From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 1996 16:04:15 +0800
To: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
Subject: Re: CryptoAnarchy: What's wrong with this picture?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960427153644.3252A-100000@crl12.crl.com>
Message-ID: <199604300014.RAA15577@netcom3.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>The MODERN state is doomed and, thanks to technology, the people 
>have too much power to permit more "traditional" governments to
>control them.  States may not go quietly into that gentle night,
>their death throes may be very bloody, but go they will.

the question is of course, what will the "modern" state be 
replaced with? imagine a system in which everyone coordinates
their public or community projects via web pages, or groupware,
or the internet, or cyberspace, or something like that.
would this be a "government"? to cryptoanarchists, "government"
is a four-letter word, even though there may be other systems
that they embrace that effectively perform similar functions.

the cryptoanarchists tend to define government in weird ways
that most people don't agree with. "government is the entity
that collects taxes with the threat of force". "government
is the entity with a monopoly on force". "the only purpose
of government is to prevent people from hurting each other
and to protect private property". 

what amazes me is that many so-called "cryptoanarchists" are
committed to their communities and interested in the welfare
of their peers. when you formalize this, you have government.
granted, it often goes astray, but in my view our government
is out of control not because of the evil of politicians, but
because of the apathy and resignation of the public, which 
could have checked it before it got out of hand.

instead the attitude in this country is, "here is my tax money,
20% of my earnings. did I send you the right amount? are you
not going to audit me? good. then please leave me alone".

if the attitude were instead, "what the @#$^%^&* are you doing
with MY MONEY?!?!?" we would have had a different system. I
intend to write an essay on that here.

what I think everyone can believe is that our current system
is broken and it being replaced with something better is
fairly inevitable. but labelling the inevitable alternative
"anarchy" doesn't quite make sense to me nor do I think that
is really what some anarchists are advocating. small 
self-governed communities that are in themselves autonomous,
and aren't manipulated by an outside authority, is what most
people have in mind.