>At 10:51 AM +0100 8/1/00, Ken Brown wrote:
>>
>> > The Times
>>> July 31 2000 BRITAIN
>>>
>> > Ministers told to plan for e-nightmare
>>....
>> > In one of them, called "Gangland", a failure by Government to secure
>>> electronic
>>> transactions leads to the nation being held to ransom by hackers. Society
>>> reaches the verge of meltdown as a bankrupt Government is unable
>>>to pay for
>>> public services. With gangsters running the electronic economy, people
>>> return in
>>> desperation to an antiquated form of exchange - cash.
>
>One wonders how "gangsters" control an electronic medium where
>transactions are largely voluntary, where untraceability is
>possible, and where meatspace coercion is essentially impossible.
>(Perhaps those doing the study were of the belief--common amongst
>liberals--that Amazon is a 'coercive monopoly" which "forces" people
>to buy from them. Or that those who devised Mojo Nation will become
>the new underworld bosses.)
Simple. Anyone participating in such things is ipso facto a gangster.
>In short, the report is a mishmash of mutually contradictory situations.
Only from the perspective of someone who believes that people
should be free to make their own choices and live their lives as they
see fit. From the perspective of someone who feels that everyone
should be beholden to, and regulated by "society", it makes perfect
sense.
>
>As for the "meltdown" part, that part is true.
>
>Crypto anarchy means tens of millions of welfare breeders told to
>either go out and start doing something others will voluntarily pay
>money for, or to start starving. To paraphrase Red in "Shawshank,"
>"Get busy working, or get busy dying."
Let's hope so.
--
A quote from Petro's Archives: *******************************************
Today good taste is often erroneously rejected as old-fashioned because
ordinary man, seeking approval of his so-called personality, prefers to follow
the dictates of his own peculiar style rather than submit to any objective
criterion of taste.--Jan Tschichold
