I was also confused, but then I realized the key to understanding my position is how fine a needle Hanson is threading (emphasis mine):
my checkmate claim: we don’t have good strong consequential arguments for making gossiper-initiated blackmail offers illegal, relative to making gossip illegal or allowing all offers.
I despise gossip in general, and I am comfortable with strong norms against it up to and including violence. This clarifies the problem for me; I agree on the above basis.
In terms of analysis, I disagree sharply with ignoring the problem of blackmail via false information through the example of slander and libel laws. I always find these kinds of arguments disingenuous; even a casual inspection of publicly available information shows that slander and libel laws are virtually meaningless.
I have a question about this segment:
Most gossip is designed to help the person gossiping. One earns points for good gossip. One builds allies, shows value, has fun, shares important information. It might harm or help third parties. In some cases, the motivation will be to hurt someone else, but that is one of many possible reasons. Most information people tell to other people is motivated by a desire to be helpful, even if that desire is for selfish ends.
Here, the motivation is a desire to be harmful.
Why does profit not count as helping the blackmailer, but gossip counts as helping the gossiper? I would claim harm is the mechanism, not the motive.
That being said, Hanson doesn’t seem to disagree that blackmail is negative-sum. If I understand him correctly, he does argue that these negative sums will apply more heavily and consistently to elites rather than regular people, and so it will provide an equalizing force and incentivize elites to adhere to regular norms more closely. I haven’t seen this point addressed elsewhere. Naively I am skeptical, because the argument is that they have more ability to pay and so will be targeted more heavily, yet there is no shortage of scams that target regular people with limited ability to pay in other arenas. Arguably Equifax basically was such a thing in the 1970′s.
Elites may be targeted more, but they have more ability to pay off blackmailers. That’s a relative evasion of punishment… the payment has disutility for them, but not as much as a prison sentence...and if what they did was illegal, then it never comes to light. Plus legalised blackmailers would not ignore poorer targets, since they have less ability to retaliate.
Blackmail is poorly optimised for exposing wrongdoing by the rich and powerful compared to investigative journalism.
I was also confused, but then I realized the key to understanding my position is how fine a needle Hanson is threading (emphasis mine):
I despise gossip in general, and I am comfortable with strong norms against it up to and including violence. This clarifies the problem for me; I agree on the above basis.
In terms of analysis, I disagree sharply with ignoring the problem of blackmail via false information through the example of slander and libel laws. I always find these kinds of arguments disingenuous; even a casual inspection of publicly available information shows that slander and libel laws are virtually meaningless.
I have a question about this segment:
Why does profit not count as helping the blackmailer, but gossip counts as helping the gossiper? I would claim harm is the mechanism, not the motive.
That being said, Hanson doesn’t seem to disagree that blackmail is negative-sum. If I understand him correctly, he does argue that these negative sums will apply more heavily and consistently to elites rather than regular people, and so it will provide an equalizing force and incentivize elites to adhere to regular norms more closely. I haven’t seen this point addressed elsewhere. Naively I am skeptical, because the argument is that they have more ability to pay and so will be targeted more heavily, yet there is no shortage of scams that target regular people with limited ability to pay in other arenas. Arguably Equifax basically was such a thing in the 1970′s.
According to Trivers, 2⁄3 of communication is gossip. A world with strong norms against it would look very different to our own.
Elites may be targeted more, but they have more ability to pay off blackmailers. That’s a relative evasion of punishment… the payment has disutility for them, but not as much as a prison sentence...and if what they did was illegal, then it never comes to light. Plus legalised blackmailers would not ignore poorer targets, since they have less ability to retaliate.
Blackmail is poorly optimised for exposing wrongdoing by the rich and powerful compared to investigative journalism.