From: dsc@swcp.com (Dar Scott)
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 95 04:57:54 PDT
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@polaris.mindport.net>
Subject: Re: cryptography eliminates lawyers?
Message-ID: <v01510107ac7db81f6880@[198.59.115.127]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Black Unicorn wrote,
[snip]
>> We seem to be having problems with the meanings of words.  For example, I
>> make a distinction between certification and licensing.
>
>Which, as I have indicated, I see as a "distinction without a difference."

We're at a standoff here.

[snip]
>So you wouldn't consider the Hollywood blacklist coercive?
>What about revocation of tax free status?
Not as you describe it.  No.

[snip]
>
>> And I see a
>> big difference in a market based monopoly and a government based monopoly.
>>
>
>Which, I think, is your key error- particularly in the context of this
>licensing issue, where the difference is nearly invisible.
This is our standoff.

[snip
>I think your hangup is one of overdemonizing the state to the point where
>no other evils seem to exist.
Actually, I think that much coercion (as I used it) is outside the state.
I also believe there is much evil outside of coercion but that is probably
outside the scope of the topic.  I do admit that I am emphasizing coercion
and using that as the dividing line more than other types of evil.

[snip]
>  Though one might
>> think of physical force as applying to murder, kidnapping, slavery,
>> assault, robbery, physical theft, I would also apply it to theft or damage
>> of abstract property that has properties like physical property.  I intend
>> for these to apply to many actions of the state.
>
>I think you have failed to apply them to other organizations.  Again, I
>think you are over amoured with hating "the state."  Many organizations
>not affiliated with government do violence to abstract properties.

I refered to the physical force used by gangs to enforce neighborhood
rules.  After pondering this, I think this does not apply to my approach.
The state is brought up because it is the agent of coercion in licensing.

[snip]
>If I am a producer in a horizontal territory limitation agreement for
>sales of wigets, and bob is not, bob's attempt to move into my area and
>sell widgets will be met with a boycott by all the members of my
>agreement.  Is this any less coercion?  I understand the violence is
>fairly dramatic coercion, but it is hardly the only coercion.  Do you not
>consider the Clipper program coercion?
The first is not.  The Clipper program (as I understand it) is.  Remember,
my guideline is simple threat of physical harm.


>I suggest you take a look at Nozick, Coercion, in Philisophy, Science and
>Method  (S. Morgenbessed ed. 1969) or Zimmerman, Coervice Wage Offers, 10
>Phil & Pub. Aff. 121 (1981)  Also, see Kreimer, Allocational Sanctions:
>The Problem of Negative Rights in a Positive State, 132 U. Pa. L. Rev.
>1293 (1984).
I'll look for Nozick.

[snip]
>> >I guess the center of my question is, how can you apply Web of Trust to
>> >e.g. a university degree.  Who cares what Bob and Alice think my degree
>> >is in, the client only wants to know from the institution.
>>
>> It does not matter why people would trust a certifying entity.  It might
>> have a great earned reputation, it might "borrow" some reputation from
>> bonding or audits, or it might have ties to the Real World.
>
>Exactly, it must be tied to some kind of authority.  In this case, the
>issuing institution is about the only acceptable one.
>
>I stand by the contention that a University degree cannot be certified
>acceptably by an authority not in some way connected to the University.
I think such a certification is consistent with my desire for alack of
physical coercion in this.  I assume you'd be willing to let the market
prove this point.

[snip]
>You are using coercion in a different sense.  One of the definitions I
>get in Webster's (while force is incorporated in some others) is "to
>compel to do something by the use of power, intimidation or threats."
>
>If you perfer that I use "serious persuasion" instead, fine, but I think
>you are just splitting hairs.
I think there is a big difference between "I'm going to break your house
windows unless you give me $50" and "I'm going to stop delivering milk
unless you pay your $50 milk bill".

[snip]
>Do you believe it impossible/insignificant to manipulate behavior by
>persuasive means other than violence or the threat of actual physical
>violence?
No.  And for me there are cases when it would be wrong.  I won't comment on
when it is wrong for others, but in the alternate case that includes
violence or the threat, I will say it is wrong.

>> >Can't the multiple authorities set common
>> >or near common guidelines?  Rather, don't they HAVE to in order to have
>> >their signatures worth the electrons they are transmitted with?
>>
>> In general, No.  Under many conditions market forces make services alike,
>> but more often competing businesses find particular market niches.
>
>An example please?  With specific regard to certifing authorities and
>university degrees?
A BA and BS have become practically the same, but a BSET (tech) is very
different from a BSEE (engineer).

[snip]
>I still am having trouble understanding your definition of coercion.
[snip]
>> I see a big difference in withholding a signature and sending gunmen.
>> There is no violence in withholding a signature.
>
>There is no PHYSICAL violence, this I have admitted, but the economic
>violence of such an act can be significant.  It seems that for you the
>distinction is in the emotional effect of the application of persuasive
>force, rather than the effect.
Oh. You are right in the last part.  The distinction is NOT the effect.
Not the emotional effect either.  It is the ethics and pragmatics of
relying of a competition of ideas and not force.  To put it bluntly,
coercion (as I defined it: murder, theft, ...and the threat thereof) a sin.


[snip]
>Allowing emotion to cloud one's judgement of what is and is no coercive
>is a mistake.
Agreed.  I have clear guidelines.

>I believe that your defining the words merely to distinguish who the
>certifing authority is confusing- and deceptive.
The concepts of coercive methods and noncoercive methods are there
regardless of the words.  I prefer agents of the first over agents of the
latter.

[snip]
>[market monopolies are "softer" than government ones.]
[Agreed.]

[snip]
>The base requirement of a certification from an education institution
>(for which you have provided no substitute).
Let the market decide if there really is one.
>The existance of a floor, below which it is impractical to practice a
>profession and the existance of a set of entities (of whatever number)
>who's signatures are required to transcend this floor.
Let the market decide.

[snip]
>> Perhaps, I could have use the phrases "non-coercion-based" licensing and
>> "coercion-based" licensing, but I am not comfortable with these--trade
>> licensing invokes too violent of an image.
>
>I think this construction is still flawed.  I will remain by my position
>that licensing is useful when not used to collect taxes or
>otherwise overregulate.  I also hold that the distinctions you make
>between licensing and certification are without functional difference in
>effect and are deceptive in that they suggest a significant difference in
>effect or purpose where there is none.
>
The difference in effect is in emergent market optimization.  The
difference in purpose is ethical.

I have learned that you--and perhaps others--do not see an important
difference in these two styles of influencing behavior.  I see a major
difference and in thinking the difference was obvious was slow in
understanding your position.

Great.  You're already enjoying breakfast and I still have to go to bed.

Dar

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