From: Duncan Frissell <76630.3577@CompuServe.COM>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 93 13:13:32 PST
To: <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Wasted BAndwidth
Message-ID: <930305201210_76630.3577_EHL17-1@CompuServe.COM>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>They're not going to *care* that the last remailer on the chain (who
>will, presumably, be identifiable) wasn't responsible for the message
>which was sent.  They're just going to invade the building the
>remailing host is in, kill everyone in the room, and destroy the
>machine, and all the machines around it.  If they don't know which is
>the remailer, they'll just blow up the whole block.  They don't care
>
>I do not advocate censorship.  I advocate responsibility.
>
>                Marc

In another couple of years, the "remailers" will not be *in* buildings 
but running as distributed processes on machines from Anchorage to 
Wellington.  Hard to raid.  You will be able to set up your own 
communications server located "somewhere on the nets" to handle message 
forwarding to you.  Hard to raid a billion "processes".

This over romatization of government power and violence is peculiar to 
writers of technothrillers and certain libertarians.  You know who you 
are.  Government is good at point force.  It can bomb and raid fairly 
effectively.  This ability to put a mass of organized muscle in the field 
was decisive in earlier technological eras.  If you are fighting 
peasants bound to the soil or undisciplined barbarians, a Roman Square 
could prevail.  Government is less able to apply force on a widespread 
basis.  It depends on the respect, fear, or acquiescence of its 
subjects.  If those weaken or disappear governments weaken or disappear.

Markets apply "force" (incentives) across a wide front.  They do not 
require fear or acquiescence to survive.  They are self-enforcing.  Even 
commies know trade.

As we become stronger as individuals (I just spent a week's pay to buy 
more computing power (hardware) than existed on earth in 1955) we have 
less fear of (others) government and greater capabilities for self-
government.  

The "anarchy" debates are beside the point.  If the market is engaged in 
breaking down hierarchies, the government monopoly cannot stand either.  
King Canute cannot order back the sea.  Radical restructuring 
(peristroika) is on the march.  Strong individuals cannot avoid 
replacing "others government" with self government.  Others government 
is only stable when a monopoly institution can maintain control over 
information and force.  Information and force are becoming widely 
spread.  We are seeing the collapse of the coercion metaphor at least in 
its wholesale form.  

When people and markets turn away from the state, it disappears.  If its 
monopoly is broken, we will be in the realm of competing legal systems.

Duncan Frissell