December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

IP: [FP] National ID back on table?
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: [FP] National ID back on table? Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 09:52:36 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Forwarded: --------------- From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> Subject: [FP] National ID back on table? Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 07:05:28 -0500 SCAN THIS NEWS MONDAY OCTOBER 19, 1998 National ID back on table? Weekend maneuvers in Congress may kill moratorium http://www.worldnetdaily.com/exclusiv/981019_national_id_back_o.shtml By David M. Bresnahan Copyright 1998, WorldNetDaily.com Last-minute deals on Capitol Hill may remove a previously negotiated moratorium on the national ID card, and one organization opposed to the card is not surprised or disappointed. The law was already passed by Congress in 1996 and a national ID for all Americans will soon be in use unless changes to the law are made soon. The omnibus appropriations bill contained a ban on the national ID, first exposed in WorldNetDaily, but over the weekend efforts were made to remove that ban. A great many bills were never voted on during the year. With elections just around the corner, politicians want to go home to their districts and brag about something they've done this past year. The omnibus bill contains thousands of pages, including many pet projects intended to win votes. The main purpose of the bill, negotiated last week and scheduled for a vote tomorrow, is to approve the budget and keep government in business. Prior to the negotiations last week, all sides were predicting a shut-down of government over disagreements in the budget. No one in Congress wants to explain to voters why government has come to a grinding halt just before an election, so the passage of the omnibus bill is assured, along with anything else attached to it. "There are so many deals that have been made and are still being made that no one will ever know exactly what's in that thing and what's not until long after the vote is over and the members all go home to campaign," explained a congressional aide who did not wish to be named. The moratorium was first included in the transportation appropriations bill, but Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, convinced Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-GA, to remove it before passage, according to House Transportation Committee sources. The ban on the national ID was then included the omnibus bill. However, Smith has continued to make efforts to kill the provision, according to a congressional source who has been working on the ban. "It's very hard to say just what will happen, but I do know that Smith has recruited help from some other members and the Speaker is considering their requests," said the source yesterday. It was Smith who got the national ID ban out of the transportation appropriations bill. "It was reported that Lamar Smith had obtained an agreement from Speaker Gingrich to eliminate this provision from the bill," reported Patrick Poole of the Free Congress Foundation. The ban was back in the bill "after many House members openly complained to the speaker about Lamar Smith's seemingly religious devotion to the national ID idea and the American peoples vehement opposition to being branded and tagged by the U.S. government," explained Poole. Numerous organizations opposed to the concept of a national ID rallied their members to send thousands of letters, faxes, and make phone calls to Congress for the past two weeks. Rep. Smith could not be reached on Sunday night by WorldNetDaily, but he did publish a letter in the Washington Times last Tuesday because of the many calls his office received. "I do not support a national ID card and don't know anyone in Congress who does," said Smith in his letter. He tried to label those voicing opposition as radicals when he added, "There are fringe groups that believe the United Nations is taking over Yellowstone National Park, that Congress is creating a national ID card or that they have been abducted by UFOs." The law to create a national ID card was passed as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. One section of the act requires all states to make their driver's licenses comply with certain guidelines found in Section 656 (b) of the act, including the use of the Social Security Number on all licences and in all data bases beginning Oct. 1, 2000. The act also calls for digitized biometric information to be a part of each license, or "smart card." The biometric information will include fingerprints, retina scans, DNA prints, and other similar information. Responsibility for the design and implementation of the cards has been given to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the Department of Transportation. That agency has recently published the proposed "Driver's License/SSN/National Identification Document," which contains the guidelines which must be in force by each state -- a federal mandate once campaigned against by many conservative Republicans. "These new national ID regulations violate every notion of federalism, because they force states to comply with regulations issued by the federal government without any constitutional authority to do so," said Poole recently. "Nor are federal agencies empowered to force states to gather detailed information on every person in order to comply with federal mandates. The net result of the DOT's regulations is to establish a national ID system, which has been opposed by almost every non-governmental sector for the past five decades." House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-TX, Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, and Rep. Bob Barr, R-GA, have been working on repeal legislation, but there was insufficient time to bring it to a vote during this session of Congress. The DOT solicited public comments on their plans for implementation of Section 656 (b) of the