From: Bruce Baugh <bruce@aracnet.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 1996 07:39:18 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Some thoughts on the Chinese Net
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960219221817.006ce4a8@mail.aracnet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 02:44 PM 2/19/96 -0600, Alex Strasheim <cp@proust.suba.com> wrote:

>steady force towards liberalization.  Once Chineese society has coexisted
>with a vibrant black information market for a decade or two, making 
>things legal will probably seem sensible to most people -- no one will 
>expect the sky to fall if people are allowed to speak their minds.

I'd like to agree, but I'm afraid I can't. Notice that many years of
widespread use of currently illegal drugs in the US has not translated into
widespread willingness to say that the drugs should be legal. Nor has the
experience of decades of black markets turned into widespread Russian
willingness to allow a lot more freedom: what they call "profiteering" and
punish heavily is mostly what we call "wholesaling" and regard as an
essential part of mundane distribution.

Cognitive dissonance is really, really easy to come by, and hard to remove. 

-- 
Bruce Baugh
bruce@aracnet.com
http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce