what goods are most needed through two primary mechanisms. Conversation and Prices.
Through conversation humans learn about the world around them, their fellow humans, and the needs of both. If conversation is hindered, and "free speech" becomes costly, humans will be unable to understand the information available through prices or obtain other knowledge required to be productive.
Humans have helpful instincts at birth, but require considerable conversation for those instincts to be directed into production.
Prices indicate the relative demand for goods. By looking at the prices of input goods and the prices of output goods humans can measure and maximize their productivity.
Prices are discovered through trade of goods between humans because prices are simply a ratio of goods used in past trades. In order for prices to be discovered humans must be able to trade their property with each other.
If an attacker could convince a human that conversation, property, trade and prices are not the most effective method for determining what goods to produce he could greatly reduce the production of that human.
Safety Features
- Human instincts for justice, based on property, are very strong.
- In order to learn, humans must engage in conversation. This predisposes them to allow it, because they directly benefit by learning how to avoid suffering.
Past attacks
- Adam and Eve steal from God.
- All other recorded examples of this attack have used a combination of attacks.
Expenses: High
- Although this attack is cheaper than attempting to convince a human that production is impossible, it remains very costly.
Because conversation is necessary in order to make the argument that conversation is impossible, humans naturally reject such a claim.
Trade and prices are a natural consequence of property and, as previously mentioned, humans are born with a strong sense of justice based on property.
Income: High
- If an attacker could convince the victims to abandon the concept of property and justice he could obtain their goods without cost, but this is probably impossible unless it is strategically combined with other attacks.
Profitability: Unprofitable
- This attack is impractical on its own.
No significant impact on mission
- There are no known instances of this attack being attempted. However, when skillfully combined with other attacks it can be effective.
Humans are rewarded with prestige and goods when they are productive. Prestige is achieved when other humans show approval for the efforts of the producer.
Humans are punished when they are destructive. If they are simply unproductive they destroy their own goods and become less impressive to their fellow humans. If they attack other humans property they are considered "criminals" and they are deprived of their own property in proportion to their crime.
If an attacker is able to remove a safety feature he could lower the cost of an attack to the point that an attack is rewarded more than production. This would be particularly damaging as it would result in ongoing systematic attacks.
Safety features
- Safety features that deter attacks are mutually reinforcing. Far example: if an attacker removed tools for defense he would also need to remove the justice system or those tools would be returned and the attacker punished. This makes it more difficult to remove a safety feature because you would need to remove most or all of them at once.
- Humans are highly adaptable and highly motivated to avoid attacks. They would invest nearly all of their creative capacity into restoring safety if it was removed.
- If the attack was successful and created a predatory environment the attacker himself would likely become a victim. This deters all wise actors.
- If the attack was successful it would cause agony and would greatly decrease the production of the humans. This would damage any attacker dependent on this production.
Past attacks
- There are no known past attacks. It is believed that it is impossible without skillfully combining it with other attacks.
Expenses: High
- The justice system would regard any attacker that attempts to remove a safety feature from human society as more deserving of punishment than an attacker that attempted to damage a human. This, combined with the fact that the attacker would need to deceive or coerce many victims simultaneously, makes this attack impractical on its own.
Income: Low
- Even if an attacker could find a way to remove a safety feature this would not, in itself, result in any goods for the attacker. Obviously this could naturally be combined with other attacks, but strategic attacks are covered in the next section.
Profitability: Unprofitable
- This attack is impractical on its own.
No significant impact on mission
- There are no known instances of this attack being attempted. However, when skillfully combined with other attacks it can be effective.
If an attacker was able to deceive a human into becoming an attacker he would successfully remove the productive capacity of both the new attacker, because he is focused on destructive acts, and the new attackers victims, because they are being prevented from producing effectively.
Safety features
- All of the safety features that apply to the specific attack attempted by the new attacker apply. For example if the newly created attacker attempted "to damage a human" all of the associated safety features in that section would apply.
- Humans instinctively want to produce and they suffer emotionally when they do not because they are occupied attacking others.
- Humans instinctively want to protect rather than harm other humans. Predatory activities usually results in anguish for the attacker that can cause irreparable damage. This is a plausible explanation for some of the mental anguish of soldiers.
Past attacks
- There are no known past attacks because it is impossible without skillfully combining it with other attacks.
Expenses: High
- The justice system would regard any attacker that attempts to convince a human to attack as more deserving of punishment than an attacker that attempted to damage a human directly.
Income: Low
- Even if an attacker could find a way to convince a human to become an attacker, this would not, in itself, result in any goods for the attacker. Strategic attacks are covered in the next section.
Profitability: Unprofitable
- This attack is impractical on its own.
No significant impact on mission
- There are no known instances of this attack being attempted. However, when skillfully combined with other attacks it can be effective.
Strategic attacks use a crafty combination of attacks to be more effective. It is believed that all of these attacks are dependent on the profitability of "An attacker could take a humans goods."
