December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Public choice theory and the politics of antitrust
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wrote a little about public choice theory and the politics of antitrust in my article last week: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1678,00.html Attached are excerpts from recent posts to a law and economics mailing list I'm on. I'm unsure of the reposting policy, so I'm deleting authors' names. Should be good reading anyway. -Declan === Assume for the moment that Microsoft is doing something wrong that the government should stop (a reach, I admit). If that is the case, how did the Justice Department come up with the figure of $1 million per day? Is that figure supposed to be compensatory, punitive, deterrent, or what? What goal is a daily fine supposed to accomplish that some more specifically-tailored remedy (injuntive relief, for instance) could not? Are there public choice explanations for what is driving this, and if so, what are they? === The Government's argument, I believe, is that Microsoft violated the consent order. A fine under these circumstances should punish the party that violated the order, deter it from violating the order again, and deter others from violating other orders. As for a public choice explanation, based upon the history of the present Administration, I suspect that one could be found in the records of the Federal Election Commission, i.e., I suspect that executives and shareholders of Microsoft's enemies have made far larger political contributions than Bill Gates and his colleagues. === Intel has in fact come under attack. The FTC has been investigating Intel for several months. The charge is similar to the rap on Microsoft - trying to dominate the inside of the computer by controlling the interface between the processor and "helper chips." The wonder is that Intel hasn't taken over the motherboard market - something that may also be more efficient, just as seemless integration of the operating system and browser and other applications is more efficient. Recall also that the FTC did in fact investigate Intel in the early nineties, though it filed no charges in the end. (I suspect that the FTC's institutional credibility is at stake. Since this is the second Intel probe, they're going to have come back with at least a symbolic consent decree.) Still, I would grant that the attack on Microsoft is more strident. Domestic political economy may play a role. Microsoft has vocal domestic competitors (Oracle, Netscape and Novell, for example). It's no coincidence that Republican Senator Hatch represents Novell's home state. Intel, in contrast, is viewed as the company that's keeping the foreigners at bay. Well yes, conduct and arrogance matter too. And sitting on a big pile of cash helps. That explains why a number of state AG's jumped on the anti-Microsoft bandwagon after the tobacco settlement. Finally, yes, Windows is a terrible operating system and almost everyone has an interest in seeing something better. (A confirmed Mac user, I compare Windows to the aliens in "Men in Black:" arthropod DOS stuffed into the skin of humanoid Mac.) Intel does have an incentive and the means to come up with a better operating system: Windows hurts the demand for its chips. Not surprisingly, Intel's Portland facility has 800 programmers charged with coming up with something as cool as the operating system developed by Next. Stay tuned. === [I interpret "substantial appropriable quasi-rents to be taxed away" as "campaign cash or political contributions to be expropriated as necessary by the government." --Declan] There are two reasons to go after a successful company. One possibility is that it has substantial appropriable quasi-rents to be taxed away. Even if a company's equity is high, it is not readily taxable if the assets can readily be withdrawn (e.g., Becker and Stigler's argument that Jews stayed out of agriculture because they could too easily be expropriated). The other reason for going after a successful company is to assist its competition. This may explain the attack on Microsoft ... and probably the attack on Milken as well, if you are persuaded, as I am, by Daniel Fischel's book on the case. === There has been a lot of talk about how hard Clinton has been on Microsoft. I wonder. Is it possible that Clinton has been soft on Microsoft? Hi-Tech generally has been very pro-Clinton, and contributed a lot of money to him. The fact that Justice is going after Microsoft now is not determinative. It seems to me that Microsoft was surprisingly arrogant in thinking it could get away with this blatant violation of the consent decree. THink of the Priest-Klein selection problem as applied here. PK implies that even if the judge is heavily pro-plaintiff, plaintiffs will win only 50 percent of the time in his court. The reason is that plaintiffs will bring even totally outrageous suits, knowing the judge might still rule in their favor. I suspect the same has happened with Microsoft. Confident that Clinton would block any response from Justice, they violated the consent decree. They still hope Justice will back down. So far, they are wrong (tho--has the fine been imposed yet, or has the judge delayed imposition?). The most humorous part is that Rush Limbaugh, a conservative Apple