From: jkreznar@ininx.com (John E. Kreznar)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 94 03:51:34 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Cyberspatial governments?
In-Reply-To: <199408302123.RAA22479@walker.bwh.harvard.edu>
Message-ID: <9408310900.AA01946@ininx>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Adam Shostack <adam@bwh.harvard.edu> writes:

> Duncan writes:

> | (Might I suggest that we adopt the typographic convention of using an upper
> | case 'G' to spell Government when we are speaking of The Great Enemy and a
> | lower case 'g' to refer to things like self government or corporate
> | government or engine government.)

> 	As Eric likes to point out, the Government is not a huge,
> monolithic enemy.  It is a multitude of huge enemies.  If you think of
> it as a single entity, you will often miss the subtelties in its
> actions.  If you don't understand why your enemy is doing what they
> are doing, you will have trouble opposing it.

Right on.  And as Eric pointed out on May 14, ``Misallocation of
attention leads one down false trails.  Who has the excess brainpower
for that waste?''

> 	If you talk about the actions of specific agencies, such as
> the FCC, DEA, NSA, etc, you will see that much of their motivation
> comes from bureaucratic turf wars.

But their power comes from their clients --- the hundred million of
our ``friends and neighbors'' who plot and scheme to wield these
agencies on their behalf.

The agencies are just, well, agents.  Remove them and their principals
will immediately erect new ones in their place.  Who are their
principals?  They are legion: Every person who solicits their services
or even just gratuitously accepts their services.

> Seeing 'Government' as your great enemy is a damaging misnomer.

There's nothing wrong with Duncan's proposal to distinguish
``Government'' from ``government'', just so it's understood that
``Government'' includes most of the population.

> 	I'm not arguing *for* government here, I'm simply pointing out
> that seeing government as a monolith is like seeing any large entity
> as a monolith.  Its really made up of small parts that interact in
> strange & unpredicatble ways.

Yes.  We cannot afford to misperceive it if we hope to successfully
defend ourselves against it.

	John E. Kreznar		| Relations among people to be by
	jkreznar@ininx.com	| mutual consent, or not at all.

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