Strategic attacks leverage this initial flaw in human safety features to amplify the profitability by reducing the costs and increasing the income from theft. This section will review a few of the most popular attacks throughout human history.
Socialist slavery is a combination of attacks that have proven to be profitable for attackers.
It deceives humans about the best way to make the world delightful (2.1), in order to convince them to remove safety features that deter attacks (3.1), and it even tricks humans into becoming attackers themselves (3.2). Ultimately the original attacker is rewarded with the ability to take the goods of the victims unhindered (1.2).
This attack is probably only possible if the attacker is already well funded through taxation slavery. It may also require that the taxation slavery leverages democracy in order to amplify its profitability.
Under Socialist Slavery (also called Communism and Fascism) the victims are told that the very concept of "private ownership" of goods has been eliminated. In this way the attackers claim that they are not stealing everything produced by the victim, but merely allocating resources more effectively. They claim this will better accomplish the mission of making the world delightful because everyone is treated equally. In reality the predators allocate the stolen resources for their own benefit and claim possession of the very bodies of the victims.
Past Attacks
- National Socialism, Germany, ~1932-45,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
- Communism, Russia, ~1917-91, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism_in_Russia
- Fascism, Italy, ~1922-45, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Fascism
Expenses
- Because resources are rapidly squandered predators are forced to create a steady stream of new victims. If they fail to deliver "fresh meat" the existing victims will kill the predators out of sheer desperation. To gain new victims predators must war with bystanders and this is expensive.
If the predators do manage to bring in enough additional victims they will still not be able to prevent a constantly decreasing standard of living. So even in the best case scenario victims are increasingly motivated to kill the predator.
Predators do assume some risk in attempting to gain power over a population, but they primarily use deception to obtain victims. This is far cheaper than kidnapping or purchasing victims from other predators.
Income
- As in racial slavery the very bodies of the victims are controlled by the predators. All goods produced are immediately owned by the predators.
This strategy of deception has proven more effective than racial slavery, where the predators attempt to convince victims that they are an inferior race of men. If victims' deception is increased, the productivity of victims increases and this increases the income of the attackers.
One indication of its deceptive power is the fact that it has been effectively used to steal from men performing skilled and creative labor, where racial slavery has only been effective in stealing from men engaged in unskilled labor. Presumably this is because it's easier to inflict violence when productivity drops in unskilled and uncreative tasks because productivity is easy to measure.
For example: if a victim reduces the number of mud bricks produced from 100 to 90 it is obvious production has dropped, but if a carpenter takes 8 or 9 days instead of 7 to produce a chest of drawers, it could be because the materials proved challenging, the tools needed additional care, or that the carpenter improved the quality.
However, the fact that victim productivity under socialist slavery compares favorably to the productivity of victims under racial slavery does not mean that it is not ultimately an attack on humanity's mission to produce a delightful world. Productivity is greatly hindered under socialist slavery.
In socialist slavery the key ruse, that there is a difference between ownership of a resource and the power to allocate that resource, is soon unmasked by by daily experience.
In the past the victims decided what goods they would acquire for their labor and how they would enjoy those goods. Now they see that "officials" decide what goods they will produce and how those goods will be enjoyed. The distinction between ownership, and the power to decide, is seen as a lie to even the most gullible.
This greatly decreases incentives to produce, and it greatly increases the incentives to participate in predation (as this is the only way to obtain goods). This creates a vicious cycle where victims continually become more effective predators and less effective producers.
This form of slavery also prevents good decision making. Good decisions require market prices and market prices require free exchange between owners.
To understand this, imagine you have a field that is suitable for wheat or corn. How do you decide what crop to produce? Under normal circumstances you can compare your costs for each crop to the expected sale price (based roughly on past prices) and you can grow the crop that will produce the greatest profit.
Let's assume you determine that corn is going to be more profitable. This could be because a disease has affected corn production on another continent. It could be because the first ethanol based engine was invented last week and insiders are buying corn futures. It could also be the result of increased labor cost after a dam broke and damaged a nearby town. It could be a million things or more, but in order to make the best decision for consumers you only need to know prices.
Now imagine that you are a socialist slave owner. You own the men. You own the fields. You own the corn, the wheat and all of the equipment. How will you decide if that particular field should grow corn or wheat? What is the ratio of demand between wheat and corn?
Your best option is to do a questionnaire and ask people how much corn and wheat they need this year. But since these people will not have to balance their desire for wheat with their desire for corn and milk their requests will not reflect the costs involved. If they knew that corn was 5 times more costly to produce would they have bothered to change their forms? How could they possibly know that it's 5 times more costly? And if everyone asks for more than is available how much will you deny them? Will you reduce the bakery and the airport's allocation of wheat by the same percentage? Who actually needs it more? What if they need a fixed ratio between milk and wheat because they are a bakery and without milk the wheat will be wasted? Will that appear as a footnote on the survey so that you know to reduce their request for milk automatically if you can't fill their full request for wheat? Maybe you should improve the forms and start over. And even before you would have collected the first forms, the data, as low quality as it is, would be outdated.
