--- begin forwarded text
Status: RO From: Somebody To: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy" Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 22:57:28 -0500 Bob, Cruising the old RAH file.... A few days after I read your argument here, it hit me that the same was true of absentee ballots, and voting by mail. You get your ballot, give it to me, I fill it out and seal it in the envelope. I pay you the agreed price, you sign the seal in my presence, and I mail it. So then the question became, "What's so bad about a market for votes?" And if there's to be a market, why not an electronic one? It would at least ensure that a fair price was had by all. As it is, millions of the dead aren't getting their cut. <Somebody> ----- Original Message ----- From: "R. A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "e-gold list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Digital Bearer Settlement List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2002 4:06 PM Subject: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy" > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > (was Re: [dgc.chat] Re: [e-gold-list] Re: Thanks to Ragnar/Planetgold > and Stefan/TGC) > > At 12:53 PM +0200 on 8/10/02, Arik Schenkler wrote: > > > > Internet voting, IMHO, will bring true democracy rather than a > > representatives democracy. > > Well, that's just plain wrong. > > Go look up discussions on google about cryptographic protocols for > internet voting. It just ain't possible without the most strict, > obscene, biometric, draconian, "is a person", non-anonymous methods > you ever saw. Lions, tigers, and precious bodily fluids, boys and > girls. > > The point to democracy, in the industrial/agricultural political > sense, is one man, one vote. One *anonymous* vote. On the net, > paradoxically, that is completely impossible. Votes can be sold. If > you fix it so that you can't sell votes without forgoing your > identity -- and thus your freedom -- and physically showing up > somewhere to vote, or at least proving that you have a device that > identifies you as a voter in the most immediate terms possible, you > can sell your vote, anonymously, on the net, for whatever the market > will bear, and *that* person can *re*sell your vote, and so on, just > like it was voting rights to a share of stock. That bit of > cryptographic mobiosity is probably down at the semantic level of > consistency versus completeness. Somewhere, Goedel and Russell are > laughing. > > The net result, of course, of any kind of truly anonymous internet > voting, is anarchocapitalism, where people sell their voting control > over assets, including political "assets", over and over in secondary > markets, on a continuing basis, in real-time. No political small-d > democrat (or small-r republican, or small-l libertarian, whatever) > I've ever heard of would call that a "true" democracy. > > That particular prospect has anarchocapitalists, and > crypto-anarchists, out at the bar, buying both Herr Professor Goedel > and Lord Russell a beer or two... > > Cheers, > RAH > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: PGP 7.5 > > iQA/AwUBPVWANsPxH8jf3ohaEQLSXwCg7ohcz+ZCxGsX86HQSXFJHK3OOD8AoJAW > 8doH9VU+LyGdpZ4x6zmz74Bv > =G4Fp > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > -- > ----------------- > R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> > 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA > "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, > [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to > experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' > --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