act earlier this year. The public comment period has just closed and many thousands of letters in opposition were received, according to a spokesman. Five states also expressed opposition to the plan, and only a "small number" of letters supporting the plan were known to the spokesman, who spoke on condition that his name would not be published. One group that has worked diligently for the repeal of the national ID card was not surprised to learn of plans to remove the ban from the omnibus bill. "I won't be terribly disappointed if the one-year moratorium is removed from the appropriations bill. In fact, if left in, the moratorium may actually serve to provide an unwelcomed delay in this issue being addressed by Congress and the DOT," said Scott McDonald leader of "Fight the Fingerprint." McDonald says his group will use the situation to educate more people regardless of which way the bill ends up. He is concerned that national debate on the national ID will be delayed by the ban and would lessen the chances to get the law repealed. McDonald wants the debate to begin now. "Time is on the side of the proponents of the national ID. Opposition to any issue tends to wane as time passes. The American people have already firmly stated their strong opposition to the DOT's proposed standardized driver's license proposal. Now it's time for the DOT to act on behalf of the people they serve. The DOT should go back to Congress with a report stating that the American people do not want a national ID which the 1996 immigration law would establish via standardized driver's licenses," explained McDonald on Sunday. McDonald's group is opposed to the use of Social Security numbers from being used as past of driver's licences and in centralized government databases tied to driver's licenses and other government documents. His group is also opposed to the use of fingerprints on such records. In the event there is a moratorium on the implementation of the National ID, McDonald predicts there will be a good chance the DOT will design a compromise which will keep Social Security numbers off licences but keep the number on license applications and in universal data bases to keep track of individuals. Without a moratorium, a report must be provided by DOT detailing the responses they received from the public on the issue. McDonald wants Congress to see that report as soon as possible. "Without the temporary reprieve, the DOT is required by law to respond to all public comments which have been filed with the agency, and to publish their responses in the Federal Register," said McDonald. "I am anxious to see their responses. If the moratorium goes into effect, the DOT may be able to avoid this mandatory requirement. The American people deserve to be know what the DOT's official position is in response to the objections raised by those individuals and groups who took the time to object." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can call the capitol toll free at........1-800-378-1844 Lamar Smith..................................1-202-225-4236 Speaker Gingrich.............................1-202-225-0600 ======================================================================= Don't believe anything you read on the Net unless: 1) you can confirm it with another source, and/or 2) it is consistent with what you already know to be true. ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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IP: Brave New World of Implants
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Brave New World of Implants Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 10:42:06 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Jewish World Review / Oct. 19,1998 / 29 Tishrei, 5759 http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0798/mothernature.html Can we 'fool Mother Nature'? Do we want to? By David S. Oderberg IMAGINE THAT YOU have been fitted with a tiny electronic device, measuring nearly an inch long and a third of an inch wide. This device receives and emits radio waves in the presence of transceivers in 'intelligent' buildings fitted to recognize the unique signal emanating from the tiny 'smart' chip in your body. This chip, implanted just under the skin on your arm, has immense advantages. With it you can open and close doors, pass through security channels set up to recognize your identity, operate machines such as computers and faxes, and generally negotiate your technological world with greater ease and convenience than at present. You can even use your chip to carry out daily commerce. Swipe your arm over a scanner and you can make payments, have your account debited automatically, check you bank balance. In short, you can do everything which currently requires you to lug around a walletful of credit cards. One small catch, though: because of this chip, your whereabouts are known to others at every minute of every day. You can be tracked like a car or airplane. Orwellian nightmare? Delusional apocalyptic fantasy? One would have thought so, until it emerged in the British press a short while ago that Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading -- my own university, as a matter of fact -- has decided to try out such a scenario on himself. Seeing himself as a latter day Edward Jenner -- the pioneering scientist who tried out the smallpox vaccine on his own body -- Prof. Warwick has entered the hallowed halls of self-experimentation by having just such a silicon chip injected under the skin near his elbow. He is, as far as anyone knows, the first person to do so. The results of his experiment are not yet known. He has to take antibiotics against the risk of infection, and is a little concerned his body will reject the alien device. Speaking of the doctor who agreed to implant the chip, Prof. Warwick says: "If it all goes wrong and my arm explodes, which I have been warned could happen, my wife will probably sue...". The good professor is, nevertheless, sanguine about the possible side effects. For he sees himself as a crusader at the