From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 93 13:08:36 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Net Regulation
In-Reply-To: <199310241403.AA06468@panix.com>
Message-ID: <CFF1Is.BzJ@twwells.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <199310241403.AA06468@panix.com>,
Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> wrote:
: B >Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> wrote:
: B >:And don't tell me that we still have to live in the physical world.
: B >:If 90% of the GWP (including *almost all* the money) consists of
: B >:non-physical goods and services on the nets, government control over
: B >:the remaining 10% is not statistically significant.
: B >
: B >All too often, people look at one thing and imagine that the
: B >numbers somehow outweigh reality. It ain't like that, folks.
: B >Reality is complexly, intimately, and inseparately interconnected.
: B >No matter what you do with the bits, physical reality cannot be
: B >discounted.
:
: You also can't disount the physical realities confronting the state.

Oh, I don't disagree with your main thesis which, if I understand
it aright, amounts to that the state is pretty much obsolete and
is only taking its time realizing this. :-) I'm just trying to
point out that it is simply dangerous to imagine that bandying
about numbers that purport to show its insignificance will
actually make it so. Or, to put it another way, I mostly agree
with your statements and wish you wouldn't weaken them with
worthless supporting claims.

:                                                                       It
: is enormously difficult to control workers who can live anywhere on earth
: and work anywhere else.

Really? I'll tell you what: I'll give you 100% control over all
communications starting tomorrow and I'll take 100% control over
all food and water at the same time. I win. You *die*.

Simplistic and impossible, true, but the point remains. There is
always a physical reality and no matter who "insignificant" it
is, it can still kill you.

: B >"No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the back will always
: B >cramp his style."
:
: But who is more vulnerable to the knife.  Millions of "Permanent Tourists"
: living and working in cyberspace or a large nation state incapable of
: moving, hiding, or getting an honest job when markets turn against it.

The permanent tourists, of course. The state is, when all is
boiled down, an instrument of force and it functions most
"effectively" when it limits itself to that. I guarantee you that
if the US wanted to crack down on this stuff that it would be
gone. This year, a third of the prison population is from
drug-related "crimes"; if they got a bee in their bonnets, you
and I and a whole lot of other people could take their places.
(Not, mind you, that I think this'll happen. But it *could*.)

Yes, that could be prevented, but it won't be prevented by what
the cypherpunks are doing. Sooner or later, the bodies would have
to meet the bullets. That's the way of the world, alas.

: B >So, please, stop with the simplistic answers!
: B >
: B >(What *did* happen at Panix, eh? I rest my case.)
:
: Panix was down but my three other connections to the nets were up.  Panix
: had a security intrusion.

You missed the point. The net is embedded in the rest of reality
and that reality, in this case, *people*, had significant
deleterious effects on many others' ability to use the net. This
isn't going to change any time soon. Maybe in a couple of decades,
less if people stop pretending the real world is an irrelevancy.