That's actually a better argument and not one that can be readily dismissed. Anyone who promises that AnCap will produce total non-violence is, of course, kidding themselves. The idea is to build a system where it is as difficult as possible to use violence or coercion to obtain power without enshrining the use of violence or coercion in the system in the first place.

Responding to an ACK with a SYN shows no respect for the rules of protocol.

FIN.

That reminds me of a common joke told about jet aircraft with two engines. If one engine fails, the other engine should remain operational long enough to get you all the way to the crash site.

ACK.

Right, but that's the *opposite* of the argument being made in this thread. The argument in this thread is that AnCap *directly* puts power in the hands of gangs. The idea that it puts power in someone else's hands and then gangs will counterbalance that is the exact opposite.

However, both arguments fail. The argument in this thread fails for the very reason you have rejected it and switched to the opposite argument. But the opposite argument also fails. Consider someone proposing a system that seems like it gives power to the right people. Would you reply: "Yes, your system does put the power in the hands of smart, honest people who will use it only for good and never for evil. Gangs will likely evolve to counter-balance that."

Not true. In a no recourse, you say to the other person, "Approve the 10 BTC to me and I'll send 8 of them back to you. Otherwise, you get nothing." There's every incentive to pull a scam, you might get money and you have nothing to lose.

If it raises the cost on the victim, that doesn't help.

I've yet to see a model that raises the cost on only the abuser and ensures that the abuser is not better off for having pulled the scam. Perhaps you know some combination of escrow rules and who pays when that I don't.

If by "organized gangs" you just mean groups of people that work together, well then yes.

Yes. The difference is that AnCap recognizes that those actions are illegitimate whereas other systems enshrine them with societal acceptance.

You could describe every government that way. Whether they will or won't have scruples isn't something you get to choose. The idea is to design a system so that there's as little incentive as possible to centralize and misuse power.

I try my best to make sure you get them, and that's all anyone can expect.

You mean that when you could have told me, everyone would have already known, right?

What would your schedule have been to have paid back those who would have lost money?

I'd post my favorite UDP joke, but I don't know whether you guys would get it.

Well, nothing except that the entire system is built on the notion that society exists primarily to effectively prohibit taking other people's property by force.

Yes, exactly.

The name "Barack Obama" is a pretty uncommon name. But if you saw a forum user with the name "Barack Obama", would you think it was the President? Obviously the forum user who picked it would know that the name "Don Shrents" was associated with Pirate. Nobody's saying it's a coincidence.

I don't see how that works. I guess I've never understood escrow. How do they deal with these cases (assume you're buying a video card):

1) Coins are sent. Package is sent and tracked. Recipient refuses package, saying he opened it in front of the delivery guy, it was empty and the delivery guy allowed him to refuse receipt even after he opened it. Sender says he got the package back and it was empty but that he shipped the video card. What does the escrow agent do? The shipper may have put the items in the package and the receiver removed them and then refused the package, in which case the coins should go back to the sender. But it's also possible the shipper shipped an empty box, in which case the coins should go back to the recipient.

2) Coins are sent. Package is sent and tracked. Recipient says item was not as described and mails it back to the sender. Sender says he received back an inferior item with a different serial number. What does the escrow agent do?

AnCap utterly rejects the legitimacy of using force to take what someone else has earned from them. It's the very opposite of organized crime. You're finding superficial trivial similarities, exaggerating them, and ignoring the substance.

Sure, but that's very, very stupid. Not to mention it's fraud.

He can, he just does not know how to. But I'm not going to help him because he's trying to defraud PayPal. PayPal did exactly what he tricked them into doing, and now he's trying to screw them for it.

No gift was ever sent. In order to "send a gift" you must intend to transfer it to the recipient for no compensation whatsoever. Legally, no donative intent = no gift.

"A gift, in the law of property, is the voluntary transfer of property from one person (the donor or grantor) to another (the donee or grantee) without full valuable consideration. In order for a gift to be legally effective, the donor must have intended to give the gift to the donee (donative intent), and the gift must actually be delivered to and accepted by the donee."

Here we have a transfer that the recipient knew was not a gift.

It wasn't a gift though. The buyer claimed it was a gift, but both the buyer and seller knew that this was a lie. To be a gift, the giver must have intended to transfer it to the recipient for no compensation -- this is called "donative intent". Since there was no donative intent, legally there was no gift. The transfer claiming to be a gift was fraudulent and can be reversed.

I agree, and then to some extent it's their fault there's all these robbers around. But the robbers can't use that excuse. That's my point. "How can you expect us not to be robbers, how can you blame us for robbing, when there's all these easy marks around?" That doesn't fly.

To some extent, he's also a victim -- ignoring the warnings that his business model couldn't possibly work just as his investors did.

Unfortunately, this is going to look like another "I told you so", but:

1) Many people pointed out that diversification wouldn't work because even lenders who had no direct BS&T holdings themselves may well have lent money to people who put it in BS&T and thus the loans would go bad if BS&T collapsed.

2) Many people pointed out that the business model was basically "Lend me $50,000. I'll go to Vegas, and if I win, we'll split the profits."

Yes, you were defrauded. But only because you closed your eyes, stuck your fingers in your ears, and shouted "LALALALALALALALA!".

(Not that this at all excuses the people who defrauded you, of course. If you walk through a bad neighborhood at night with $100 bills sticking out of your pockets and get robbed, you're an idiot for doing that. But a robber who robs people who do stupid things is no better than any other kind of robber.)