cutting edge of cybertechnology. Already famous for his little machines -- looking a bit like cockroaches on wheels -- which, he glows, behave for all the world as though they have intelligence (something I and others doubted when we saw them in action), Prof. Warwick is thrusting forward in the attempt to fulfil the prophecy of his own recent best-seller, March of the Machines. "It is possible," he says, "for machines to become more intelligent than humans in the reasonably near future. Machines will then become the dominant life form on earth." Is this a tragedy? No, he adds blithely: "We are just an animal, not much better or worse than the other animals. We have our uses [sic], because we are different. We are slightly more intelligent than the other animals." The professor looks forward to the day when machines rule our lives. The fact that his microchip enables him to be traced is no great worry. His secretary finds it a boon: "It was often hard to find Prof. Warwick...but since the implant we always know where he is." And so would your employer if you were similarly implanted. You would be monitored every time you clocked in and out of work, or left the workplace. Prof. Warwick surmises the chip could carry all sorts of information, such as medical records, past convictions, financial data. "It is quite possible for an implant to replace an Access or Visa card. There is very little danger in losing an implant or having it stolen," he said. But it seems Prof. Warwick is alive to the dangers of the microchip implant: "I know all this smacks of Big Brother," he comments. Where the technology will ultimately go "I really don't know and would not like to envisage." By now, you may well be feeling a little spooked. This is not surprising. Nor should the experiment itself be such a shock. After all, on October 11th 1993, The Washington Times reported on the "high-tech national tattoo" made by Hughes Aircraft Company --- an implantable transponder which the company called "an ingenious, safe, inexpensive, foolproof and permanent method of ... identification using radio waves." In 1994, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it was reported that a local humane society offered pet owners, for $25, to inject their dogs or cats with a microchip, to prevent their being lost or stolen. A Dr. Carl Sanders, electronics engineer and inventor of the Intelligent Manned Interface biochip, told the Monetary Economic Review that satellites could be used to track people fitted with the IMI chip: "We used this with military personnel in the Iraq war where they were actually tracked using this particular type of device." Whether soldiers have actually 'volunteered' to be surgically implanted with the chip, as opposed to carrying it on their clothing, is not made clear by Dr. Sanders. But what we do know is that proponents of this technology envisage first using it on animals (now widespread, particularly dogs, cats and cattle), then prisoners (more effective than electronic ankle tags), then children (e.g., newborn babies, so as to prevent their being switched or lost) and elderly people suffering from Alzheimer's disease (to prevent their wandering and getting lost). After that, who knows? The potential for the chips to replace credit cards and cash is huge, and will tempt financial institutions in turn to tempt their customers to 'try out' the chip with no obligation to carry it permanently, and monetary rewards for those who persevere. Supporters of the injectible microchip say it is just the logical extension of a technology that already allows the heavy monitoring of people through pagers, cellular phones, 'smart' cards, and cars fitted with Global Positioning System transponders. On the other hand, could it not be said that the advent of the chip implant is the final outrage which demonstrates the inherent unacceptability of its technological ancestors? We are, it seems, fast approaching a world that even George Orwell was not able to envisage. Had the microchip implant been known in his day there can be no doubt it would have replaced the 'telescreen' in his dystopian novel 1984. The fact that the corporations and individuals promoting its use are not being bombarded daily with protests from millions of outraged citizens is itself cause for wonder. How, particularly in countries such as the USA and Britain in which civil liberties are so prized, is it possible for so much propaganda to reach the mass media with barely a hint of contrary opinion? Prof. Warwick has gained enormous publicity, and is flooded with calls from journalists wanting to know how his little experiment is going. Until, however, a sufficient number of citizens make known their implacable opposition to the totalitarian trend of a technology which threatens to reduce most humans to the status of cattle, the likes of Prof. Warwick will go about their evil work unperturbed. JWR contributor Dr. David S. Oderberg is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading, England, and a freelance journalist. ©1998, David S. Oderberg ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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My citizenship renunciation made difficult (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:17:12 -0400 (AST) > From: Vincent Cate <vince(a)offshore.com.ai> > Subject: My citizenship renunciation made difficult > But most of all, the very idea that the US government has to give me > permission to renounce my association with it seems totally wrong. The > people in the US are supposed to be free, not slaves or subjects. Free > means free to leave. > > Any advice? Sue. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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"Microsoft is racist"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/15702.html On the sidewalk in front of the building, a handful of protesters held up a sign saying "Microsoft is racist." The group attacked the company for not donating money to Howard University, which is predominately black.

