From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 94 10:26:17 PDT
To: doug@OpenMind.com (Doug Cutrell)
Subject: Re: Crypto Anarchy and the Social Body (Meta Strong Crypto)
In-Reply-To: <aa99ae0f12021003d5bf@[198.211.130.8]>
Message-ID: <199409121725.KAA02972@netcom8.netcom.com>
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Doug Cutrell writes
>         CRYPTO ANARCHY AND THE SOCIAL BODY (META STRONG CRYPTO)
> ....
> 
> THE SOCIAL ORGANISM

The social organism does not exist.  If it did exist, and was
an organism then it would have goals and purposes.

If it had goals and purposes, then these goals would probably be
best served by prohibiting strong crypto, encouraging children
to rat on their parents, teaching a uniform ideology in
compulsory public schools, and forcibly dissolving families
and other private bonds and relationships.

> Strong crypto -- the tools of crypto anarchy -- represents a break in these
> primal functions upon which the social body is based. 

So why does the number one chimp spend a lot of time hanging out in
private with the number two chimp?  Why do male dolphins go off in
groups of two and three and do syncronized swimming games together?

The significance of strong crypto is that it allows us to interact
privately with the whole world, not that it allows us to interact
privately.

It allows us to interact privately on a large enough scale to
sustain a modern business and a modern economy.  We have always
been able to interact privately for a subsistence economy, which
is why medieval tax rates were so low.

(There is considerable disagreement as to what medieval tax rates
were, and it is difficult to distinguish between irregular robbery,
which was sometimes large, and regular taxes which were alway low,
but the large number of peasants required to support one man at
arms, indicates a modest tax rate)

It is impossible to predict what the outcome of crypto anarchy
will be because, as Hayek has pointed out, it is impossible
to predict the consequences of freedom.

The weakening of central control will probably mean that some
aspects of medieval and dark age society will recur, but at
a vastly higher standard of living and literacy.


-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we              James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.                jamesd@netcom.com