The reality is that all of this data is represented in the deceptively simple market price. Millions of people making trade-off decisions, millions of times a day, in real time, is summarized in the constantly fluctuating market price of a product. That is the very purpose of a price - to communicate and coordinate where resources are most needed in order to make the world more delightful.
By taking ownership of all of these goods the predator has gained the ability to use them for his pleasure, but he has destroyed the distributed decision making, reflected in market prices, essential for producing the things he wants to enjoy.
The socialist slave owner is like a child that steals a candy factory only to find that he is left eating granulated sugar and raw cocoa. https://mises.org/library/economic-calculation-socialist-commonwealth
This is why populations under socialist slavery only survive as long as they are able to consume previously created resources. The deception is temporary and predators can't make informed decisions. This greatly limits both the duration and amount the predators are able to steal from the victims and makes the overall productivity of victims low.
Profitability: Moderate
- While the portion of goods stolen from victims is as high as theoretically possible, the costs, combined with the inability to make reasonable decisions, makes socialism slavery a temporary venture with constantly decreasing returns.
In this way socialist slavery is like a Ponzi scheme. Predators that get in and out early profit greatly, but eventually the institution collapses and the remaining predators suffer along with the victims.
How bitcoin disrupts socialist slavery
- Bitcoin disables socialist slavery in three major ways. First, wealth stored in Bitcoin is very difficult to steal. Without the ability to steal the savings of victims, socialist slavery may not be possible.
Second, Bitcoin makes it safer to make black market exchanges. This allows victims to produce and trade goods without the predators knowledge. Imagine that Sally creates pants. She needs to purchase cloth and tools - this can now be done in secret. She needs to work to turn that cloth into the more valuable pants - easily done in secret. Finally, she needs to sell her finished pants to customers - this can now be done on the black market.
Of course the predator can still periodically rob Sally and it would be very hard for her to scale up production (factories are hard to hide). But, Bitcoin does make socialist slavery less profitable by making secret trades more efficient and safe.
Third, socialist slavery requires the deception of a large portion of the population (otherwise it would be even less profitable than racial slavery). In order to accomplish this deception a charismatic leader is required.
If a small number of potential victims realizes that this new leader is attempting to establish socialist slavery they could take advantage of a surprising mechanism enabled by anonymous gambling.
Getting Hitler to throw the game
- To illustrate this let's imagine that we live in Germany in 1932. Hitler is about to rise to power and it is clear to many that he intends to establish socialist slavery. But unlike the real 1932, let's assume Bitcoin is available and commonly used for anonymous gambling. Wealthy factory owners can be sure that Hitler will steal their stuff as soon as he can. In response they buy an insurance policy. Many of them place a bet that Hitler will become Chancellor before the end of the year.
At first this would seem like a foolish bet. Everyone can tell that he will become Chancellor, but this bet creates an unexpected incentive. Anyone in a position to prevent Hitler from becoming Chancellor could bet against these men and then take action to ensure the outcome - namely to ensure Hitler doesn't become Chancellor. Anyone with secrets about Hitler that would make his appointment less likely would be wise to share them after claiming the bet. Hitler himself might decide to take the bet, resign and become a painter. If the pot became large enough it would be irresistible to many people with special access.
While this is probably one of the strangest applications of private defense, it would be effective at preventing the establishment of socialist slavery. Its great advantage is that its only prerequisite is anonymous and public gambling.
If you can bet that evil will win, you can tempt it into throwing the game.
Any one of these effects created by Bitcoin could be enough to prevent the establishment of socialist slavery.
Sexual slavery is an abomination that takes advantage of situations where the justice system is not functional (3.1) and there are enough damaged humans that are willing to trade goods in order to damage other humans (1.1).
Under sexual slavery the attacker takes ownership of the victims body and rents it to degenerates that use it for sexual gratification.
Past Attacks
- Roman and Greek Empires, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slavery#Ancient
- United States Empire, Present day, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SEX-TRAFFICKING-San-Francisco-Is-A-Major-Center-2468554.php
Expenses
- This is probably the most objectionable form of predation to the normal human mind.
Victims are highly motivated to escape or kill the predator and many bystanders are willing to risk their own lives, or at least invest aggressively, in order to see the predator suffer justice.
Although predators often select geographies where other predators are willing to absorb some of the costs, the fact remains that, regardless of who pays the bills, the costs are very high.
Because of the similarities with racial slavery (where we have reliable historical data), it is reasonable to assume that most predators purchase victims from other predators and this represents a significant, upfront, investment.
Income
- As of this writing there are enough mentally underdeveloped, and financially capable, individuals to support a high market price for the opportunity to engage in this form of violence and depravity. It is particularly odious to call receiving sexual abuse "production," but it is labor (use of a person's body) and it does produce economic goods (sexual satisfaction).
