4.12.1. "Why take a "no compromise" stance?"
- Compromise often ends up in the death of a thousand cuts.
Better to just take a rejectionist stance.
- The National Rifle Association (NRA) learned this lesson
the hard way. EFF may eventually learn it; right now they
appear to be in the "coopted by the power center" mode,
luxuriating in their inside-the-Beltway access to the Veep,
their flights on Air Force One, and their general
schmoozing with the movers and shakers...getting along by
going along.
- Let's not compromise on basic issues. Treat censorship as a
problem to be routed around (as John Gilmore suggests), not
as something that needs to be compromised on. (This is
directed at rumblings about how the Net needs to "police
itself," by the "reasonable" censorship of offensive posts,
by the "moderation" of newsgroups, etc. What should concern
us is the accomodation of this view by well-meaning civil
liberties groups, which are apparently willing to play a
role in this "self-policing" system. No thanks.)
- (And since people often misunderstand this point, I'm not
saying private companies can't set whatever policies they
wish, that moderated newsgroups can't be formed, etc.
Private arrangements are just that. The issue is when
censorship is forced on those who have no other
obligations. Government usually does this, often aided and
abetted by corporations and lobbying groups. This is what
we need to fight. Fight by routing around, via technology.)
4.12.2. The inherent evils of democracy
- To be blunt about it, I've come to despise the modern
version of democracy we have. Every issue is framed in
terms of popular sentiment, in terms of how the public
would vote. Mob rule at its worst.
- Should people be allowed to wear blue jeans? Put it to a
vote. Can employers have a policy on blue jeans? Pass a
law. Should health care be provided to all? Put it to a
vote. And so on, whittling away basic freedoms and rights.
A travesty. The tyranny of the majority.
- De Toqueville warned of this when he said that the American
experiment in democracy would last only until citizens
discovered they could pick the pockets of their neighbors
at the ballot box.
- But maybe we can stop this nonsense. I support strong
crypto (and its eventual form, crypto anarchy) because it
undermines this form of democracy. It takes some (and
perhaps many) transactions out of the realm of popularity
contests, beyond the reach of will of the herd. (No, I am
not arguing there will be a complete phase change. As the
saying goes, "You can't eat cyberspace." But a lot of
consulting, technical work, programming, etc., can in fact
be done with crypto anarchic methods, with the money gained
transferred in a variety of ways into the "real world."
More on this elsewhere.)
+ Crypto anarchy effectively allows people to pick and choose
which laws they support, at least in cyberspatial contexts.
It empowers people to break the local bonds of their
majoritarian normative systems and decide for themselves
which laws are moral and which are bullshit.
- I happen to have faith that most people will settle on a
relatively small number of laws that they'll (mostly)
support, a kind of Schelling point in legal space.
4.12.3. "Is the Cypherpunks agenda _too extreme_?"
- Bear in mind that most of the "Cypherpunks agenda," to the
extent we can identify it, is likely to provoke ordinary
citizens into _outrage_. Talk of anonymous mail, digital
money, money laundering, information markets, data havens,
undermining authority, transnationalism, and all the rest
(insert your favorite idea) is not exactly mainstream.
4.12.4. "Crypto Anarchy sounds too wild for me."
- I accept that many people will find the implications of
crypto anarchy (which follows in turn from the existence of
strong cryptography, via the Crypto Anarchy Principle) to
be more than they can accept.
- This is OK (not that you need my OK!). The house of
Cypherpunks has many rooms.
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind