I've discussed the idea of assassination markets -- as derived from e.g. Timothy C. May and Jim Bell -- before. The basic definition: An "assassination market" is a "prediction market" or "dead pool" for dates of death of particular people, with the winning bettor presumably having done the deed himself to collect the "reward" of the aggregate bets. Of course, May and Bell argue in their favor for the express purpose of killing force initiators or scaring them into ceasing their force initiation, rather than just for general "I want someone killed" purposes.
For obvious reasons, assassination markets are frowned upon by most, and especially by political governments and their hangers-on.
I woke up this morning with the basic idea for a variant that would certainly be hated by that specific group, but that might be less unattractive to the general public:
Why not such a market for the freeing -- other than by state-approved means -- of political prisoners?
For example, what if people could donate ("bet") on the freeing of Ross Ulbricht, in a way that allowed for the aggregate "bets" to be awarded to the person or persons who could prove they were the ones who busted him out of USP Tucson?
Perhaps the aggregate bets could be awarded to the prisoners themselves if they're freed by the state before someone else manages to free them, thus giving them start-up money to get back on with their lives.
Obviously the idea would need a lot of work to successfully implement (especially in a way resistant to the state being able to predict and thwart attempts to free its victims), and I'm not the guy with the l33t skillz to set such a thing up. But someone out there has those skills, and I hope it gets done.
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