Profitability: Moderate
- Although the income obtained from this form of slavery is high, the high costs greatly reduce the profitability.
Unfortunately this remains a form of slavery that is profitable in the modern, and economically developed, world.
How Bitcoin disrupts sexual slavery
- Because sexual slavery is so repulsive to the human mind, it is only possible when security services are completely inept.
And this only occurs, in wealthy countries at least, when security services are state monopolies funded through taxation and legal tender slavery. Bitcoin will disrupt both of these funding sources directly and they are addressed below.
Once people are free to hire security companies to perform the functions monopolized by the State, the quality will go up enough to make sexual slavery an unprofitable business by greatly increasing the costs of the predator.
To better understand this, let's start by looking at how pathetic our existing monopolized security services are today.
50 years ago about 9 people were arrested for every 10 murders. This might sound like OK results, but it isn't. Intelligent murderers, that made their crimes look like accidents or suicide, or that hid the body so that the victim is considered "missing" are not included in that number. Also, this is the number of murder cases that resulted in an arrest. The number of murder cases that resulted in a conviction are lower. The number is further skewed by the fact that many murder investigations are simply a matter of asking people at the scene what happened. This is partially because the average IQ of a murderer, especially one that gets arrested, is low. If you are not feeling good about the chances that a relatively smart person would be caught, you are about to feel worse. As of this writing, the number has dropped from 9 arrests to only 6 out of every 10 (known) murders.
Not enough budget maybe? New York city police spending is 4.89 Billion per year. There are less than 150 homicide investigations per year in New York city. That's over $30 million per investigation. Of course most of that money is spent on activities that are less important (like drug prohibition), but that's the point. Consumers are not getting what they want.
The average salary for a homicide detective is about the same as the manager at a Chik-fil-a. However, since we are operating outside the market, we really can't say if that is too high or two low. Our gut reaction is no more informed than the bureaucrats that set salaries and decide that this is the best way to spend 5 billion dollars.
But, through logic we can discover the fact that, unlike at Chik-fil-a the police will suffer financially if they become effective. Managers at Chik-fil-a receive bonuses based on the amount of chicken they sell. But Police officers get promoted when the police force grows larger. When the police ask the city for a increasing budgets, their best ally is a high crime rate. If they are more effective, they are punished with decreasing (or at best flat) budgets.
On the other hand they are financially rewarded if they can obtain money or goods by stealing them from citizens. This is called "civil asset forfeiture" in the USA. Is it surprising that the quality of homicide investigations have dropped and the amount of civil asset forfeiture has increased?
This doesn't mean that police officers are intentionally corrupt (although our aversion to this idea is probably more a result of public "schooling" than personal experience), but it does mean that they are rewarded when they do evil and punished when they do good. Should we expect positive results?
At best we should expect a system that is slow, ineffective and boring. If we can't kick our idea of the "selfless public servant" maybe we can at least acknowledge that this state of affairs would be demotivating to good men?
Over time we should also expect most good and capable men to leave the police force and find other work. Even a selfless and capable man must decide if he is going to sacrifice his family's financial well-being on behalf of strangers. And it isn't obvious that this holy man should choose strangers.
We should also expect policies that attempt to exclude smart and capable men, because when the good men leave to better care for their families and communities only the dregs remain in management. They are incentivized to protect their positions and reduce their labor by only hiring men that are either bad, or two dim to get frustrated and cause "management problems."
And this is exactly what we see. Police forces actually test for IQ to ensure they don't hire anyone intelligent. They openly admit that the ability to think clearly makes you a poor fit for the police force. http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Why doesn't Chik-fil-a need to exclude smart people from their employment? Because performance is rewarded in the market and punished in state monopolies.
It is always a challenge to imagine how thousands of entrepreneurs will problem solve in order to provide a good service at a good price, but if they can do it with food (arguably more essential to life than security services) we shouldn't be skeptical.
If I have been successful, at least in introducing some doubt that security services are the one magical exception where state monopolies provide better services than free competition, we can move onto discovering how Bitcoin will break the backs of these monopolies.
For a more detailed description of how police forces would be improved with competition see https://mises.org/blog/privatize-police
While the ideal way to improve security services, to the point that sexual slavery is no longer profitable, is through free, open, and legal competition, Bitcoin provides an odd mechanism that can work around state monopolies without a shift in public opinion.
Through anonymous gambling you can safely purchase and provide security services on the black market.
If you suspect someone of a crime you can bet that they did not commit the crime. Anyone with evidence that they did in fact commit the crime is incentivized to take the bet and then provide evidence of their guilt.
In the case of sexual slavery, anyone, including other degenerates, could anonymously profit by providing evidence of the crime.
If the state monopoly service still refuses to take appropriate action against the predator a bet could be placed that he will not be brought to justice.
