From: Bianca <bianca@dev.null>
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 19:18:49 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: InfoWar 15 / The GeigerBurg Text
Message-ID: <3423A9F2.74F4@dev.null>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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                       The True Story of the InterNet
                                  Part III

                                   InfoWar

                  Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution

                     Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain

                        by TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>

Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing
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                          InfoWar Table of Contents

   * The Real Problem
     The Problem Within The Problem

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                              The Real Problem
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Subject: Re: Taxless society concerns
From: ? the Platypus {AKA David Formosa} <dformosa@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Reply-To: platypus@acmeonline.net
To: snow <snow@smoke.suba.com>
CC: Warpy <warpy@sekurity.org>, cypherpunks@toad.com
x-url: http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html

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On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, snow wrote:
[...]
> > How is such care going to be payed for?

> Well, if their family/children do it, they will pay necessary costs.
> Otherwise I guess they will just have to save up for it.

What about orfins? I dout thay would be able to save up money, what
about thouse whos emplyers where not willing to pay them more then what is
needed to live to the next week?

   * ~~
     Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia see the url in my
     header.
     Never trust a country with more peaple then sheep. ex-net.scum and
     proud
     You Say To People "Throw Off Your Chains" And They Make New Chains For
     Themselves? --Terry Pratchett

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The Real Guy didn't know why this particular post to the CypherPunks mailing
list had caught his eye. It was a pretty basic example of some of the
anarchist versus realist banter that was traded on the list from time to
time.

Perhaps what caught his eye was that this post was one of the dying remnants
of a fading civilization, and it was interspersed among a number of posts
aligning with a rapidly approaching future. This short, seemingly
inconsequential post to the CypherPunks list somehow appeared in his mind to
be representative of a problem that he had been working over in his mind
lately, trying to get a handle on it-to define it.
To define what he suspected was the real problem...

That's why he had changed his online persona from ? the Lunatic to "The Real
Guy." To remind himself of his new direction.
It was impossible, he knew, to define once and for all time, what the
ever-present, nefarious "problem" was. It was like the Tao, always flowing,
always changing. But he suspected that perhaps this, in itself, might
actually be the real problem.
Then again, perhaps not...since it didn't seem to be a problem for the
CypherPunks' Philosopher King; the one he called the Grouchy Old CypherPunk.

The King of Philosophical Grouchiness changed the signature-line in his
email as the problems facing society and the weathervane CypherPunks
changed.
Lately, he had been changing it with increasing frequency, and this made The
Real Guy very, very nervous. (He had watched a tornado forming one time,
from its very center, and its chief creative feature seemed to be, not the
particular direction the wind was changing to, but the increasing frequency
of the change.)

Perhaps The Real Guy was on the wrong track, here, giving so much thought to
what seemed to be just an everyday, normal post to a mailing list which had
no shortage of strange, lengthy rants about everything imaginable, no matter
how weird or far-out it may have been. He suspected, however, that the real
reason most people watched a television news program of the day, called '60
Minutes,' was because they were waiting to hear what the 'regular' guy had
to say. The Real Guy thought of him as a 'regular' guy, not because he was
on the show regularly, but because he was like real people; he was a 'real'
guy, himself.
The Regular Guy at the end of the program was always talking about real
problems that regular, everyday people experienced every single day of their
life.
He was kind of like a Grouchy Old CypherPunk who dealt with everyday stuff
instead of stuff that was going to change the world practically
overnight...maybe.

When The Real Guy read the post by snow and ? the Platypus, he couldn't help
but envision them still discussing who was responsible for the orphans far
into the future, right up to the point when the darkly clad, heavily armed
Storm Troopers broke down their doors and burst into their houses.
He could see them, in his mind's eye, and hear them, in his mind's ear, as
they politely asked the armed intruders who they thought would "take care of
the orfins" in an anarchist, taxless society. [Bang!] He could see them sink
slowly to their knees, in pain, holding their stomachs, as their blood
flowed rapidly out of their bodies, and they spoke the last words that would
inevitably prove to be the last words of a multitude of CypherPunks spread
across the face of the globe as the forces of fascist dictatorships hunted
them down and deleted their signature files upon this celestial orb: "Then I
guess that a blow-job is completely out of the question....aaarrrrggghhh!"
<thud>

