From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 23:28:13 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: New mailing list?
In-Reply-To: <199403050033.QAA23619@net.bio.net>
Message-ID: <9403050719.AA06416@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


No offense, Michael, but you've made a Frequently Offered Suggestion.
I really should put the answer in a cron job.  The mailing list won't
be split.

>My proposal is pretty simple: splitting the list into cypherpunks-tech
>and cypherpunks-policy.  

This proposal has been put forward before.  No doubt it will be put
forward again.  But it's not going to happen.  I sound cranky, I know.

Let's be explicit.  The list is not going to be split because I don't
want it to be split.  By my fiat.  It's not fair and it's not
democratic and it's not going to change.

Cypherpunks is where the politics meets the code.  It is the interplay
between software design and political desire which is where the all
the good stuff happens.  Policy separated from development lags the
reality of deployment, and necessarily.  There's already a newsgroup
for this: talk.politics.crypto.  Technicality separated from sociality
is unaware and harbors deep-seated contradictions.  There's already a
newsgroup for this: sci.crypt.

Programmers implement culture, and cypherpunks write code.

I want each reader of these words to reflect on the phrase
"implementing culture".  If you do not realize the magnitude of this
principle and have some respect for its enormity, I would sincerely
suggest that your time would be better spent reading some political
philosophy and some technological history and pondering over your
desires, to make sure that you know them.

Eric