From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 94 18:17:47 PDT
To: unicorn@access.digex.net (Black Unicorn)
Subject: Does the List Have a Political Ideology?
In-Reply-To: <199404180000.AA21589@access1.digex.net>
Message-ID: <199404180118.SAA11504@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Black Unicorn writes:

...

> I feel this conversation, which facinates me, bears off of the cypherpunks
> topic.  Unless the voices calling for a more technical and a less
> political subject matter have waned, I think we should consider another
> forum.

Unfortunately, there are few other forums for this kind of discussion.
The Extropians list used to have this kind of discussion, though it
was mixed in with all kinds of other stuff--and I hear that list
currently has 80 subscribers (Harry or Ray can tell us the facts),
which is about 12% of what Cypherpunks has, so the discussion universe
may be too small for comfort.

Robin Hanson's "AltInst" list exists to discuss "alternative
institutions." "Libernet" is for the hard-core libertarians, though
most people I know can no longer stand to be on it.

A few other groups and mailing lists exist, also, but the problem is
that they're all "competing in the same memetic space." Most of the
groups are low-volume, so the discussions rarely take off.

But discussing politics here is not at all banned--how could it be?
Politics comes up a lot, including the Clipper debate and all the
recent discussions.

The "Cypherpunks write code" credo is related to the idea that
actually bringing on the future we want to see, via such things as
remailers, anonymity, digital cash (someday), etc., is more
important--and more interesting--than the usual political chatter
about whether the means of production belong to the ruling class or to
the working class, whether trees have legal standing, and whether gold
should be the basis of money. Blah blah, we've all heard this stuff
before.

But with the "ground truth" of strong crypto to keep us honest, to
keep us focussed, these political debates take on a new piquancy and a
new importance. Our debates about banking, national borders, extortion
markets, tax evasion, electronic democracies, and so on, have been
fairly useful.

So, Black Unicorn, where else will you find another group that has this mix
of folks, this combination of crypto expertise and political acumen?


> Personally I find the discussion of centralist issues in general important.
> It's the tie in to cryptography and the lack of a comprehensive list
> position on the political nexus with the technical that worries me.

A comprehensive list position? My views (which I call "crypto
anarchy") are well-known. Many others seem to agree with some or all
of the main points. Others don't. 

But how can 700+ folks on this list be expected to reach a consensus?

Furthermore, we have no voting, no leadership--except the "leadership
of the soapbox." No central lobbying office such as EFF, CPSR, and
other political action groups have. No funding. No treasury. No
nothing. Thus, it's unlikely we'll ever be like the EFF, issuing
position papers, lobbying Congress, sending out spokesmen to talk to
groups, and so on. We're more of an anarchy, appropriately enough.

And yet we serve a useful function, as borne out by the citations in
the press, the inclusion on mailing lists of CPSR, EFF, etc. It seems
to work pretty well.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."