user, has been cheering for Microsoft, a notably liberal company. === > Can anybody give an efficiency explanation for this? Prima > facie, it is monopolizing conduct. Microsoft's absurd excuses are > that (a) Explorer is an integral part of Windows 95, and (b) > Allowing Netscape to come up automatically would spoil the integrity > of Windows 95. Microsoft's behavior is indeed puzzling. You would think that even though Windows has such a large market share, Microsoft would wish to enhance Window's appeal even further by making it as easy as possible for those who prefer Netscape to access Netscape easily. But, regardless of the wisdom of Microsoft's tactics, given what Eric reports about the DOJ's complaint against Microsoft, why the mighty brouhaha? Do computer users really need federal forces to help them put Netscape's icon on their Windows screen? === The DOJ wants Microsoft to be found in contempt for violating the '95 consent decree (Section IV (E)(i) of the Final Judgement) which prevents Microsoft from requiring OEM manufacturers to license other Microsoft products as a condition of recieving a license to install Windows '95 on the computers they produce -- is this not what "bundling" means? The icon business arises because three firms asked Microsoft to ammned the license agreement to allow them to remove the IE icon from the desktop and Microsoft refused to grant their requests. This is mentioned in the DOJ request for an order of contempt, but if Internet Explorer really is considered a separate product (and the DOJ claims it is) then Microsoft really isn't allowed to require firms to license it if they license Windows 95. Microsoft insists that requiring the licensing of Internet Explorer, sans icon, is still requiring the licensing of Internet Explorer, something they aren't allowed to do under the consent decree if IE is a separate product, but that it isn't a separate product so everything is just ducky. They also add that if Internet Explorer, sans icon, isn't licensed Windows won't work. They think it's silly to claim that the consent decree requires them to sell Internet Explorer, sans icon, as a part of Windows but prevents them from selling Internet Explorer, with icon, as a part of Windows. As to the why of it all... Microsoft believes, and the government agrees, that the browser itself is the seed of a new sort of operating system which will become a viable alternative to Windows 95. Microsoft says it wants reshape Windows into this new sort of operating system, the DOJ seems to want someone else to come up with it. From the DOJ's request to show cause why Microsoft should not be found in civil contempt: "Microsoft's aggressive and multi-faceted marketing of the Internet Explorer browser reflects its intense competition with other, competing Internet browsers, primarily the "Navigator" browser produced by Netscape Communications Corporation ("Netscape"). Microsoft believes that the success of competing browsers poses a serious, incipient threat to its operating system monopoly. Indeed, as Microsoft fears, browsers have the potential to become both alternative "platforms" on which various software applications and programs can run and alternative "interfaces" that PC users can employ to obtain and work with such applications and programs. Significantly, competing browsers operate not only on Windows, but also on a variety of other operating systems. Microsoft fears that over time growing use and acceptance of competing browsers as alternative platforms and interfaces will reduce the significance of the particular underlying operating system on which they are running, thereby "commoditizing" the operating system." And it's really hard for me to read this in any way other than "Microsoft is starting to realize that a web based operating system would be a better product than Windows 95 and is trying to create such an operating system, but we don't want them to because they're a monopoly." === > And about Congressional consistency: Let's suppose that Congress in July > of 1890 did indeed intend the Sherman Act to help consumers. Surely any > institution so fickle as to go from being consumers' friend to being > consumers' foe in a mere three months (by October 1890 when it hiked tariff > rates) is not an institution to be trusted with the awesome power to decide > which business practices do and do not constitute anticompetitive behavior. I would add: Why would anyone expect a Congress (1) in which a single majority party leader appointed the chairmen of each legislative committee (2) that used its committees to appoint the vast majority of federal workers (3) operating in an environment in which the pressure group had not yet emerged, to serve consumers? There is not only an antitrust myth, there is a myth among economists that the legislators of the period had any reason to make decisions based on the logic of economics. We might call this the legislature myth. The antritrust myth and the legislature myth seem to be stories we tell our little children in order to avoid scaring them. Unfortunately, many professional economists treat their students like little kids. === > So, you and I also agree that Congress often does stupid things. But what > is the alternative - do you know of a better system? Yep. A common-law system with no antitrust statutes. ===

