From: Petro <petro@playboy.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 12:24:52 +0800
To: Jim Choate <cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199811120647.AAA27853@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <v04011701b27102eb05ee@[206.189.103.230]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 1:47 AM -0500 11/12/98, Jim Choate wrote:
>Forwarded message:
>> 	There are also certain types of crimes that are so morally
>> reprehensible that to allow them to continue is not possible.
>
>Absolutely, and each country should have it's right to choose it's own
>particular brand of reprehensibility recognized.
>
>> 	Or are you willing to go on record as stating that what Stalin did
>> to the Jews (or Hitler for that matter) was acceptable, since we shouldn't
>> have a say in their laws?
>
>Well, you have to understand I'm a pantheist. I know it's easy to shrug off
>and say "so what" but I can't answer this exactly unless you fundamentaly
>understand literal pantheism. But I'll try.
>
>I believe there is no transcendence. As a result everything is divine
>because that's all there is. To disrespect the uniqueness in anything is a

	That's a fancy way of saying you don't believe in anything. No
distinctions, nothing is moral, nothing is immoral.

>disservice to self. However, concepts of literal sin to my view simply don't
>exist. The killing of a human by a human is not fundamentaly (think of it as
>outside of human society, it's close but not close enough) different than a
>human killing a rabbit, or crushing a rock, or painting a picture. It's an

	So stealing is functionally equivalent to buying, rape is
equivalent to consent, and murder is just part of life.

	Then where the FUCK do you get off telling me that my "system" is
wrong because it will allegedly promote these things, if you aren't even
going to accept that they are wrong?

>activity, in and of itself it is nothing more than a cold, cosmic event
>mediated by complete and utter indifference. The universe does not act with
>anthropocentric motives or mechanations. However, within the concerns of

	Well, no shit sherlock. Lemme guess, youse is one o' dem Colledge
Boi's isnt' you?

>human biology, psychology, and society there is a very real distinction. As
>a matter of fact there are quite a few. Since they are all a construct of
>human existance they deserve some level of respect, the freedom of
>expression in speech and press, not necessarily in action. Because of the
>fundamental uniqueness of anything, to destroy or change it with willful
>intent (I wish I could express this better, all I can say is it isn't what
>normal English means by those two words exactly enough) except in
>self-defence or survival (eg killing an animal for food) is not moraly
>(permissible at the level of individual) or ethicaly (the range of
>permissible acts related to an activity, say a doctor or lawyer)
>supportable.

	So it isn't OK.

>I am willing to go on record stating that what they did from a national
>level should concern no nation that is not directly involved. Nations do not
>have the right to impose their will on other nations, period. Nations may of
>course dissolve and reform of their own free will and whim. From a personal
>level everyone should have run over there in about 1936 and kicked their
>stinking ass as volunteers (the fact that it is not in human nature to
>participate in mass exhibitions like this voluntarily is another reason that
>anarcho-whatevers won't work). From a fundamentaly cosmic perspective what
>they did is completely and utterly irrelevant and of no consequence. At the
>same time I'm horrified that human beings can do that to other people and
>live with themselves. The total lack of empathy I find utterly chilling.
>Poppy Z. Brite in carnate.

	You are one confused puppy. You are saying that it would be wrong
for nations to get involved, because it isn't any of their business, but it
is ok, and in fact proper for PEOPLE to get involved.

	What are nations? People. People acting in agregate. If a the
people have a right, or a responsibility to act, then they have the right
to request that their nation act as their proxy (which after all is what
nations are allegdely for according to your theory of government) in
resolving their problem.


>Let me give you another example, unless the US is attacked directly by Iraq
>we have no business threatening, let alone initiating, violence.

	I disagree. If we find that their country is gassing people, we
have a responsibility to intervene. My problem with our actions is that it
is not done on the principle of preventing the genocide of a people, but on
the principle that we need instability in the Middle East to keep cheap oil
for us.

>But I'll do what I did the last time we got in a scrap with the rag-head,
>whatever I can. To do any less might cost somebody their life through my

	Whatever you can do to what end. to continue to support a state of
affairs that does nothing but lead in a circle? To continue to support the
murder of a people (the kurds) and the threat of the release of Biological
and Chemical toxins in Isreal (which probably diserves to get the shit
kicked out of it a time or two for it's arrogance and it's facist ways, but
NBC warfare is rather rude and nasty).

>Does that help any better? Life is a contradiction in motion.

	Crap. There can be no contradictions. One must find and resolve them.

