From: Jim Choate <ravage@einstein.ssz.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 05:46:45 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: Government Regulation & Scienctific Research (fwd)
Message-ID: <199809072204.RAA05499@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 02:52:06 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Alan Olsen <alan@clueserver.org>
> Subject: Re: Government Regulation & Scienctific Research

> I expect the first world to start to take after the East German model.

You mean the one that failed after only 40 years?...

> -- Those who are precieved as being a possible threat will be
> marginalized, jailed, forced to flee, or co-opted.
> 
> -- A large portion of the population will be devoted towards control of
> the population.  (Either in law enforcement, paid snitches, propaganda, or
> similar activities.)

There is a problem with these two conclusions. In short, the impact on
American business would be devastating. It won't happen to this degree for
the simple reason that there wouldn't be anyone to actualy pay for it and
the American citizen is a LOT less likely to stand their post after 3 months
of not getting paid then a Stasi proll ever did.

If you think about it a moment there are really only TWO issues driving this
entire situation in this country:

-  increased technology and its run-away consequences are completely
   beyond the keen of politico's because they can't spend the number of
   hours per day playing with it to understand it AND still run a
   campaign. They feeled threatened and as a consequence their national
   model (in their heads) is threatened. Politicians hate to hear:
   "Oh, I don't need any help. Thanks." With the ease that technology
   jumps ANY boundary it's a futile task they've handed themselves.

-  the drug war. With the movement currently gaining strength in this
   country for medical marijuana and the knock-down-drag-out that's
   coming between the states and the feds over it, the cost will be
   prohibitive. We are currently at something like 1/150 people in this
   country in jail, the majority for minor drug offences. The impact
   of this (this is 1 person in jail out of every 2 blocks of homes)
   on the citizen-government relationship is souring fast. When the
   police in San Francisco say on national news they won't prosecute
   pot houses because they "have more important things to deal with like
   murder and burglary" something big is coming...

   And it ain't a bunch of nazi stormtroopers on every corner.

> -- Much of the Government's budget will be devoted to citizen control.

No it won't, it will be dedicated to spin-control and legerdemain.
Government toadies like their air conditioned desks entirely too much.

> In 50 years I expect that the creative citizenry will either be
> underground, fled, or no longer participating in the active discorse of
> the society.  All of the life will be sucked out of the population in
> order to fight the "Scapegoats of the Week/Month/Year/Century". 

I doubt it. What's going to happen is that the reach of government is going
to weaken because it's going to become harder (not easier) to track
individuals. Why do you think these folks are so hot and heavy on this now?
They know something is coming that will make their world-view irrelevant and
it scares the hell out of them.

History shows that any country that does what you describe lasts no more
than a couple of generations (the 20 yr. kind). Even if you go back to the
Romans you will find that there is a definite pattern to the way the laws
swing from restrictive to permissive.

> It will only fall apart when we reach a level where no one wants to live
> here any more and it falls apart from internal system failure and
> hemoraging.

It will fall apart because much of the discussion will become irrelevant.

It's interesting that doom-sayers like yourself never mention that the
number of opposition camps to the fed's is growing, not lessening. They are
finding it harder, not easier, to figure out what people are doing and why.
The one negative aspect to this movement is that it tends to attrack very
indipendant individuals who don't know how to cooperate, cooperation is the
only advantage the feds have on their side.


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