2 2

More on the POLITICS of antitrust
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded === At some points over the last decade, I would have said that the large-firm monopolization case was dead. We had learned our lesson - big-time trust-busting didn't pay. Mergers were OK and so were businesses that succeed by competing hard. The few initiatives didn't go very far: the early 1990s FTC investigation of Microsoft deadlocked; DOJ then wrested a largely cosmetic consent decree in 1994/95; the FTC looked at but then walked away from Intel. The political will to do any real damage seemed to be lacking, perhaps because these were successful export industries. Not so now. The events of the last few months suggest that the outlook is more serious both for Microsoft and for Intel, and further down the road, for firms like Cisco (king of the network routers) or Sun (if Java ever lives up to its hype). Money attracts politics (hence the bevy of attorney generals in action now), and we were foolish to expect otherwise. The implicit policy of going easy on America's information technology success stories has been abandoned. Aside from the competitor complaints and aside from the simple populist attack on wealth, another factor may play a role: populist resentment of the "digerati" (those who are computer savvy). (I intend a parallel with the late 1920s, when despite the general boom, large segments - the buggy whip manufacturers - complained about "profitless prosperity," laying the political groundwork for Hoover's veiled New Dealism. No, I am not predicting another Great Depression.) ===

1 0

Re: Covert Superhighway - the missing component? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 17:36:13 -0800 > Original-From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> > Subject: Re: Covert Superhighway - the missing component? > - CU-SeeMe reflectors are fun, and you can stego a lot of traffic > inside your pictures. The problem here is the processor overhead requied to take advantage of a high frame rate. The startup costs are gonna be a bear. > Adam Back's idea of piggybacking on gaming nets could be > among the more interesting approaches, at least for games > that don't have a central control system. The problem here is that most gamers are responce-sensitive. They'll begin to wonder at some point where all that extra bandwidth is going. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

2 1

Re: [POLITICS] 1 Question to Dr. Froomkin... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 09:13:07 -0800 > Original-From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> > Subject: Re: [POLITICS] 1 Question to Dr. Froomkin... > > you and I are political theorists, and you're asking a political question, > though I'm not sure what kind of question you mean. Actualy I am more interested in the why's and wherefor's of the actual application and less in the theory. If the issue was only theoretical there wouldn't be over a million people in US jails and the other various excesses that are currently permitted. That is far from theoretical. > To a lawyer, the answer is that the Constitution ultimately means > whatever you can talk the Supreme Court into saying it means, That is one of the problem with the current approach. The Constitution is not taken to mean anything. A fundamental flaw, theoreticaly or practicaly. It is considered a document written by a bunch of long dead guys with little if any application for todays social structures. > So which question are you asking, and why? I'm asking Dr. Froomkin whether he accepts the Constitution as the defining document of the government (not just the courts which is implicit but unstated in your various questions) of the United States. I apologize if the question was unclear. I had intended to structure it in such a way that it was absolutely clear - it is a yes/no question after all. Why? Because I want to know. The answer would provide insight and might provide further information for future strategies. There is an old saying: Know thy enemy. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Bruce Sterling afficianado's...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI, Was in the bookstore today and noticed that Bruce Sterling's 'Artificial Kid' is back in print at $12.95. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

No Subject
by wabe 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I like Crypto Kong. Easy to use, and cool name and little rose insignia. Private Idaho, on the other hand, was a pain and eventually I gave up. (I tried to install and use the 32 bit version.) -wabe --digsig EojdyErVslc/s6aQeIHwnOlMw3lUKJhdZc/ZeCNfe7H bPOgfo2WuJqphHEKAhe/nQIPFt1T6nTh8Ry5v9lp 47roQ27BeTu2jFYXmJJoIWdG9Lvnx+zmSiHoqscae

1 0

Symantec Norton, Your Eyes Only.
by Pearson Shane 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey all, Just wondering what people think of this product? Good, bad or ugly? Is there an international version and a US version? If so, what limitations are in the international version? Many thanks...

1 0

Re: Public choice theory and the politics of antitrust (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 18:28:50 -0800 > From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Re: Public choice theory and the politics of antitrust > I think, Declan, that deleting the author's name is a Big Problem. > You have essentially made this author "Anonymous." Does knowing the name of who wrote a piece really have any bearing on the consistency of it? Is so then there would be a clear indication that there is a fundamental flaw with anonymous remailers and their place in society. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