>> >Do you want Germany having a say in our laws (for example)?
>> 	They do already, it's called international trade.
>Me selling apples to a German doesn't involve their having a say in my law
>making unless I'm an idiot in making the laws I operate under. There are
>treaties, but the assumption is that they are entered into freely and with
>comprehension. If they don't and do well that's their problem.

	Economics drives laws.

>> 	Also, if I were a Catholic in a death camp because Jesse Helms
>> ramed thru legislation blaming the Y2K bug on the Holy C, I'd hope someone
>> would intervine.
>
>Congress can't make laws respecting establishments of religion. Not only
>can't they support any, they can't prohibit any, they can't even
>constitutionaly decide what a religion is. Per the 10th that is left to the
>individual states and their respective representative constitutions.

	Did you duck, or did I just aim right over your head?

>> 	But you claimed it started in the early 1900's in response to
>> deaths and blindness.
>
>The regulation of the manufacture and sales of alcohol started after the
>civil war, late 1800' and early 1900's depending on your geography. It's
>impossible to set a single date since the various laws were'not all initiated
>at the same time. I believe somebody else is the person who equated
>prohibition with regulation. In general the laws were put in place because
>either there was a problem with tainted alcohol (this was a real problem in
>the very early 1900's because of the use of lead pipes and other amalgams
>that don't treat people nicely) or excessive consumption by the youth

	The use of lead pipes was because we didn't know better until then.
Time and education would have solved that problem as well as any law. Most
business (especially smaller local type businesses) don't want their
customers falling down dead, it tends to decrease business.

>The history of alcohol is long and twisted.

	Kinda like your arguments.

>> 	It prevents the press from manipulating the government because
>> there ISN'T ONE, or if there is (in the case of extreme
>> libertarian/minarchist) it is so restricted and powerless it can't do
>> anything execpt try to gather more power.
>
>True, but then the news papers (they are not the same as the press - where
>that commen misconception is from is beyond my keen) would just pander to

	Ever seen a newpaper in production? They are run on things called
"presses", and for many years (1600's, 1700's and 1800's, until the wide
spread adpotion of radio) they were the primary (only) source of news. That
is probably where the name "The Press" comes from, and why the first
amendment attempts to claim freedom for it.

>their extant major supporter, advertisers. How honest do you think that
>would make them? Not very. If given the choice between the truth or a fatter
>check newspapers (and their reporters) have in general chosen the way of the
>greenback.

	While one can point to isolated incidences of that happening, the
most honest accusation one can point at the press is that they tend to
report what is happening in a way that will sell newspapers rather than
slant stories to avoid pissing off potential advertisers. There are simply
too many advertisers to worry about.

	They might kill the occasional story, but in a competitive market,
of the opposition believes that there is a market for the story, it'll get
told.

>Jefferson said he would never write a line in a newspaper, and didn't. He
>thought them vile. He however held the free press (he meant unrestrained
>communication between individuals) in high regard (obviously).

	I'd imagine he held certain types of Newspapers in low regard,
probably the 1700's version of Weekly World News.

	There just wasn't a whole lot else being printed back then.

>> 	Yes, businesses can manipulate the press, and do-gooders can always
>> start their own press and fight back.
>
>Who do they buy the press parts from? The ink and paper? The distribution
>channles? Etc. You might be able to start one up but you won't last long in
>a monotonicly profit driven free-market. If they rake muck too much they
>won't have a rake anymore.

	These days just set up a web site. Other than that, it's fairly
easy technically to start a "press", you just get something you want
printed typeset (or do it yourself) and pay a press to print it.

	That is no excuse.

>> 	Yeah, and there are laws against Drug Dealing which work real well.
>There's probably a lesson in there somewhere...

	Yeah, laws don't work real good.


>> 	I wanna say Karen something or other as one case--Silkwood?
>That was one of the ones I was thinking of.

>> 	Point still holds, you speak out, you get in trouble, legal or no.
>> Laws don't prevent things from happening, they simply give society the
>> moral authority to say "We Warned You, Now Off With His Head" or some such.
>They moderate and mediate those actions and in fact do set a limit on what
>can occur at the social level. I'll say it again, government isn't for
>regulating individual interactions at the daily level. It's simply too fine
>grain. It will control trends and behaviours with a good deal of aplomb (if

	It specificly doesn't do that. For every person that says "I'd try
pot if it were legal", there are 10 who smoke it, and 20 more who've tried
it.

