From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:27:39 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Gingrich, "crypto coalition" [*PURE* NOISE]
Message-ID: <199511130558.GAA12778@utopia.hacktic.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


VZNuri:

>  but my main point in writing was that I thought I would highlight this 
>  phrase given to us by A.Nonymous: the "crypto coalition".
>  or it might be called the "computer coalition". I think I see a few
>  faint glimmerings of a new political movement, potentially.
>  the recent Washington Times editorial on the Exon pornography law,
>  encryption, and the superiority of allowing people to develop tools
>  to screen what they don't want to so, could be considered a
>  portrayal of some of the key philosophies.

      I see <A> the flames of a bunch of brats with a lot of disposable
income, and <B> a sysop culture armed with buckets of water they'd rather
not use lest it short out their technocratic "ethics."

>  its very interesting to contemplate that the online crowd could become
>  a more well-organized political coalition that has influence in politics.
>  its clear to me this is happening weakly and informally at the moment.
>  (i.e. people on the internet having similar philosophies, hence voting
>  with the same aims, although not organizing to do so yet).
>  a key ingredient I see working against this:

      Point-and-click organizing and killfile absorption of discourse. Harrumph.

>  the "coalition" has a lot of libertarian sentiments, and libertarians
>  tend to be anti-government and almost disdainful of even participating
>  in politics.

      In GROUP politics. Libertarianism is recursively structured: "when
there's no gubmint" -- I ain't holding my breath -- they won't trust
themselves.

>  one might differentiate between cybernauts who are interested in reforming
>  our government and using the Net as a tool to do so, such as Jim Warren, and
>  people at the opposite end of the spectrum of "participation" such as
>  TCM, who seem to advocate that political battles be simply rejected
>  or ignored as irrelevant to the future of "cryptoanarchy". (although recent 
>  noises of his I quoted were distinctly uncharacteristic.)

      To paraquote one of my favorite lesbians, a meme is a meme is a meme
is a meme is a meme. The idea that memes will change the world is very
typical of our era, which is to say very naive. Warren works, TCM plays;
Warren works, and TCM -- who, it's abundantly clear, is brilliant in his
own way -- gambles: gambles that the memes he's "trademarked" might pan
out.

>  if anyone is going to have influence in politics, it would be the former
>  type. but at least in the places in cyberspace where I hang out, I tend
>  to see more of the latter type: extremist libertarians who almost seem
>  to suggest that government is inherently unclean and dirty, no matter
>  what form it takes. I think these are the types that would hate a
>  government and advocate disenfranchisement with it no matter what 
>  direction it took, even if a libertarian was
>  elected to a powerful office. (its an interesting question to contemplate).

      Not really: libbies would rather play a low-stakes game with their
own back yard than a high-stakes game with society, in which everyone is
in each others' back yard.

>  it seems to me to be largely a philosophy of alienation bordering
>  on nihilism.

      Yes. 

>  now, I have been trashed in public for this position before, but the
>  philosophy of "us vs. them" applied to government in my opinion is the
>  wrong paradigm and only contributing to the problems, imho. an organized
>  "cyberspace coalition" could have tremendous political power to the point
>  that all the key annoying laws (such as the Itar etc.) actually become
>  election issues brought into mainstream consciousness. the editorials
>  I have seen about the Exon amendment etc. are steps in those directions.

      Trashed *as a tentacle*.
      Crypto as a litmus test isn't interesting: crypto is a means to an
end. What is that end? For too many, it is "antigovernment" -- that is,
reactionary.

>  I've seen TCM argue on this list against this, such that we should just
>  give up on telling congress what is important to us etc.  it was a position
>  that was not unanimous, and in fact quite controversial however, and 
>  remarkably PM once argued against it. (heh. love the fireworks on this list.
>  they are quite unpredictable at times).

      Perry has grime under his fingernails. Perry works, works with other
people toward definable ends: Perry is, among other things, a craftsman.
And if I'm not mistaken, he lives in a place where he gets to see how many
people live, and how they live together; this is very different from
*choosing to* live where and how TCM does. (Is this a "scurrilous attack,"
in TCM's words? Or is it just the expression of an opinion? Dr. Fred may
be an oaf, but the *reaction* to him demonstrates just how stupid it is to
say anything that doesn't toe the line on *this* list, despite all the
I-and-thou mumbojumbo.)