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Re: Another potential flaw in current economic theory... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I've a point unrelated to this topic. I recieved two copies of your email. One was 101 lines and the other was 108 lines, the difference being 7 blank lines. Pretty curious, no? Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:15:13 -0400 > From: tzeruch(a)ceddec.com > Subject: Re: Another potential flaw in current economic theory... > Not labor any more than capital. I think what you refer to is often > called "stakeholders" which includes suppliers and customers in addition > to employees. Well suppliers are a business unto themselves so I'm not sure I can extend my point that far. I certainly wouldn't include customers as this confuses the entire issue of the point of business (ie making a profit). If we extend the issue to include customers then we're looking at reducing our profit margin to zero as we discount our services to the customer over time. There is also the aspect that with this model we end up selling our service to ourselves, an inherently loosing proposition since there is no profit to be made at all in that case. > However you do not need to play games to justify proper treatment of > employees. I didn't mean to imply any sort of mistreatment, though I did raise that spectre in related postings. Sorry for the confusion. The point I was trying to make was that business has a third, and untried near as I can tell, strategy in approaching their business process. Include the employees in the plan with the specific goal of making them rich enough and invested enough so they don't have to work and do it in a short time span - say 10 years. I've read a few pieces (I must admit to viewing them as pie-in-the-sky) which predict that what will happen with technology is that people will begin to invest in automated processes and over time as these become ubiquitous people don't work, they live off their profit from the investment in these automated factories. One aspect, which I alluded to above, is that at some point the investors are also their own customers so that the profit they make to buy the materials is in a closed loop. This seems to me to invite a level of inflation (in order to preserve at least the ghost of a profit) that would explode pretty quickly. > If you consider capital such as a machine, it is usually > better to keep it well maintained and in good repair instead of letting it > wear out and rust - the quality of your goods will suffer, profits will go > down, and shareholders will dump management. True enough, though the machines don't retire (they do wear out). If we look at it from a strictly cost analysis perspective I'd agree with you (as I understand your point) fully. The question I have is what if we abandon the Friedman view and take on a more humanistic view. In short, business represent a participant in a social process. As a result they have more duties than just making profit for their shareholders (or stakeholders). [text deleted] > Our current stock market bubble - which is in the process of popping - > distorted this. I agree in part, I believe that the reason we're seeing the failure of the traditional economic systems is that in large scales with extremely fluid capital (intellectual, physical, monetary, etc.) it becomes very difficult to keep long term participants when there are so many more lucrative short-term potentials. I personaly feel the collapse of the CCCP in the early 90's is a good indication of this 'delayed responce' syndrome. I also believe the current problem with funding the government is another example where the gains are such that the traditional political and social views don't apply well enough so that the errors cancel each other out. Instead they pile on top of each other over time. My guess is that the current political system will collapse of its own ineptitude and lethargy as well as a wedding to outmoded ideas sometime in the next 20 years or so. What comes after, I believe at this point, will be a polycratic technocracy based on distributed democratic ideals. > My concept of Usury (yes, another mideval or earlier > idea) is loaning in the abstract. You just want 5% or 10%, and try to > find a piece of paper (or electronic book entry) that will return it > regardless of what is behind the paper. This can include ponzi schemes if > they aren't recognized as such. Oops, what's a 'ponzi scheme'? I can't find it in any of my texts.... > If people were really investing in the non-usurous sense, they would be > concerned with the company as an organic whole, with the suppliers, and > customers, and employees, and the physical plant and everything else, I understand the conept of 'organic whole'. I have to disagree at extending it to include the customers and suppliers for the reasons listed above. In a very real sense the term you use is more apt than anything I've come up with so far as a label. > If I want milk, I will be very concerned with keeping the cow happy and > healthy, and doing so rationally - pampering the cow too much won't give > any more milk and maybe make the cow less healthy, but starving it or > beating it would be worse. I agree, the interesting question - I hope without stretching the