This would incentivize individuals within the state monopoly to bring the predator to justice after taking the bet. Think of it as reverse corruption.
If you can bet that evil will win, you can tempt it to throw the game.
We don't need to catch everyone all the time. We simply need to increase the cost for the predator enough to make it too expensive to run as a business. Once racial slavery became unprofitable it was globally irradiated as an institution and Bitcoin will do the same thing to sexual slavery.
Prohibition slavery is a well selected combination of attacks. First the attacker convinces the victims that a human's body is not his own property (2.1) and that using violence against humans that do not attack others, but do make use of a specific good, is just and reasonable (3.1) This makes it easier for the attacker to take the goods of the sellers and buyers of that "prohibited" good (1.2).
Under prohibition slavery the attacker creates a "victimless crime," out of a popular activity such as drinking alcohol or using other drugs.
It is most effective if the activity is unpopular and seen as distasteful to the majority of the population because the predator will expend less effort in convincing bystanders that their actions are not worth preventing. And they may even gain unpaid enforcement labor in bystanders that find the activity objectionable.
After declaring an activity illegal the predator then catches the victim performing the activity and uses that as an excuse for extortion.
This has two effects. First, the predator is able to extract wealth from the victim through fines and penalties for engaging in the activity, and second, the predator has increased the cost of producing the popular good for everyone except himself. This is because any manufacturers of the good have the additional costs of avoiding being caught by the predator. Now the predator is able to provide the good, usually through intermediaries who provide "payoffs", at monopoly prices. Normally a monopoly is created when the predator announces that he is the only permitted supplier. In this case the predator announces that there are no permitted suppliers, but when the predator becomes a supplier, because he is the only one that doesn't need to fear enforcement, he has accomplished the same result; he has established himself as a monopoly. The only difference is in the deception offered as justification.
Prohibition slavery is often combined with taxation slavery where the costs to enforce the prohibition is used to justify greater theft through taxes.
Past Attacks
- US Alcohol Prohibition, 1920-33, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_in_the_United_States
- US War on Drugs, 1914-Present, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
Expenses
- The only significant costs involved are spent on ---preventing--- (excluding or prosecuting?) competing providers, but they can be extorted by taking their goods and then reselling them, or through fines; this is often a net profitable activity.
Although a marketing campaign is required to convince the bystanders that the activity should be prohibited, this cost can be mitigated by choosing an activity that some of the population already wants to prohibit.
This cost is far lower than the cost of acquiring victims by purchasing them from other attackers.
Income
- Productivity is relatively unaffected by this form of slavery as long as the activity is seen as optional by the victims.
Because the predator needs the violations to occur in order to sell the prohibited products he will focus his efforts on extorting competing providers rather than enforcing the prohibition on the victims themselves. This results in relatively little disruption for the "buyer only" victims and this is always the majority.
Because the predator must select an activity that is seen as optional in order to keep the costs low, the portion of goods stolen from the victim must remain low.
For a small percentage of the victims, the good may be addictive enough so that the predator gains a high portion of their productivity. This isn't ideal as it could result in higher costs for the predator (as in socialist slavery) but he can offset these costs by exaggerating the risks beyond all reason to justify increasing taxation. In fact if the claims are sufficiently absurd then legitimate sources of caution will be ignored by potential users and this could also encourage consumption of the prohibited good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMwxWHaZUro
Profitability: Moderate
- Because the costs are so low and the productivity of the victims is almost unaffected the profitability is pretty good even though most of the victims goods are not stolen.
How Bitcoin will disrupt prohibition slavery
- Like monopoly slavery, prohibition slavery is only possible if the predator is able to prevent competitors from providing the product or service. While most of the goods stolen in monopoly slavery are from monopoly prices, prohibition slavery bans a product so popular that the fines and penalties represent an additional revenue stream.
Both of these points of profit are disrupted by anonymous transactions enabled by Bitcoin. First, the predator will not be able to prevent competing providers. The "sting operation," where an agent of the predator pretends to be a peaceful buyer, is the preferred method to identify and violently shut down competition. However, if the transactions are anonymous the predator would be able to buy products from the competition, but he would not be able to "lay hands" upon the seller. Second, the predator will not be able to extort the buyers through fines and penalties for the same reason. Buyers will be able to buy from anyone, including the predator, without revealing their physical location, making the threat of violence from the predator impotent.
Taxation slavery redefines property (3.1) in such a way that allows for the attacker to steal their goods (1.2), because the attacker is providing a service that can't be provided if property is respected (2.1). Democratic elections are often added as an additional deception (2.1). The claim is made that if the theft is approved by a majority of individuals then all individuals have consented to the theft, and therefore it is no longer theft.
Under taxation slavery, instead of stealing all of the productive output of the victim, the predator steals a portion of the productive output of the victim - at regularly scheduled intervals.
The most common "service" provided by the attacker to justify this theft is defense services.
