From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 23 May 1997 04:05:03 +0800
To: Blanc <blancw@cnw.com>
Subject: Re: The Natives Are Getting Restless (was Wine Politics Again!)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19970522000739.00709ce0@cnw.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.970522173438.712A-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




> >    as for the great fairweather liberal bigot Blanc's passing it off 
> >    as tcm's drunken ramblings, I doubt it.  war is hell, and 
> >    "innocents" get wasted --but, a society at war has no innocents.  
> >    blow 'em all away.  scorched earth is inadequate; burnt earth is 
> >    more effective. if there are no prisoners, there are no 
> >    complainers.

> There are little battles raging on all around us, not only the fight for
> privacy-by-encryption which you all are aware of.   Some cpunks have stated
> that "society doesn't know or care what is happening".   Some of you all
> don't know the kinds of battles or other people/groups are having, either
> with government or with some opposing members of this same society.   

This is a clearly observable characteristic of this list, however, I 
think it is only to be expected. I`m sure a lot of cpunks care about 
other issues than privacy and civil rights, but people tend to follow the 
flow on a mailing list as in real life. Most people don`t feel 
"confortable" starting new threads, I know I often start new threads by 
making important points in other threads, however, I very rarely start a 
new thread from scratch, I don`t seem to be able to write well unless I 
am contradicting a point someone else has made. 

> How can one keep up with/contribute to all of these?    So many times, I
> will happen to read accounts of people who have got into trouble of some
> kind, or down on their luck (they lost their job and don't have skills,
> they need a heart transplant, they got jailed by mistake, the car
> dealership gave them a bum deal), and they decide that society  doesn't
> really know what is happening and complain that it is unsympathetic and
> lament "when will society wake up and realize that something needs to be
> done", etc..   Well, jeez, there's only so much time to spend on everybody
> else's problems. 

One of the main reasons societies degenerate into nanny state mentalities 
is because people spend too much time worrying about other peoples small 
and trivial problems ("there should be a law!").

> All these people with their problems would like everyone one else to be
> aware of their plight and sympathetic to their rights and to contribute to
> their cause, and get disturbed about being "marginalized".  As far as I'm
> concerned, everyone is "marginalized".   But people are behaving as
> expected:   the Waco religious group acted as expected, the BATF acted as
> expected; government employees behave as expected.   The cpunks, who know
> so much about government, in particular the NSA & certain luminaries
> related to privacy&encryption, should expect that things will go on as they
> do - even if they bomb D.C. out of existence.   And this is because,
> apparently,  people of this type & kind simply haven't evolved enough to
> expect anything different.

I don`t believe that this is the case. The sheeple will follow wherever 
"society" leads, if the US were to gradually evolve, or even change 
overnight through revolution, into a stable anarchy I don`t think most 
people would care. I observed in my last post that most people are too 
concerned with their own lives to worry about political and social issues 
in any great detail, most peoples involement goes about as far as 
watching CNN.

I don`t think it is so much a matter of evolution, it is simply 
education. People have been brainwashed into treating with fear and 
distrust people who do not share the views of the majority, indeed, 
people fear anyone who has any real views at all.
For an example of such brainwashing see the governments "drug education 
programs", most people who are against legalisation of drugs do not even 
know why they think drugs should be illegal, they have simply taken on a 
point of view the majority of people seem to share, maybe subconsciously 
to gain acceptance, more often because it just does not directly concern 
them and they do not care.
This brainwashing, and I will stay with the drug prohibition example 
because I believe it is a good one, is so pervasive and so powerful that 
if one were to ask someone who has never known a drug dealer to draw a 
picture of one, the result would likely be a young, black male who was 
carring a gun and appeared in a confrontational pose. Most people also 
don`t have the time or the interest to educate themselves about issues 
such as these, the government says drugs kill, so people think that 
anyone who uses the governments "nasty chemical of the year" (tm) is 
going to drop dead any minute. 

> Now, crypto was supposed to allow for the possibility of not having to deal
> with these people directly;  it was supposed to usher in the new
> technological era whereby one could "route around" and generally avoid
> messing with Government Mongers, from negotiating for the right to breathe
> on one's own Maintenance Schedule.   

I honestly believe this prediction has, to some extent, come about. 
Currently the technology may be limited, but on a forum such as this for 
example, I can post anonymously, or use a pseudonym, I can use digital 
signatures on my anonymous postings to accumulate reputation capital, I 
will, soon, be able to send you fully anonymous digital cash in payment 
for goods or information, often neither of us would need ever know the 
true identity of the other. 

Of course all of this offers little protection when your front door is 
kicked in by the thugs, but that is a property not of the technology but 
of humans. If I wanted to lead a totally untraceable and anonymous life I 
could travel around the place, my net persona would of course remain the 
same so I could continue to accumulate reputation capital regardless of 
my geographical location, I could pay for all my necessary transactions 
by cash, I could use false ID, false SSNs, false names etc. to withhold 
my true identity.

You only get out what you put in, if people expect technology to totally 
remove any responsibility for vigilance from them, then they are mislead. 
Technology can ease the burden, and allows one to keep the same virtual 
identity whilst moving around, it allows you to use anonymity yet gain 
reputation, the technology will evolve, and will eventually be so 
pervasive and powerful that it will result in the downfall of the 
government.

> Well, so much for an anarchic life of Independent Means.  I must say, from
> the posts I've been reading these past several days, I haven't seen very
> imaginative ideas for dealing with the problems which dull governments
> create.   

I can see why you might say this, but I must ask why we need imaginative 
ideas? - The old ones, involving guns and other weapons sound OK to me. 
If you really want imaginative ideas go ask Jim Bell, his carbon fibres 
idea was sure one I`d never heard of before.

> It is typical of dull governments that when pressed to the wall
> they resort to desperate, mediocre ways of dealing with problems - like
> obfuscation, exaggerated charges of evil intent, physical violence; all
> signs of a limited intellectual capacity for coming to terms with the facts
> of reality  (the problems they face as Protectors of Goodness & Justice
> (tm) ).   

Whether they choose to use such powers or not all governments are able to 
force their will on the people by use of force. Whether they use them or 
not the very act of posessing the powers is criminal in itself, as in 
doing so the government assumes a position of superiority over its people.

Of course, regardless of their initial form all governments eventually 
"evolve" into forces for repression and evil, it is the means by which 
they attempt to retain their position of power. 

The thought that a government, as a group of people who believe in their 
right to dictate to the people who happen to live in their part of the 
playground, could ever attempt to come to terms with it`s own downfall is 
incomprehensible, there is no such thing as permenant government, which 
seems to suggest that anarchy is more stable, as it is therefore the 
default condition approached by societies with governments.

> I would have expected newer, more creative ("evolved") ideas from
> scientists, mathematicians, physicists, computer-savvy members.   

This is true, I think most cypherpunks, myself included, tend to prefer 
sitting around chatting about ethical questions and blowing things up, 
than actually discussing specific ways to improve the situation.

Your style of discourse in your post suggests you believe that the most 
effective way to go about achieving a better society and a better form of 
government is the reform the present system.
I agree that this is probably the method most likely to get good results, 
but from an idealogical point of view I am unable to even contemplate 
advocating anything based on the present corrupt and evil system.  
To do so sends the wrong message to the people in power, it tells them we 
are "reasonable people", that we are willing to fight on their terms, 
sometimes radical statements and radical actions are the only way to go.

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"