From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 1996 05:30:17 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Hammill 1987 speech
In-Reply-To: <m0tXt3j-000952C@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <199601042043.MAA03161@netcom6.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



the Hammill 1987 speech is interesting and prescient but also contains
some of the subtle mind-biases and prejudices of rabid libertarians
that are easy for outsiders to spot. some day I might write a more
ambitious essay on this, but for now I'll list a few items and suggest some
counterclaims that will fry any libertarians brain. all these ideas
have analogues to cryptography which I'll elucidate as best I can.

1. weaponry is good in the hands of individuals, tyrannical in the hands
of the state.

the analogy is with the crossbow and other weapons. as a logical
consequence of these ideas, it seems libertarians
think that utopia could be achieved if everyone could build their own
backyard nukes. they are obsessed with the idea of "deterrence" which
is a fancy word for MAD feer, mutual assured destruction fear.

the analogy to cryptography is: cryptography is good in the hands 
of individuals, tyrannical in the hands of the state.

again the idea is that the stronger the cryptography available to the
individual, the better. however I don't want to get into any of the 
guns == crypto arguments..

2. the world is screwed up because governments have made it that way.

this is such a silly premise but vast masses have subscribed to it 
since the beginning of time. it's easy to say that any problem you have
with your finances or your pet poodle is the fault of the Government,
Big Business, or whatever. libertarians are especially clever in 
constantly inventing new terms, synonymous with "enemy" but not quite
so coarse and vulgar ("statist" is the current favorite epithet), 
to name their endless list of bogeymen who prevent them from 
supposedly achieving their full potential in life.

why is it that libertarians have not created their own state long ago,
but continue to stay in countries that they claim oppress them? I have
never heard a satisfactory response to this.  the real answer of course
is that the rabid libertarians will never find a system they like, they
will criticize anything that exists, and never work to find a better
alternative through constructive, positive means, but are happy to try
to sabotage whatever has been built by others in the name of some
noble and holy guerrilla war.

the analogy to crypto: any technology such as crypto that helps people avoid 
governments, and hide their dealings, promotes utopia. governments
are the root of all evil, and anything that destroys them destroys 
evil.

3. the government vs. the people dichotomy

endlessly, even in a system that is expressly designed to present this
polarization, libertarians subscribe to the idea of "us vs. them" in
every avenue of reality. this thinking is entirely the same as that
held by the NSA and cold war defense contractors. what's the difference?
none.  we have a system in which the designers said it was "of, by, and
for the people", but a libertarian cannot handle this unity, nor can
apparently any other citizen in the US that criticizes their government
as if it is something apart from themselves.

cryptography helps people preserve these illusions of separation.
there are people who are "in" and "out" and those "out" cannot read
your messages. what prevents leaks from "in" to "out"? libertarians
would like to have you believe they have solved this problem with 
technology. but it is not a technological problem. it is an issue
of trust, something that cannot be formalized or preserved by any
invention. but don't tell this to a libertarian, who has dedicated
his entire ideology to attempting to prove that one can actually
achieve human integrity & utopia through technology alone and
insisting that anything else is wholly superfluous.

4. egalitarianism: libertarians are always saying that we don't
have it and ranting about this injustice. 
but in their arguments, such as Hammill's, you will always find subtle 
arguments that they don't really want egalitarianism: some individuals should
have an "edge" with their technology over those who seek to oppress them.
they would be all for it if individuals had the capability to create
atom bombs but somehow governments did not. the philosophy is inherently
desiring inequality at its root.  the implication with crypto is that
governments should have to reveal everything but individuals can have 
total secrecy.


--

beware of someone who tells you that utopia cannot currently be realized
because

1. governments ("they") do not allow it for "us".
2. there are a lot of people preventing it from being realized, and we
have to *get*rid* of them first.
3. the correct technology does not yet exist. once it is invented, however,
all problems will be solved.

I'm not actually going to rebut any of these outright other than to
the degree I have, and point out that history is ample evidence they are
all false.  of course I don't expect any of the libertarians to understand
my points, but frankly I think I am going to enjoy watching obtuse and
angry flames for pushing the hot buttons.