From: joburger@mail.evansville.net
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 21:16:13 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Filling Power Vacuums
Message-ID: <m0vuWxb-000eUIC@evansville.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> heh. perhaps "leadership" involves more than posting. perhaps there
> is a way to have "leadership" without hierarchy. perhaps "leadership"
> is not equivalent to "management". perhaps sometimes
> you win by losing, and lose by winning. perhaps water is so powerful
> because it is lower than all that which it flows around.

Could you explain the bit about having leadership w/o hierarchy.  Yes 
,if there is an informal leadership such as what Tim was refering to, 
then their is no heirarchy.  However, as soon as people get 
designated as 'leaders' or 'moderators' then one has to have heirechy 
in that no matter how the various pieces of a system are arranged, 
they have to be arranged somehow, even completely at random.

imho (which you seem to have so many of) you could spare the 
pseudo-Zen BS.

 
> <Now, of course, the message is being sent that Sandy Sandfort is in some
> <sense the de facto leader, being that he determines what traffic goes out
> <to the main list and what traffic gets bounced into the flames list. In
> <fact, I'll make a prediction: The media will see that he is the chief
> <censor and arbiter of worthiness and will increasingly contact him for the
> <Official Point of View on various items they are interested in.
> 
> timmy, why are you so upset about the media angle? why do you give the
> slightest damn what the media thinks? answer: because you want to be
> the one they call when they want to know what the cypherpunks think.
> you want them to pay attention to the cypherpunks. in short, you would
> like to have the glamor of a leader, without any of the responsibility.

I don't think he was suggesting this in the least, he is quite 
capable of defending himself.  I don't particularly like the idea of 
someone that I had no part in choosing being seen as representative 
of my views.


 
> I think you would be surprise at the realization that "leaders" exist
> in those so-called "anarchies"


Key word 'so-called'  An anarchie is usually a conceptual ideal that 
is never reached, sorta like a democracy.

> <I am resentful and suspicious of people who _do_ step into the
> <"power vacuum" to lead and control.
> <Now I grant you that Sandy's form of leadership and control is relatively
> 
> apparently in your brain, "lead" == "control"

Dosen't it though?  How else can one 'lead'.  Even if just by setting 
an example the leader is changing the follower's actions, e.g. 
controlling.  Granted the follower is volentarily submitting to this 
control, but it is control none the less.  Most other cases of hard 
leadership are not as nice.


Josh