[ExI] bitcoin used for nefarious purposes: was RE: quote for the day

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mar 24, 2016 8:09 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> It is really giving me heartburn: if the good guys can think of these
kinds of capers, the bad guys are thinking of ten times as many and ten
times worse.  My own imagination breaks down as soon as any crime gets to
physically harming the victim, for my mind just doesn’t go there.  But the
bad guys don’t reach any barrier at all at that point.

Actually, they kinda do, just not the barrier you're thinking of.

If you are competent enough to imagine the most vile crimes, you are also
competent enough to think through their most likely outcomes...including
the likelihood of actually achieving whatever end you seek if you use
nefarious means.  For the most complex schemes, this usually comes out
solidly in favor of using means that will not engender active opposition -
in other words, ones that nobody objects to, thus "good" (or at least
"neutral") for many definitions of that term.

Do you think suicide bombers would bother if they could foresee that the
result of their actions was not people kneeling in terror, but rather - as
it has been, for the most part - binding together even stronger to oppose
what the bomber sought to promote?  What about these ransomers, if they
really knew just how thoroughly even Bitcoin is traced?  Ask just about any
law enforcement officer and they can confirm, most criminals are of below
average ability to figure out how to live and work within society (a
specific application of intelligence).

In other words: the good guys can, on average, think of worse than the bad
guys for the same reason that they are the good guys.
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