From: Jane Jefferson <gotagun@liii.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 21:36:02 -0800 (PST)
To: toto@sk.sympatico.ca
Subject: Re: Dr. Vulis' social engineering experiment
In-Reply-To: <32E4477E.3F8B@sk.sympatico.ca>
Message-ID: <199701210535.AAA05654@oak.liii.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Also Sprach Toto:
> 
>   If what you say is true, then Dr. DV K's efforts are quite possibly 
> the most important issue being addressed in this conference, because
> behind free speech, lies the most important issue of all--when does
> it start, and when does it stop.

Exactly. 
 
>   The military-industrial complex proclaims this necessary for the
> purposes of state-security, and denies that it is used in order to keep 
> their 'sins' from being exposed. (If you believe this, then please 
> contact me by private email regarding an ocean-front property I have
> available in Tucson, AZ.  If you act quickly, I will throw in a set
> of the Amazing Ginzu Knives as an added bonus.)

The heart and soul of the problem is that "sin", "freedom", "good", 
and "evil" are abstract concepts which fluctuate from individual to 
individual. If Dr. Vulis is indeed an adjunct professor at Fordham 
University, I think that perhaps he has been hanging out and drinking
too many beers with my former philosophy professor Quentin Lauer. ;-7 

>    The crypto-cognizant citizen proclaims cryptographical ability as
> a means of empowering their rights of free speech.  The more intelligent
> of them recognize as misinformation the government's feeble claims that
> they cannot successfully investigate someone moving tons of illegal
> drugs into the country unless they have the capacity to eavesdrop on
> the private correspondences of 'all' of their citizens. (Which is the
> equivalent, in my mind, of claiming that AIDS cannot be held in check
> without knowing the details of all of the citizens sex-lives.)
 
Governments, however, are made up of the very same people who claim
to require these rights to privacy. Those people create, codify and 
enforce the laws. The problem is that the people who find themselves in 
this position of power are not always the most moral or concerned with 
the best interest of the majority. 

And fiendishly, it is the very chaos and anarchy and random chance 
espoused by proponents of the cypherpunk philosophy that allows these
people to gain this power, unchecked! 
 
Thus, the real problem ends up being not "how to control the government
so that the government doesn't control us", but "how to deal with the 
government when it goes into control-freak mode". That it will go into
such a mode is a given -- based on human nature and history. This is
a fundamental cycle of evolution and human behavior. We have to face
the fact that humans are predators, and as long as we are, the 
cycle of this behavior will continue. 

The human race has not evolved to such a point where privacy is not an
essential thing. If tomorrow everyone turned instantly telepathic and 
we all were capable of knowing each other's thoughts, you'd best believe
the suicide rate would be beyond belief. Buisnesses would instantly 
fail, countries would instantly be absorbed by other countries, many 
relationships based on love and trust would be destroyed. 

And during that time, the deadliest person alive - the toughest and 
the meanest, and the most effective in the face of all the chaos, would
not be the person who was capable of preserving their privacy. Rather,
it would be the one who was capable of surviving in it's complete 
absence. 

This is not to denigrate the efforts of the cypherpunks, but merely to
point out an area that they may not have thought of as a method to
battle the trend towards fascism. 

-- 
Marcus: "They'll try to kill you."         | "You won't see me in 
Xena: "Oh, I still have a few tricks       | front, but you can't 
       left up my sleeve...I don't         | leave me behind!" 
       have any sleeves!" -- Xena bloopers |                 -- YES