From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 93 23:08:46 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Net Regulation
In-Reply-To: <199310250215.AA03602@panix.com>
Message-ID: <CFFru9.HHH@twwells.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


In article <199310250215.AA03602@panix.com>,
Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> wrote:
: Permanent Tourists are outside US jurisdiction.

I think that's where we're disagreeing.

Let me illustrate by taking myself as an example. I'm reasonably
well connected networkwise and knowledgeable. I could decide to
become one of these Permanent Tourists. But where would I go?

What will be my concerns? Obviously, money will be one of them.
But so also will be climate, people, activities I might not be
willing to do without, and on and on. Furthermore, other
governments are, almost without exception, more repressive than
the one I have.

The bottom line is that I would probably not physically move if I
were to take my economic activities out of the awareness of the US
government. And even if I were to, odds are I would be less safe
than I am now. So I think that most Permanent Tourists would
likely stay right where they are, more or less. Certainly they'd
stay in the developed world, where most governments are willing to
cooperate to some extent in the attempt to collect revenues.

It is a sad fact that governments collectively possess the means
to physically regulate all of the desirable real-estate and most
are more willing than ours to use physical force to pursue their
ends. So Permanent Tourist or not, one can't really escape them.

Sooner or later, of course, this won't matter but, as I've said,
at least for the short term, it _does_.

: B >Yes, that could be prevented, but it won't be prevented by what
: B >the cypherpunks are doing. Sooner or later, the bodies would have
: B >to meet the bullets. That's the way of the world, alas.
:
: Actually, such problems are rare in the OECD countries.  Most enforcement
: here is indirect.  People obey because of fear not direct application of
: force.  Reduce the fear and you reduce the obedience.

Actually, I don't think that's true in the relatively civilized
countries. My understanding is that most people obey out of a
recognition of the legitimacy of government. But that's another
topic and not really germane to this list....

:                                                        The threat we
: represent is a bit to abstract to sell the government on an all-out
: campaign against us that would be difficult and expensive.  I don't think
: the Feds would "go to the mattresses" to fight us.

Not this year or even the next. But what happens when the
printing-press equivalents cease to stave off bankruptcy?

Movement of a sufficient fraction of economic activities outside
their ability to tax would certainly change the equation and give
them lots of incentive to start that all-out campaign....

: If the KGB and the Stasi couldn't prevail against the winds of
: institutional "rightsizing", what chance does one aging dyke have?

Lots. Because people never do seem to learn the lessons of
history, sigh. Not, mind you, that I think they'd "win" for long.
They, too, prefer to ignore history. But while they're attempting
to prevent the working of the laws of nature, a lot of people
will suffer. *More* will suffer if we don't pay attention to this
reality.