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FiftyTwo comments on Open thread, August 5-11, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Assuming for the moment the magic of the death note prevents me researching and reverse engineering it in any way:
I'd research the people who's death is most likely to result in positive outcomes and kill them. Off the top of my head I'd go for current dictators and their immediate underlings. For example right now killing Robert Mugabe and the upper echelons of Zanu PF is probably the best thing that could happen to Zimbabwe (at time of writing he has just 'won' an election and the opposition are already mobilised, so a slight push is all that is really needed to collapse the regime).
Ideally, if I could ensure suitable anonymity protections I would publicly declare my intentions to have them killed in such a way that identifies me as the killer (e.g. send media outlets a statement with the exact time of targets death). Once my threats have be shown to be sufficiently reliable I will start making them conditional, giving myself the ultimate political blackmailing machine (e.g. if the international Red Cross does not have credible evidence within 30 days that all detention camps in North Korea have been closed and prisoners released, every member of the people's congress will die simultaneously). Assuming I can maintain my anonymity in the long run I would be able to do a significant amount of good.
What do you do if North Korea put's out a press release that they will nuke Seoul as a reprisal if you kill all members of the congress?
Take a big company like, say, goldman-sachs. Buy out of the money put options. Death-note the top three or four layers of management, simultaneously. Use the millions of dollars you have appropriated for whatever.
What do you tell the SEC when they asked you why you brought the options for Goldman Sachs?
Tell them the options were bought on the advice of a psychic reading. Or an Ouija board. Given that people know of the Death Note, they would suspect you to be the holder of the Death Note. Without that suspicion, it's just a massive coincidence.
Alternatively, buy the options as part of a hedge, or as part of a variety of out of the money put options, or as part of any other broad investment strategy. If you get hundred-to-one returns, if it's 5% of your portfolio then you still have five-to-one returns, which is plenty.
If we're happy to go full evil then killing world leaders is also a good way to disrupt the economy (see the sudden crash when a fake report of Obama being shot was released).
That's likely to cause more collateral damage than merely taking out the leadership of one company. Cost/benefit analysis and whatnot.
Gambling on sporting events is probably another good way to use the Death Note for making money. It's probably far more ethical. Does the Death Note work on horses? If so, then you can bet on longshots while sabotaging the favorites by killing horses.
LOL. That's a theme that is very well explored in fiction.
Hint: it's not as crystal clear as you think it is.
I agree with your conclusion that it is not crystal clear, but because the ends don't justify the means (for humans), and not by appealing to fictional evidence.