>it's not abused) - and I'm talking specificaly of a republican democracy
>like the US has.

	s/has/had/

>> 	When was the last time you _didn't_ kill someone just because it is
>> illegal?
>Every time. I can think of three times. Two accidents hunting and the third
>a crazy with a knife. On a personal level I felt my sense of justification
>from committing such an act didn't equate to me spending time in jail.
>They're still alive, and I didn't do time. Works for me. In all three times
>I could have shot them and walked off, I wouldn't have been found and there
>were no connections. All three times were completely random events,

	So the law DIDN'T stop you, you already admit you wouldn't have
been caught, and in at least one instance you probably SHOULD have capped
the person, for the good of soceity, yet you didn't.

	Why? Because ingrained in all of us (even Mr. May) is the idea that
it is wrong to kill other humans wantonly. At times our baser instincts
override this conditioning, and there are a few whom it never takes on, and
some people can override it at will, but it's still there.

	It'll still be there when the laws are dust.

>hapinstance. I quit hunting after the second hunting event. I also don't go
>for long walks on the other side of the tracks at 2am anymore when I can't
>sleep. Some junior high kid tried to rob me.

	You should have killed him, it was your civic duty.

>> 	It's expected, but illegal?
>How can it be illegal if there are no bodies to create them, courts to
>ejudicate them, supposedly unbiased police to enforce them. Now if we agree

	Sorry, lost the context, and I can't get it back at this hour.


>> 	It prevents government abuse, it prevents systemic abuse of power
>> and authority.
>
>Rape is rape, the point is to prevent it. Not just prevent it from your
>father.

	But rape is the functional equivelent of painting a flower right?

>> 	It also makes it easier to get people to resist abuse & to fight
>> back, since the abuse isn't built in, nor do the abusers have any sort of
>> "authority" to fall back on.
>People are more likely to suffer injustice as long as its sufferable. It's a
>rare event to incite a large population to violence.

	It wouldn't take a large population, since there is no societal
pressure preventing private retribution.

>> 	Which is different from now HOW?
>
>At least now there are limits to how ruthless they may be. You don't see

	No there isn't.

>tanks on your street corner, there aren't troops of men running around

	Yet.

>dragging people out of their homes because they're catholic or read 'Catcher
>in the Rye' or 'Atlas Shrugged' and shooting them. And people (like us right

	Yet.

>now) get to bitch about it with as near complete impunity as is possible in
>a real world. Hell through the amendment process we can concievably bypass
>the federal government completely. All that is required is the calling of a
>convention, which the federal government have no authority over (especialy
>since the right to peaceably assemble is protected and it don't get much more
>peaceable than a constitutional convention).

	Try it. Organize it and see what happens. If it looked at all like
you had a chance in hell of actually getting one together, you'd be
receiveing photographs of you with a cute little mexican boy in the most
*intersting* positions imaginable.

>> 	Isn't Billy Gates one of your poster boys for being ruthless? Isn't
>> he so far head of the rest of us that he could be in court for the rest of
>> his life and not spend everything?
>What makes Bill Gates reprehensible is not what he did with Microsoft,
>though the company as a whole should suffer. They certainly made profit
>together, they should share the flip side of the coin.
>Why I hold Bill Gates in so low esteem is his moral standing. A perfect

	But in a pantheistic universe, his actions are just as sacred as
yours.

>example is hurricane Mitch. The World Bank came up with a tad over $100M for
>releif. Bill makes that in a few days. Here is a man with the means to
>institute huge social, political, and economic change that at his level is
>a pittance and he does nothing. He is scum. He made his bed, let him lie in

	He (allegedly) donates large amounts of money to Gun Control, and
well, he has created a LOT of jobs, and maybe some of them donate the money.

	Putting a gun to his head an forcing him to be charitable is still
stealing.

>it. He didn't help others when they could have used it at little to no
>impact to him, why should they extend a helping hand in return?

	Because they are better than him? (I don't buy this)

>This is another excellent example of why anarcho-whatevers won't work. The
>psychology of the truly wealthy is so self-interested and goal-oriented

	The wealthy give more to charity every year than most people make.
I used to work for a woman who thought NOTHING of writing a 10,000 check to
certain charities. She wasn't paying ME that much in a year.

>instead of principled that they almost become pathological in their lack of
>empathy. The claim is that succesful business will be some sort of utopic,
>empathetic social force. It won't be, it isn't in human nature.

	Never claimed it would be utopia, in fact I never claimed it would
be better for most people than now, I just claim freer. I believe that to
be a better way.

>I gotta stop now, I'm sleepy.

	Yeah. I know that feeling.

--
"To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this country is a
jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a product: (a) of a
gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of rather nave, and certainly
unrealistic, economic theories." Alan Greenspan, "Anti-trust"
http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html

Petro::E-Commerce Adminstrator::Playboy Ent. Inc.::petro@playboy.com