The Real Guy shook himself out of his reverie and realized that Dimitri
Vulis' evil influence on him had perhaps been more than he had previously
thought.
Turning back to the task at hand, he thought about the many definitions of
the problem, (AKA the real problem) that he had come across, over the course
of his lifetime, and how each of them may have been appropriate for the time
and circumstances to which they were meant to apply.
Perhaps the eternal problem had to do with addressing the latest, greatest
version of the real problem, whatever that might be. There was no doubt that
the Dark Forces had their minions creating new, improved problems at an
increasingly fast rate as the end of the millennium approached. As well,
their human compatriots had mastered the art of devising systems which
ensured that by the time any specific 'problem' had traveled through the
government and societal systems of laws, regulations and mores, that any
'solution' reached would be long outdated and meaningless.

Subject: Re: politics aren't all or nothing (fwd)
From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)

Tim May wrote:
> Democracy is the problem, not the solution.

A democracy which doesn't respect its limits of power is the problem. This
has always been the problem with all forms of governments and will continue
to be the problem with all forms of government (even anarchy).

People are people, people are strange; it isn't a question of technology [1]
or time.
[1] Governments are a form of technology.

The solution is people taking more direct and immediate action in the first
person. Always has been, always will be.
Irrespective of all the spin-doctor protestations to the contrary not
withstanding.

Governments are governed by the 3 laws of thermodynamics just like
everything else:
You can't get ahead
You can't break even
You can't quit the game

The failing with the founding fathers is that there were not enough
amendments in the Bill of Rights explicitly listing citizen rights and
federal duties and limits in the first place. THAT is the problem with
our government today: even the harshest critics of their day trusted a
federal government too much.
__________________________________________________

|_________________________________________________ |
| The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there___|
| be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.___ |
|_________________ -Alan Greenspan-__________________ |
| ______The Armadillo Group__________________________|
| ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA_____________________________|
| /:'///// ``::>/|/ http:// www.ssz.com/ ______________________|
| .', |||| `/( e\__________________________________________|
| -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate___________________ |
| ravage@ssz.com____________________________________|
| 512-451-7087______________________________________|
|__________________________________________________|

The Real Guy thought about Choate's statement: "The solution is people
taking more direct and immediate action in the first person."
He had no doubt that Choate's definition of the real problem ("with our
government today") was no more right nor wrong than many of the other
definitions proffered on the CypherPunks list, as well as throughout
history, but he sensed that perhaps Choate's stated 'solution' came
startlingly close to what would ultimately prove to be the real solution to
the troubles that were rapidly swamping the ship of freedom in this era of
human and societal evolution.

Which led to 'the problem within the problem.'

And The Real Guy had no idea what that was...

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                       The Problem Within The Problem
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"To him who does what within him lies, God will not deny his grace."
- Saint Thomas Aquinas

Bubba Rom Dos brought the quote to the screen, pleased with himself for
having provided the solution to The Real Guy's question.

"That is the 'problem within the problem?'" Alexis asked the grizzled sage,
looking puzzled.

"No, no. Of course not, my dear.
"That," he said, pointing to the quote, "is the 'solution within the
solution.'"

The Cowboy laughed loudly at this statement, turning to Bubba and
suggesting, "You've been watching the Steve Allen TV shows again, haven't
you, Bubba?"
He turned to the others, to explain his veiled reference. "Steve Allen was a
kind of early TV Taoist who had a way of turning things on their ear, as the
saying was back then. While some TV shows would give the answers to
questions sent in by their viewers, he would have his viewers send him their
answers, to which he would then provide the appropriate question."

"Thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty six." Bubba called out his answer.

"What were the ages of the Three Musketeers?" the Cowboy responded with the
appropriate question.

Priscilla, Alexis and Jonathan gave each other desperate looks, knowing that
they were about to be subjected to the mad ramblings of a drunken tag-team
of self-proclaimed world saviors, as they attempted to draw the others into
yet another of their "insane, inane, falling mainly in the plain" bumbling
and stumbling attacks on intellect, rationality and proper decorum.

"OK, I'll bite." Jonathan was the first to speak. "But, since we already
know that your solution is insane, why don't you give us the proof of its
applicability to the 'problem within the problem' and let us..." he motioned
to himself and the ladies, "divine the real problem, and the 'problem within
the problem?'"