comparison too far - is what happens when the farmer figures out how to make the milk using a bacteria (for example) via genetic manipulation? (this is meant as an example of technical invasion of a traditional market) Does the farmer continue to feed the cow on principle (it being a fellow living creature and mankind having destroyed its natural habitats and hence we can't turn it loose) or simply kill the beast and sell the remains to the golden arches? > price didn't go up further). I haven't heard a reason connected with > something tangible (dividends, book-value, cash flow) for someone to own > such a stock. Only that "it the internet". And I think this decoupling > is at the center of what you are getting at. Paper v.s. people, and when > it comes time to decide, the paper wins. That is most definitely a major aspect of the problem. People get so dazzled by the visions of fruit plums dancing before their eyes they don't notice the snow has melted. > There is a lot of ignorance, and it is rational in the short term - these > stocks are going up, so it would otherwise make sense to follow the trend. > But if the trend is all that is being watched, who is going to care if > they are using slave-labor? - to mention just one issue. I'm afraid I don't quite catch your point here. Could you reword it? > But that is investing in a bubble. Exactly why I don't want to see an integrated world economy. It's doomed to fail from the get go. > The same thing happened in 1720 with > the South Seas company in Great Britian and the Mississippi Scheme in > France. I'll look into these as I'm not familiar with the particular. Thanks for the lead. > And I think we will see the same thing here and across the globe shortly. > Japan started to see this in the early '90s. Agreed. What I find really funny (in a macabre sort of sense I admit) is that the folks who are hording gold and other supposed universal valuables are in for a big surprise at what comes out of the other end. This is going to be a economic/political Industrial Revolution the likes of which haven't been seen since mankind invented the little clay balls for sealing contracts for selling sheep and such. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Cell phone cloning and economics...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Another point in regards the market behaviour regarding cell phones.... In a free-market there is no reason to believe that phone cloning would be reduced as it would still provide a distinct economic advantage over those who sell 1st line equipment. The only thing that keeps the 1st line companies in business is the regulation, without it they can't afford to do the basic research or infrastrucure construction since they can't sell enough phones in the first place because the clones have bought up their share. So without some sort of 3rd party regulation there is nothing inherent in a free-market that protects that initial intellectual and econimic investment so that it can grow and produce a market and a profit. Now it is clear that this regulation is *NOT* primarily the government but rather the social institution or society the governemt or regulatory body exists within. Remember, the profit goes to the one who occassionaly breaks the social taboo's. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Another question about free-markets... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 15:53:45 -0400 > From: tzeruch(a)ceddec.com > Subject: Re: Another question about free-markets... (fwd) > Most of these are due to regulation. No, they are due to a basic human trait - greed. The problem isn't a economic one it's a people one. If you assume the Secret Service > will bear the cost of enforcing anti-cloning laws, you will not spend the > money to make your phones unclonable even if the technology exists. Assuming of course you trust the Secret Service fully and they happen to be honest to a fault. > Excessive rate levels are a misnomer. The only way you can succeed in > charging above market prices is if there is a law to bar entry. But that is the exact point in regards cell cloning for example. The final cost to the purchaser of the clone is *less* than the normal market price. In a free-market economy the obviously rational thing to do is clone, the really bad thing is there is nobody short of Guido and his buds to help the original maker recover those costs or prevent recurrences. > sub-standard construction is also a misnomer - if you paid for standard X, > you simply don't pay until the construction is up to that standard. You've got a circular reasoning here. If we're still talking about a free market there is no 3rd party to define standards and such to measure against. There won't even be groups that will be able to review the various products and compare them in an open market (review the current database licenses in regards to doing public comparisons). > Hardly. If you are saying consumers are stupid, you are probably right, No, I'm saying there is a considerable sector of the human population that is dishonest. This won't change based on economic models. > And you assume that men are islands and don't talk or communicate. Actualy I don't. My point is that such assumptions about instant communications (as required by current economic