Past Attacks
- Italian American Mafia, 1931-Present, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Families
- Taxation in US, 1776-Present, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States
Expenses
- A high percentage of the victims, when combined with at least one full generation of indoctrination from youth, and democratic elections, believe themselves to be free. In fact they believe that although they are victims they are also equally predators because they enjoy the labor taken from others as they share in the spoils. As a result, they believe the distinction between victims and predators isn't applicable.
Of course there still remain true predators that are only victims in appearance, because they steal much more than is stolen from them. There also remain true victims, that are only predators in appearance, because they are stolen from much more than they steal, but the deception is effective.
This form of slavery allows the victim to enjoy significantly more material well-being as his productivity is increased. As a result it has proven effective at stealing from highly skilled and creative victims.
Because of this relatively high productivity of taxation slavery, the victims can be left with an ever increasing amount of goods while, at the same time, they support an ever increasing amount of goods stolen.
It should be observed that the victims do in fact enjoy greater freedom than in racial slavery. This reduces the effort required to deceive the victim because he is, in reality, victimized less.
Because the victims themselves also participate in predatory activities and see themselves as free, the inclination of bystanders to assist them is greatly reduced. Even if the victim was released from the clutches of the predator, he would return to his slavery. A bystander would not only need to rescue the body of the victim, but he would also need to rescue his mind from the idolatry of his youth - a much more difficult, if not impossible, task.
Bystanders may attempt to educate the victims, but this can be cheaply countered through censorship and ongoing indoctrination.
However, the deception is not so complete that individual victims, even if they believe the overall system is just, would not still retain their own goods if possible. They may vote for tax increases, but if they could get away without paying the tax themselves, most would find justification to do so.
In order for the predator to obtain the wealth produced by the victim he must be able to track the amount produced, to know how much to extort, and then intimidate the victim into handing over his goods.
This is very expensive. It requires that the predator track the production of the victim as well as his location even though he has a relatively high degree of autonomy. Once both the amount and location of the goods are known the predator must display enough force to make the victim believe that resistance would be futile.
This is also costly because the predator must maintain the appearance of "service to the public" in the very act of enforcing his theft. Large displays of violence would be the most cost effective means of intimidation, but would compromise the deception.
To solve this problem the predators often start by increasing the amount of goods to be stolen, in the form of fines and penalties, if the victim provides any resistance. If the victim still resists he is, after years of negotiation, placed in prison with other "criminals." Here he is often subjected to violence and sexual abuse, but the predator can claim this is incidental to their attempts to "serve the public good" and that they try to prevent such "abuses." This has the effect of providing a high degree of victim intimidation without compromising the deception that they are "public servants" and not predators.
Income
- The amount of income obtained through this attack is substantial. Most victims in the western world have more than half of their production stolen in this way.
Profitability: Moderate
- While the productivity of the victims is high, the predator must keep the percentage of his theft relatively low. If the percentage is raised high enough, this form of slavery, like monopoly slavery, becomes socialist slavery. The predator prefers to avoid this because taxation slavery is more profitable than socialist slavery.
This is because socialist slavery has significantly higher costs and significantly lower productivity than taxation slavery. These more than offset the fact that under socialist slavery the predator gains a larger percentage of the victims' wealth.
How Bitcoin disrupts taxation slavery
- Cash in general, and electronic cash in particular, greatly increases the costs of taxation slavery.
The costs of tracking income is increased when transactions are anonymous. Under taxation slavery the anonymous, or cash, payment price is less than the "in the open" payment method. This is because even though there is a cost associated with being caught, the incentive to avoid the theft is greater.
Many predators in the modern world have worked very hard to make cash transactions difficult, but bitcoin transactions are even more convenient and anonymous than cash.
This will create a vicious cycle. As predators find it more difficult to steal from victims they will also lose the resources to invest in enforcing rules that make taxation easier. For example regulations that encourage employee relationships and the associated payroll taxes, as opposed to subcontractor relationships, will be harder to enforce. This will lead to even less taxation.
Racial slavery is a combination of attacks against human productivity. The victims and bystanders are told that the victims are inferior and that allowing them to maintain their property, including their bodies (3.1), would actually slow human progress towards a delightful world (2.1, 3.2) in order to take all of the victims past and future goods (1.2).
Under Racial Slavery the victims bodies are treated as property that is owned by the attacker. By targeting an identifiable race of men the predators can claim that the victims are not fully human. Racial Slavery is not cost effective for skilled labor and, as a consequence, is no longer common in developed countries.
Expenses
- In this form of slavery the victims are aware that they are being stolen from. While it is true that predators attempt to convince the victims that this is a natural and appropriate relationship among superior and inferior creatures, the productivity of victims of racial slavery is very low.
Victims intentionally reduce their productivity by pretending to be less capable and intelligent.
Under racial slavery the victims are usually bought from a previous predator. This means that if the victim dies or escapes the new predator will suffer real financial loss.