2 1

CFP: DECEPTION, FRAUD and TRUST in AGENT SOCIETIES Workshop at AA'98
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text To: e$(a)vmeng.com Subject: CFP: DECEPTION, FRAUD and TRUST in AGENT SOCIETIES Workshop at AA'98 Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Wed, 14 Jan 1998 15:30:24 -0500 From: Mary Ellen Zurko <zurko(a)opengroup.org> Sender: <e$(a)vmeng.com> Precedence: Bulk DECEPTION, FRAUD and TRUST in AGENT SOCIETIES Workshop at the Second International Conference on Autonomous Agents (AA'98) <http://www.cis.udel.edu/~agents98> FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS Description of the workshop: The aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers that can contribute to a better understanding of trust and deception in agent societies. Most agent models assume secure and reliable communication to exist between agents. However, this ideal situation is seldom met in real life. Therefore, many techniques (e.g. contracts, signatures, long-term personnel relationships) have been evolved over time to detect and prevent deception and fraud in human communication, exchanges and relations, and hence to assure trust between agents. In recent research on electronic commerce trust has been recognized as one of the key factors for successful electronic commerce adoption. In electronic commerce problems of trust are magnified, because agents reach out far beyond their familiar trade environments. Also it is far from obvious whether existing paper-based techniques for fraud detection and prevention are adequate to establish trust in an electronic network environment where you usually never meet your trade partner physically, and where messages can be read or copied a million times without leaving any trace. Trust building is more than secure communication via electronic networks, as can be obtained with, for example, public key cryptography techniques. For example, the reliability of information about the status of your trade partner has very little to do with secure communication. With the growing impact of electronic commerce distance trust building becomes more and more important, and better models of trust and deception are needed. One trend is that in electronic communication channels extra agents, the so-called Trusted Third Parties, are introduced in an agent community that take care of trustbuilding among the other agents in the network. For example, in some cases the successful application of public key cryptography critically depends on trusted third parties that issue the keys. Although we do not focus in this workshop on techniques for secure communication (e.g. public key cryptography), we would welcome analyses about the advantages and limitations of these techniques for trustbuilding. The notion of trust is definitely important in other domains of agents' theory, beyond that of electronic commerce. It seems even foundational for the notion of "agency" and for its defining relation of acting "on behalf of". So, trust is relevant also in HC interaction; consider the relation between the user and her/his personal assistant (and, in general, her/his computer). But it is also critical for modeling groups and teams, organisations, coordination, negotiation, with the related trade-off between local/individual utility and global/collective interest; or in modelling distributed knowledge and its circulation. In sum, the notion of trust is crucial for all the major topics of Multi-Agent systems. Thus what is needed is a general and principled theory of trust, of its cognitive and affective components, and of its social functions. Analogously the study of deception not only is very relevant for avoiding practical troubles, but it seems really foundational for the theory of communication. First, because it challenges Grice's principles of linguistic communication; second, because the notion of "sign" itself has been defined in semiotics in relation to deception: "In principle, Semiotics is the discipline studying whatever can be used for lying" (U. Eco). Thus not only practical defences from deception (like reputations, guaranties, etc.), but also a general and principled theory of deception and of its forms (including fraud) are needed. We would encourage an interdisciplinary focus of the workshop as well as the presentation of a wide range of models of deception, fraud and trust(building). Just to mention some examples; AI models, BDI models, cognitive models, game theory, and also management science theories about trustbuilding. Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to: * models of deception and of its functions * models of trust and of its functions * models of fraud * role of trust and trusted third parties (TTP) in electronic commerce * defensive strategies and mechanisms * ways to detect and prevent deception and fraud WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION The full-day workshop will be aimed at creating an informal atmosphere for stimulating discussions, interdisciplinary exchange and deep understanding of each other's pespective. We plan to have both: Paper presentations: Long presentations (25-30 min) of the accepted papers, plus 10-15 minutes for discussion (possibly with discussants). Plenary discussion at the end. Panel sessions: A couple of topics will be selected for a focused discussion. Some of the attendees will be requested to participate as panelists. The panels chairs will circulate prior to the workshop a list of questions for the panelists. The accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings. The publication of a revised version of the accepted papers is being negotiated with a high quality publisher. SUBMISSION: CRITERIA, FORMATS, PROCEDURE The workshop welcomes submissions of original, high quality papers addressing issues that are clearly relevant to trust, deception and fraud in agent-based systems, either from a theoretical or an applied perspective. Papers will be peer reviewed by at least two referees from a group of reviewers selected by the workshop organizers. Submitted papers should be new work that has not been published elsewhere or is not about to be published elsewhere. Paper submissions: will include a full paper and a separate title page with the title, authors (full address), a 300-400 word abstract, and a list of keywords. The length of submitted papers must not exceed 12 pages including all figures, tables, and bibliography. All papers must be written in English. * The authors must send by email the title page of their paper by January 15th. * Submissions must be send electronically, as a postscript or MSword format file, by January 20th. * The authors must also airmail one hard copy of their paper to two of the organizers as soon as possible after the electronic submission. * No submissions by fax or arriving after the deadline will be accepted. SUBMISSION ADDRESS for the electronic submission Rino Falcone falcone(a)pscs2.irmkant.rm.cnr.it tel. +39 - 6 - 860 90 211 for the airmail hard copy Babak Sadighi Firozabadi Department of Computing - Imperial College 180 Queen's Gate - London SW7 2BZ - U.K. and (notice "and") Cristiano Castelfranchi National Research Council - Institute of Psychology Viale Marx, 15 - 00137 Roma - ITALY tel +39 6 860 90 518 IMPORTANT DATES Deadline for the electronic title page January 15, 1998 Deadline for Paper Submission January 20, 1998 Notification of Acceptance/Rejection March 1, 1998 Deadline for camera-ready version April 1, 1998 Workshop May 9, 1998 PROGRAM COMMITTEE Phil Cohen Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Oregon Inst. of Science and Tech., USA Robert Demolombe CERT/ONERA, France Andrew J I Jones Dept. of Philosophy - Univ. of Oslo, Norway Anand Rao Australian AI Institute, Melbourne, Australia Munindar Singh Dept. of Computer Science - North Carolina State University, USA Chris Snijders Dept. of Sociology, Utrecht, The Netherlands Gilad Zlotkin VP Engineering, Israel Gerd Wagner Inst.f.Informatik - Univ. Leipzig, Germany Cristiano Castelfranchi (co-chair) National Research Council - Institute of Psychology- Rome, Italy Yao-Hua Tan (co-chair) EURIDIS - Erasmus University - Rotterdam - The Netherlands Rino Falcone (co-organizer) National Research Council - Institute of Psychology- Rome, Italy Babak Sadighi Firozabadi (co-organizer) Department of Computing - Imperial College - London - UK ========== Rino Falcone IP - CNR National Research Council Division of "Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Modeling and Interaction" Viale Marx, 15 00137 ROMA email: falcone(a)pscs2.irmkant.rm.cnr.it or falcone(a)vaxiac.iac.rm.cnr.it tel: ++39 6 86090.211 fax: ++39 6 86090.214 ========== -- See <http://www.cs.umbc.edu/agentslist> for list info & archives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Where people, networks and money come together: Consult Hyperion http://www.hyperion.co.uk/ info(a)hyperion.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Full-Strength Cryptographic Solutions for Worldwide Electronic Commerce http://www.c2.net/ stronghold(a)c2.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Like e$? Help pay for it! For e$/e$pam sponsorship or donations, <mailto:rah@shipwright.com> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