"Fair enough!" said the Cowboy, motioning for Bubba to begin.

Bubba threw up a quote on the GraphiScreen from Julian Jaynes' "The
Evolution of Consciousness in the Breakdown of Bicameral Mind."
"Why is it that in our daily lives we cannot get up above ourselves to
authorize ourselves into being what we really wish to be?
"So that behavior flows from decision...so that whatever in us it is that
refers to a 'will' stands master and captain over action?"

The Cowboy grinned and turned to the three 'contestants' in this
lighthearted parody of a variety of bad game shows of the era they were
dealing with.
"This is the question which indicates the results of the problem and the
solution to the problem, but what is the problem?"
He left the challenge of answering his question to the three participants,
pushing his bottle of Jim Beam into the center of the table to indicate the
reward for a proper reply.

Without hesitating, Alexis scrolled through the work on the screen, knowing
that, in all likelihood, Jaynes had addressed the problem in an adjoining
passage. She reached for the bottle and poured herself, Priscilla and
Jonathan a shot, as she highlighted:
"We are learned in self-doubt, scholars of our very failures, geniuses at
excuse and tomorrowing our resolves. We become practiced in powerless
resolution until hope gets undone and dies in the unattempted.
"And then to rise above this noise of knowledge and really change ourselves,
we need an authorization that 'we' do not have."

Bubba and the Cowboy had grinned from ear to ear when Priscilla had reached
forward with the tip of her finger, to highlight the last of the sentence.
"Precisely!" they agreed, in unison.

"The problem," Jonathan posited, "was that, leading up to the end of the
millennium, the advances in technology and education were designed by those
behind the scenes to give the appearance of empowerment to the individuals
within the authority of the group." Jonathan wasn't quite sure just what he
was trying to get at, so he turned to the women for help.

"Democracy, mass-production, elections, free schooling, public works..."
Priscilla was making a 'set' of something...she wasn't sure of what, however.

Alexis thought for a moment, and jumped in, saying, "At the same time, the
study of human psychology was entering an era where the existence and power
of the subconscious was being recognized and exploited.
"Hypnosis, brain-washing, advertising, spin doctoring..."

"Group mind!" all of those gathered around the table spoke as if in a single
voice.

"Little boxes on the hillside, and they're all made out of ticky-tacky. And
they all look like boxes, little boxes just the same." Priscilla sang a
lilting tune attributed to a singer named Joni Mitchell of that general era.

"The tyranny of the masses!" Jonathan shouted out, excited at remembering
this phrase from long childhood nights spent perusing posts to the original
CypherPunks mailing list.
"The printing press, factories, fashions, all moving society toward a world
in which the yoke of serfdom was apparently being thrown off the necks of
the peasants, as kings and rulers fell by the wayside in the name of
democracy and freedom.
"But the Iron Hand of the monarchy, the priest and the dictator was replaced
by the Steel Jaws of social mores and public opinion."

Alexis nodded, adding, "They overthrew a higher authority only to fall prey
to becoming a cog in the creation and machinations of a group authority."
She struggled to understand what it was she was trying to put her finger on,
saying, "They merely replaced one authority with another which they
perceived to be a lighter burden because it more closely fit their wants and
needs at the time."

"The problem," Jonathan interrupted, excitedly, "was that, rather than
seizing the mantle of authority over themselves and accepting responsibility
for the life and their actions, they merely moved it from the hands of a
small few, into the hands of the group."

"And the 'problem within the problem,'" Alexis continued, "was that right
and wrong, good and evil, knowledge and wisdom, was still not by virtue of
their own authority, any more than it was when they were ruled by kings and
priests."

Bubba and the Cowboy nodded at each other, agreeing that their challenge had
been met in a remarkably astute manner.
"So the problem was that they moved from monarchy and plutocracy to
democracy and..." the Cowboy left the question hanging in the air.

Jonathan, for the first time in his life, felt like he finally understood
why the CypherPunks stood at a nadir point in history during the early years
of the creation and propagation of the CypherPunks mailing list. He slowly
intoned,
"...and failed to move onward...to anarchy."

Copyright "TruthMonger <bianca@dev.null>
"And I can cook, too..."
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                        "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre"

                 "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs"

           "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet')

                Soviet Union Sickle of Eunuchs Secret WebSite
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