Because of the obvious immorality involved, victims attempt to kill the predator in order to gain their freedom or out of a natural desire for justice. This is particularly a problem for first generation victims that have not been indoctrinated from youth.
Bystanders often attempt to aid the victims, but predators discourage this by dehumanizing the victims, through amplifying racial prejudices, and open displays of power and violence.
By coordinating with other predators in the same geographical area, these costs can be reduced, but they remain very high.
Income
- Because the predator has possession of the victims very body, he takes immediate and automatic possession of any goods produced.
It is also possible to sell the victim to new predators, in order to share the spoils without the need to wait for the goods to be produced.
Profitability: very low
- After the industrial revolution the market value of unskilled labor was significantly reduced. This, combined with the high expenses, made racial slavery unprofitable.
How Bitcoin disrupts racial slavery
- Racial slavery is already unprofitable, but Bitcoin will further increase wealth and decrease inequality, especially among the poor. This should increase the expenses of attackers and make racial slavery even more unprofitable.
Under monopoly slavery, the predator forces the victim to buy his products and services. This is accomplished by convincing some of the victims and bystanders that this product can't be provided any other way (2.1) and that it is not a violation of property to use violence to prevent competitors (3.1). The predator can then charge higher than market (monopoly prices). In effect this steals wealth from the victims with every purchase (1.2).
Expenses
- Because the victims are often effectively deceived, the motivation to kill the predator is low. Bystanders are also often deceived as long as the number of services monopolized remains relatively low.
Even the few that realize theft is occurring rarely associate it with the term "slavery" or the visceral response created by other forms of predation.
This is partially due to the subtlety of the theft and partially due to the fact that alternative services inevitably appear that are not seen as competitive to the predator until it is too late to convince the victims that the predator must take over.
As long as the monopolies are limited to a small number of services the productivity of the victims is not greatly impacted by the recurring theft.
This is especially true if the victims can be convinced that it is to their benefit that the services are provided by the predator because if competition was not prevented it would result in a bad outcome for the victim (such violence between competitors, higher prices or lower quality).
Because most of the victims are deceived into believing that the predators are actually providing them with benefits and not stealing from them, they willingly submit.
As a result, the predator may have some costs associated with deception campaigns, but nothing as costly as purchasing the victims from other attackers.
Income
- By creating monopolies for key products and services, such as defense, communication and education, a predator can steal a significant amount of the production of the victims. However, if the predator applies this technique to too many products and services, it becomes indistinguishable from socialist slavery and the cost increases accordingly. As a result, the most profitable option is to keep the portion of wealth stolen from victims low.
Profitability: medium
- Although the security and investment risk is low, the portion that can be stolen is also low. Additionally, the services monopolized are eventually replaced by alternatives and this is accelerated the more the monopoly price is raised above the market price. As a result, the overall profitability of this form of slavery is substantial but not as great as other forms of slavery.
How bitcoin will disrupt monopoly slavery
- In order to enforce monopoly slavery the predator must be able to prevent the victims from buying from competitors. Anonymous, digital transactions enabled by Bitcoin, greatly reduce the risks of secret exchanges making this more difficult to prevent.
Monopoly slavery also requires that the victims are vulnerable to violence. If they are not vulnerable, they will simply create and purchase competitive products and the predator will have no power to prevent it.
For this reason, monopoly slavery can't function if private security companies are allowed to exist. This is prevented by creating a security service (police) that will not defend the victims against this violence.
The establishment of a monopoly police force, as a prerequisite to other monopolies, is generally funded through taxation slavery. To see how Bitcoin disrupts taxation slavery see the applicable section of this paper.
Legal tender slavery is the most subtle and sophisticated form of slavery mankind has developed to date. In this scheme, the predator forces the victims to use his "money" for transactions. The money is an asset that can be easily produced by the predator. For example: paper or insecure electronic money are common choices. The deception varies, but it generally applies the justifications of monopoly slavery to the product of money (2.1). The attacker also claims that using violence to prevent the use of other money is not a crime (3.1).
Now the predator can profit in three major ways. First, he can print more money and use it in exchanges with victims to acquire goods. As more money is produced the value of the money held by victims is decreased. In other words the predator is able to steal the value of the savings of the victims without physical contact (1.2).
Second, the predator can use this newly printed money, to fund the acquisition of new victims through war (1.2). Legal tender slavery, is uniquely suited to support large immediate expenditures. All other forms of slavery require that the slave owner have a steady stream of income saved before being able to spend large amounts of money over a short time - a requirement for war. In this scheme the predator is able to print large amounts of money to fund his adventures immediately. As the value of money drops he can also tell the victims that it is a result of the disruption to the economy caused by war and not a result of the theft.
Third, the predator can manipulate investments made by victims. By increasing the money supply, he can deceive victims into making investments that they would otherwise avoid. And by decreasing the money supply he can deceive victims into avoiding profitable investments (1.2). This allows the predator to create a "boom and bust cycle" where investments are made aggressively and then aggressively abandoned. Because only the predator knows the exact timing, he is able to buy and sell assets knowing when they are about to increase and decrease in value.
