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wedrifid comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong
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Blackmail is an interesting one. It probably depends somewhat on the nature of the blackmail and whether sex is the only option for payment provided. Since I approve of both blackmail and prostitution it would seem somewhat inconsistent of me to label a combination of the two to be either rape or immoral. But there is huge scope for abuse of power here and any abuse of power for the purpose of extracting sexual favours tends to be viscerally offensive to me.
My preferred solution here would be the same one that I would use for all instances of blackmail - strict legislation requiring contracts. Blackmail should be legal only if a contract is signed by both parties detailing what knowledge is being hidden permanently in exchange for what payment. Supplement this with extremely severe jail terms for any blackmail done without a contract and for any violation of the terms of the blackmail arrangement.
Note that here I refer to the the meaning of blackmail that excludes extortion - which is a whole different kind of moral issue whether it is in regards to money or sex.
I'm curious: if (hypothetically) I have a positive legal obligation to report a murder I witness to the authorities, is it legal under your preferred solution for me to instead enter into a blackmail contract with the murderer to hide that knowledge?
I don't have a preference within that hypothetical - it would depend on the circumstance and on what you were planning to do with the money. However if I knew about it I would proceed to blackmail you for the crime you committed.
I would prefer it if the legal system was not set up in that manner. It would be better if there was not a legal obligation to report a murder (which is ridiculously hard to enforce) and instead had a positive incentive to blackmail - assuming an efficient system for blackmail was in place.
(nods) That makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
How could a reasonable person be sure that the information would remain concealed? Not only is there the risk of accidental revelation (there've been many computer accidents along those lines), but blackmail information is more interesting and possibly more valuable than national security information, which cannot be said to be reliably secure.
There's no reason to store the actual knowledge - at least, only the person who wants it hidden needs to keep a copy. You make a document containing a description of the information to be concealed - both parties get a hash and only the blackmailee gets a copy of the document. Then you just store a hash in the contract, and if the contract is ever broken, then you show the original document to prove they are liable.
Presumably, the amount a reasonable person would be willing to pay me for concealing a certain piece of information would reflect their confidence in my ability to reliably conceal that information. It isn't guaranteed, of course, but we routinely sign contracts for delivery of service in nonguaranteed scenarios.
If a reasonable person is one that requires better information security than that used for national security information then I recommend they avoid situations pertaining to blackmail.
Thomblake described the sort of security protocol I had in mind.