>  I'm all for replacing a dysfunctional government. but people here seem
>  to advocate that this happens automatically when one has certain 
>  technology.

      "Replacing" is a participle: what is the agent? If the agent is an
individual, or an alienated mass of individuals, it will not be able to
replace the govt; if, OTOH, it's a mass of ORGANIZED individuals, it is no
longer libertarian.

>  there is a whole other approach to "cryptoanarchy" that no one here
>  has ever suggested, but which could be tremendously effective: "infiltrate"
>  political positions with people sympathetic to that philosophy, and work
>  to change the entire structure toward it. "infiltrate" is a scary word,
>  but IMHO nothing any different than demopublicans appointing demopublicans
>  to office would be going on.

      This is crypto-anarchy, with "crypto-" meaning what it does to most
of the pople who use it: X passing as Y, a crypto-fascist for example. And
"infiltrate" is nothing more than a fancy word for working within the
system, namely, reformism.

>  a very interesting, key quote by someone here went to the effect: "if
>  TCM is right, nothing the government does matters. if TCM is wrong, 
>  nothing we do matters". a fascinating psychological justification for
>  a sort of nihilism. but at the root of it is a kind of laziness and
>  hostility to organization or groups in any form, IMHO.

      Yes: this hostility to organization is an old thread in American
culture. Its usually associated with antiurbanism, anticosmopolitanism,
things like that, but most libbies I've ever met (which is a lot) are
mnore anti-control than pro-freedom. You do the math.

>  in fact the libertarian extremists here seem not only to hate government,
>  they seem to hate the whole idea of groups accomplishing things, about
>  the idea of groups coming to consensus. this is a quite remarkably
>  cynical ideology.

      Cynical? How about naive?

>  I'm going to make a prediction: I think the people who are interested
>  in organizing the "cyberspace coalition" are starting to come together
>  right now, and that over the long run, this entity will be far more
>  beneficial in advancing a better reality through cyberspatial technology
>  than all the people who advocate disillusion, antagonism, resentment, 
>  and nonparticipation in groups and government, to the point the latter 
>  approach will be generally discredited. in other words, we have a powerful 
>  system that can be changed from the inside instead of abandoning it. at the 
>  moment, I've not seen any proof that a dedicated group couldn't reform
it from
>  the inside, only a lot of cynical conventional wisdom that such a thing
>  is inherently impossible and useless to try.

      If you haven't seen any proof that it can't be reformed, then you
haven't looked at the piechart on the back of the 1040 booklet.

>  the comment I quoted displays the conventional wisdom on this list, 
>  that the encryption issue is "us vs. them", "people vs. the government",
>  etc.  what would A.Nonymous say if someone who was elected began to 
>  embrace the position that encryption is a right? I'm sure he would find
>  some new reason to be disillusioned with government. that's the position
>  of radical libertarians. no matter what form government takes, no matter
>  who is driving it, they hate it. 

      "Encryption is a right" reveals that crypto-libbies are honkey-man
analogs of PC creeps: everything is a right.

>  the first lesson for radical libertarians bordering on anarchists 
>  that love this list is not that Oppressive Government is  the problem, but 
>  that Government Is Always Bogus. a rather infantile philosophy that reminds
>  me of the way children defy authority or structure merely because it
>  is an authority or a structure, not because of any particular disagreements
>  they have with the underlying philosophy it expresses. (or rather, they
>  manufacture the disagreement with the philosophy as required, such that
>  the reasoning is, if an authority stands for [x], then I am against [x], and
>  against that authority).

      Yes.

>  and this is precisely the dysfunctional
>  philosophy to life I am referring to that I think will be discredited in 
>  the long run as intellectually vacuous and actual counterproductive to
>  any kind of progress.

      Yes.

>  from what I have seen of Gingrich, he might be a potential leader of this
>  kind of "computer coalition". he is the congressman who has taken stands
>  on encryption issues and other key cyberspace issues that seem to suggest
>  an internal awareness of constitutional rights superseding momentarily-
>  politically-fashionable government legislative whims. of course I'm
>  putting on my flameproof longjohns as I say that.

      Don't bother putting anything on. He's a tool, a chump to his own
megalomania: I'd love to see that pussy get elected. The moment someone
sneezed, he'd set up a howl louder than a cat with a firecracker up its
butt. He's just as snively as anyone else these days.