models) is irrelevant. I covered that aspect at one point. The fact that people communicate won't change their base bahaviour characteristics one whit, those are a function of long-term species survival strategies. People are social animals, the maximum strategy in social animals is the Prisoners Delima, you play along most of the time and cheat occassionaly. Over time this strategy will accumulate more resources than either a pure cheating or honest strategy. It's this transient aspect that is completely ignored by current economic though, they recognize only the two extremes. > Imagine two restaraunts. If people get food poisoning every week or so at > one, people will learn not to go there, and it will fold as people go to > the second. This example really doesn't fit my theory since it isn't possible for a single (or even two) restaraunts to saturate a market. I suspect that food, is entirely too tied to the vagaries of transient taste to behave this way. What is more likely to happen is that as people go back and forth between the two restaraunts from day to day (assume that one of them is dealing bad food) both will go down. Remember there isn't a health inspector or somebody to come and test the food, only the experiential evidence of the eaters. Now since it takes as much as 24+ hours for symptoms to develop it is entirely possible for a person to eat at one restaraunt on Monday at luch and get food poisoning and it not show up until the next afternoon, *after* they've already eaten at the second restaraunt. At that point the person is sick and isn't going to want to go back to either. Better safe than sorry. > Reputation (economists include it in the term "good will") > does have an economic benefit. Only in certain kinds of markets. I don't believe free markets are one of them. > You simply may not like human psychology, but that does not make the free > market any less just. I'm not sure how to respond to this. Let me put it to you this way... How do you propose a free market to operate if there aren't people (and as a conequence their psychology) involved? > The market enforces a foolishness tax which no government can repeal. Again, only in certain situations - a free-market is not one of them. You might want to look at some of the recent studies done (I was looking at an article the other day at the bookstore but can't remember the article - sorry) that demonstrate pretty conclusively that mediocre strategies pay off over time nearly as well as optimal ones do. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Human psychology & free-markets: a fundamental question
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Why do people behave more ethicaly (or fairly) in a free-market than in a regulated market? It's clear the pay-off for defection is more in a free-market because the actual opportunities come more often. The market regulation simply makes it more costly to defect, and hence reducing the final profit motive, because it takes more resources to bypass the regulation hence increasing the price of defection and increasing the period between defections because it takes more time to collect and manage the resources to defect. I would contend that the economic problems we experience are not because the market is regulated (or not) but that the regulation is not *impartial* to the outcome. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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[ZA-Hacklist] Web Servers
by postino.up.ac.za＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi There, this is an appeal for help WE are looking for someone to help us set up a remote web server outside our network (internationally or therwise) to experiment with running a web server through port 25 (SMTP) or port 110 (POP3). If you have the abilty to help us with this experiment it would be appreciated. Contact us. Any other comments appreciable too.

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Another potential flaw in current economic theory...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, It occurs to me that there is another potential flaw in current economic theory and business practice. Currently (ala Friedmann) the parties that reap the benefit of a succesful business are the shareholders, this is currently seen to exclude the employees in many cases/companies. This approach undervalues the business worth of the employees commitment to the business. A more reasonable approach (and one that might make free-markets more workable, though not by itself) is to consider the employees shareholders even if they don't hold a single piece of stock. And no, their paychecks are not sufficient. Consider, another way to look at a business' goals is "to make every shareholder a millionare so they don't have to work at anything else". What business do you know has the specific goal of making their employees (all the way down to the janitor) sufficiently wealthy from their commitment to the business so that at some point they don't have to work any more either (and we are NOT talking about some measly 401k retirement program)? What would the impact be to the current business models if we include this axiomaticaly? ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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