From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 93 22:44:41 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: the GWELST Game
Message-ID: <9311290642.AA11110@longs.lance.colostate.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Hey, I have a neat new game that cypherpunks would be interested in.
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of material for anything but one or
two rounds. Maybe some other people can join in as the dealer after this round.

GWELST stands for Guess Which Eminent Leader Said This. One eminent
cypherpunk leader is the author of a quote I include here. Your
mission, if you choose to accept it, is to determine the originator. The quote is:

``There is no movement. Get this delusion out of your head. There is
only software.''

A few hints for you all. I was quite depressed and disoriented by this
quote at first. I thought, of course there is a movement! That's why
I'm here! That's what makes me interested in the Cypherpunks! Isn't a
NYT and Wired article an indication of a Movement? Aren't all the
people who post here indications of a Movement? Aren't the leaders
interested in promoting the Movement?

Actually, the answers to all these questions are quite contrary to what
you might think. It seems that the real cypherpunk agenda is to
*pretend* that there is a movement, and play it out like a movie in a
theatre for the audience, and fool them into thinking it is real. Many
still do! But this is like being convinced by one of those fake
Hollywood building facades, with empty nothingness behind it. The
leaders are interested in deceiving reporters like Markoff and Kelly,
NYT and Wired respectively, into thinking that the movie is real, that
real people are getting real things done.

Many of the people who post here are *not* real. Some of the most
`respected' ones are tentacles. And the audience is so dazzled by the
show that they continue to believe in the Movie despite that it has
ended and an usher is telling them to Leave! Many tentacles are dangled
before us by the Master Puppeteers themselves. The tentacles assault us
on the list and in our mail, sandwiched between real people. How can
one tell the difference? Most can't. So the fraud, the mockery, the
sham, the farce plays on.

So, even the leaders have some honesty in some moments. On rare
occasions of unguarded, uncharacteristically candid moments, they hint
that there the idea that there is a Movement is actually an elaborate
hoax. `There is no movement. Get this delusion out of your head. There
is only software.' That last sentence is a reference to the elaborate
movie-generating software that they run, that helps them project the
characters onto the screen with an amazing degree of realism and
verasimilitude. But the characters are not real people. Only after
attempting to interact with them like real people, can other real
people discover that they are fake. It is like an Eliza-Turing test.
Which email addresses are intelligent? Which are tentacles? Hint: The
tentacles are like robots that explode when asked a question they cannot answer. 

Interestingly, the individual A.Abraham, himself involved in the
Cypherpunk leadership, who posts as a2@ah.com (the infamous
Abraham-Hughes site), recently sent me mail along the same lines,
saying that `There is only software.' This is a fat clue for you in
this round of the GWELSTing Game! Answer will appear shortly!