Past Attacks
- As of this writing legal tender slavery is in effect on every square foot of the earth.
Expenses
- It is only possible to implement this scheme after the predator has relative control of a population of victims, so those startup costs are not included.
The primary costs in this scheme are in preventing competing money and preventing counterfeiting. Competing money is prevented because all creditors are forced to accept payment in the predator's money. Debtors wishing to use up the least valuable money, when paying debts, would use the predator's money and save the competing money. As long as the predator steals enough to keep his money increasingly worthless, debtors will act as his enforcement agents for no cost.
Although counterfeiting is always easy, because otherwise it would also be costly for the predator to produce more money, as long as the amount of counterfeiting is much less than the amount produced by the predator, it is not a significant disruption. This is easily achieved by monopolizing the banking system and ensuring that the money is bulky and difficult to hide in large quantities.
Because this scheme can only be implemented upon an already captive population of victims, the investment costs are very low. A good analogy for this scheme is "up selling." This scheme can't be implemented upon new victims, but once a predator has a population under racial or taxation slavery, this scheme can be stacked on top without significant cost.
Income
- Although the amount stolen by directly printing money is usually limited to about 2-8% per year of the total money in circulation (called inflation by predators), this is in addition to the savings that would be enjoyed as a result of innovation.
For example if a hammer is $20 in 1995, the same hammer might only be $17 in 1996 because the cost of production is reduced through robotics, better software, improved material science knowledge, etc. In reality the predator will print and take additional money until the hammer is actually
And this is only profit from the most direct and obvious revenue stream enabled by this scheme. In the second revenue stream he is able to acquire new victims until he faces a predator that is also well funded through legal tender slavery. So until that occurs, he is able to compound his profits by acquiring new victims. And when a war does occur that is difficult to win, the predator can greatly increase the portion acquired through taxation slavery using the war as justification.
Finally he is able to make immense entrepreneurial profits, by manipulating the economy as a whole, through control of the "money supply."
Also, because this scheme is complex, most victims are completely unaware of its operation. They believe that "animal spirits" or some other manifestation of their own corrupt nature is responsible for their misfortune. As a result they work much harder to increase their production in a vain attempt to maintain their quality of life.
Profitability: high
- Because the costs are so low, and this scheme offers multiple significant streams of income, the profitability is high.
However, even in this scheme the slave owner is poorer, when properly defined, than if he did not engage in the attack.
This is for two reasons. First, the human creature is not designed to consume it's fellow man. When it is engaging in any form of cannibalism it is, by definition, abnormal and neurotic. While it is consuming the productivity of others it is unable to "enjoy" it properly. As an ancient proverb says "Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel."
Second, the predator doesn't even enjoy more material prosperity, because he has slowed humanity's progress towards making the world delightful. In highly developed economies, an attacker with the intelligence and energy required to be effective could easily obtain more property than he could consume without theft. Further, by disrupting the peaceful investment of others, he prevents the creation of goods he could enjoy.
For example, imagine that you are the dictator of an entire planet. You have so much leisure that it is actually pleasurable to do manual labor (carpentry, rowing, etc). You have never had to consider the cost of any food you desire. You live in a house so big that there are rooms you've never used. You may be wise enough you enjoy a healthy relationship, but you can certainly afford any consensual perversion you desire.
Now, because you have become the planet dictator, it is obvious you could have obtained all of these things without being a predator. In fact you could have obtained all of these things by doing less inhumane work without the need to steal.
And here is the worst part: someday you, and everyone you care about, are likely to die from a disease that would have been cured in a world where productive men were allowed to work in peace.
For this reason, and many others, even the most profitable forms of slavery will only be executed by men with impaired and underdeveloped minds.
How bitcoin will disrupt legal tender slavery
- Bitcoin will break the legal tender monopolies because it is not bulky to transport in large amounts. As a result, it is not dependent on approval from the predator, through border checks or the banking monopoly, for transfer to and between victims.
The first effect of this will be to reduce the amount of legal tender kept in savings. Bitcoin, by providing a store of value that is difficult to steal and has no storage costs, provides a better alternative. And since it is likely to become money in the future, victims will be rewarded with significant gains for investing in bitcoin. This reduces the predator's ability to steal from victims by printing more money as the overall market value of predator's money is reduced.
Second, Bitcoin will compete with the predator's money as a medium of exchange. Once a large quantity of victims become investors, it will be natural for them to use bitcoin itself for any immediate exchanges. However, at this stage, and for exchanges that involve contracts and debt, the debtor will still chose to pay in the less valuable legal tender.
Finally, Bitcoin will enable private security that will not recognize the predator's money as a required, or even legitimate, means of paying debts. If a contract specifies payment in Bitcoin, any security provider, other than the predator, would recognize the contract as written.