capitalistchemist

The simplest form - ransomware - already exists. Your computer is infected and you receive a message to the effect of 'send 10 BTC to this address send an email to this address to receive unlock code'.

The more extreme - and worrying - form would be something like what Bumgardner proposed. If such technology is cheap, and if the idea proliferated I imagine it would have profound ramifications for digital anonymity. I worry that a society with good and cheap technology and the means to extort anonymously would necessarily become one of total information awareness.

I imagine that's true in most cases, but what about physical assets being extorted purely for profit?

Imagine I make a public statement 'if I don't receive 10 BTC by midnight a drone will set the building on fire'. It could have to be modified to make it harder to prevent the action, but I think you get the idea.

If someone is trying to get revenge, then digital identity likely shields you. But if one is just trying to harvest extortion money from a territory, who owns what could be irrelevant.

Does this turn the allegorical fields of extortable assets into a common where everyone tries to harvest as much as they can? This is compared to today where there is only one farmer who has incentive to not kill all the livestock. Would would that mean for society?

Hello David,

I've got a couple questions that are interrelated. What do you think the marginal cost curve for successful threats would look like? How is it related to reputation? And how are these related to coordination and communication capacity?

Quite understandable, it's a huge topic.

Would you have the time to have an email correspondence on this topic? I've got a lot of thoughts on it, and I'd love to see what you think of them.

And thanks for doing this AMA!