From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 93 10:29:21 PDT
To: CYPHERPUNKS@toad.com
Subject: Re: Net Regulation
Message-ID: <199310251724.AA09315@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


B >Let me illustrate by taking myself as an example. I'm reasonably
B >well connected networkwise and knowledgeable. I could decide to
B >become one of these Permanent Tourists. But where would I go?
B >
B >What will be my concerns? Obviously, money will be one of them.
B >But so also will be climate, people, activities I might not be
B >willing to do without, and on and on. Furthermore, other
B >governments are, almost without exception, more repressive than
B >the one I have.

The rest of the world has as wide (or wider) a range of climates as the 
US.  The people you will be interacting with are the same people as you do 
now on the nets.  I know some people have problems with expatting (to
coining a term) themselves because of homesickness.  Harry Browne couldn't
adjust to Switzerland and so moved to Walnut Creek, CA.  Not everyone is
like that though.  And the nets means that you can take your surroundings 
with you.  Particularly once we get a VR interface.  Besides, the nets 
mean that you will be able to *virtually* expat yourself and remain
physically in the US if you like while working "overseas."

B >than I am now. So I think that most Permanent Tourists would
B >likely stay right where they are, more or less. Certainly they'd
B >stay in the developed world, where most governments are willing to
B >cooperate to some extent in the attempt to collect revenues.

Few governments tax the overseas earnings of their own expats.  Any Brit 
who expats himself physically and works via the nets would have *no* UK 
tax liability to be busted for.  If this Brit was physically remaining 
temporarily in different countries as a Permanent Tourist (even the US) 
and working on the nets, he would have *no* income tax liability.  Just as 
if I spend 6 months in France "on vacation" while I write my latest novel 
and negotiate the screen rights to my previous novels over the phone, I 
may have "earned" $2 million in France but would have *no* French tax 
liability as well as no right to work in France.  That sort of activity is 
not considered "work in France."  The nets mean that more and more people 
(musicians, surgeons, lawyers etc.) will be able to work as writers have 
always done -- from anywhere, to anywhere.  No tax consequences.  

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

Governments are more likely to (as indeed they have already done) offer 
PTs special treatment to encourage them to hang their hat for a temporary 
basis.  This is sort of a reverse auction in which governments offer lower 
and lower taxes to snag the PTs who can go anywhere.  For example, you 
can't legally have a secret securities account or buy treasury bonds 
anonymously in the US but foreigners can.  A bank can acquire and hold 
T-Bonds for anonymous foreigners as long as it swears they are not 
Americans.  The Feds did this because they *need* anonymous foreign buyers 
for their debt instruments.  Why don't the Feds nuke any banks that try 
this.  They have the bomb after all?  Why, instead, do they explicitly 
allow this loophole by regulation?  They need the money.

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

There are already hundreds of thousands of American PTs living overseas.  
That was done under *old* technology.  61% of expat Americans don't file 
federal income tax forms even though they are required to do so whether or 
not they fall under the $70K exemption for overseas earned income.

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

The Government of the USSR went out of business.

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

I try and pay attention.  I just think that some over-romanticize the 
state by investing it with magic powers that it doesn't have.  Depending 
on your exact place of residence, you are more likely to be mugged by 
private parties than by the state.  

The technology doesn't strengthen the state, it weakens it.

Duncan Frissell    
--- WinQwk 2.0b#1165