Declan wrote:
[Long list of mostly correct Cypherpunks history and Cypherpunks goals
elided]
> Some of the cypherpunkly goals have succeeded; online privacy is
> certainly
> all the rage. Yet the responses seem so, well, weak, like enonymous.com's
> quaint but seriously flawed rating scheme.
> (http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35587,00.html)
Not all Cypherpunks had the same goals. Some were attracted by the fact that
back then Cypherpunks was the only place on the Net crypto could be
discussed from a different perspective than the almost-pure-math perspective
of sci.crypt. Others were looking for tools to push back or at least delay
the growth of homicidal government. Still others were looking for tools on
how to slightly, but hopefully sufficiently, reduce the hideously large
mortality/mandatory "treatment" rate of a future armed guerilla operating in
an upcoming happy-fascist/socialist society, the development of which they
take for a given, second in certainty only to the sunrise in the morning.
I do believe, however, that many Cypherpunks subscribers achieved at least
some of the goals they had when first subscribing to this list. I know I
have.
> And now much of the focus is on corporate misbehavior, such as
> Doubleclick.
> At last week's CFP conference, everyone was nattering about how
> Big Brother
> is the corporation, or employer, or credit bureau
Yawn. This is to be expected from a "privacy" conference held in Canada or
Europe. Their societies have ceased to produce a significant percentage of
individuals that are capable (or willing) to realize just how little
freedoms they have left. The US isn't far behind. Perhaps a decade or two.
Some in the enlightened democracies used to blissfully point to absence of
crypto export laws and in some cases less-restrictive drug laws as an
indicator of supposedly higher freedom in their societies. All while the
majority of what they hear, read, can say, trade, carry, or do has been
tightly regulated from cradle to grave. But they like it that way. "Free"
healthcare and a right to an apartment included. Well-cared-for children in
an happy-fascist/socialist society.
> That's just a symptom of the increasing bureaucratization -- if
> that's even
> a word -- of the Net. We all know about Microsoft hiring Ralph Reed
> (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_709000/709254.stm) to
> lobby George Bush. That may be interesting for political types, but it's
> about as unremarkable from a cypherpunkly perspective as Netscape hiring
> Bob Dole as a spokescritter, as they did a few years back. James Glassman
> has written that "the environment that helped produce the
> high-tech boom --
> low regulation, low taxes, minimal government intervention and a
> low level
> of corporate rent-seeking -- is changing profoundly," and maybe
> he's right.
> (http://www.politechbot.com/p-01067.html)
In the early days of Cypherpunks, the Net existed under the radar of the
mass-murderers with their stockpiles of nukes and machine gun-toting "for
your protection" goons.
The children of course prefer to leave things to the goons. Having to think
about life-and-death, never mind pulling the trigger, a necessary
requirement for the upkeep of any civilization, is so non-bohemian, so
uncivilized, so American. Better leave it to those that are willing to think
those disquieting thoughts for you. As long as they are professionals. Those
that contemplate such disquieting matters as individuals are to be feared.
Or, as I've been told before by supporters of brotherly love, a civilized
(=non-US) society, and social justice, better yet should be shot.
The services of the professional thinkers naturally comes for a fee. A large
chunk of your income - and therefore of your time - plus most of the
freedoms your society had only a few decades ago will do just nicely for
compensation to keep your mind free of "uncivilized" thoughts. The goons are
grateful. Your mind stays pure. Everybody is happy. At least the conscience
remains clear if you let others do your killing for you. At least if you
don't think too deeply and thus can successfully and perpetually prevent
yourself from openly realizing that this is what you are doing. Which isn't
all that difficult if everybody around you does the same. The *isms are
dead, society has matured, we are all happy. Sieg Heil to the Third Reich!
Oops, I mean Third Way...
Now an enemy is of course still needed. How else can one explain the "evils"
of the world? The big corporations, tiny fly specks compared to big
government and their police and armies, the very existence of the
corporations a creation of the governments and subject to big government's
will, serve the purpose well.
> Tim wrote a few years back -- there's no date, but I'm guessing 1995
> -- "Untraceable digital cash is here. It will become easier to use and
> more established in the next several years."
> (http://www.privacyexchange.org/iss/confpro/cfpuntraceable.html) He may
> well turn out to be correct sometime in the future, but there's scant
> evidence of it so far.
>
> "It's going to be an exciting world," Tim wrote.
>
> Not yet.
Anonymous cash systems have not become as widely deployed as most of us
thought at the time. The blame for this is to be shared by DigiCash
management, the US government in the manifestations of software patents, and
the socialist-inspired approach not uncommon in European business of "we
know what is best for the market better than the market. The market will
come to see the error of its ways". So, yes, the window of opportunity for
the widespread use of anonymous Ecash has closed. But that doesn't have to
mean that the opportunity will be lost forever. Niche markets may still
develop. And of course chances are that there will be another round of
civilization using Ecash after the mandatory "anger and insensitivity
reducing" implants, the "bombings for peace", and the revolution have played
out their roles. It will probably take a while, though. None of us may be
around by then to watch it happen. But then, we might.
--Lucky