1 0

RE: rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Wayne Radinsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The reason morality is impossible to nail down is because it does not exist al all in any absolute sense, at least as far as science is concerned. If you declare, for example, that "murder" is "wrong" you are always left with dilemmas, such as whether soldiers who kill during a war are doing something "wrong". According to the principle of natural selection, all people, including scientists, exist purely to maximize their own inclusive genetic fitness. "Fit" means that an organism is well adapted to it's environment, so "maximizing inclusive genetic fitness" means having the maximum number of offspring which are themselves fit. Keep in mind that all natural selection really does is decide which genes are allowed to propagate, and since genes are just digital information stored on DNA molecules, what we call "life" is really just a complex interaction of matter/energy which determines which bits of information continue to exist over time. The underlying reason people benefit by promoting themselves as moral people, in general, is because of the benefit of what evolutionary psychologists call reciprocal altruism. With reciprocal altruism, both parties benefit if they are in a non-zero-sum situation. Because most situations are non-zero-sum and the benefits are so great, everyone has a stake in promoting themselves as a good reciprocal altruist, in other words, a good, trustworthy, moral person. This is how natural selection explains the existence of the concept of "morality". So it is a myth that scientists live to find deep truths or to benefit humanity. They may do those things, but their real goal is maximizing their own inclusive fitness. However, it may profit them if everyone else believes they live to find deep truths or to benefit humanity. Natural selection has created human beings, and the concept of "morality" in our minds, because moral justifications benefit the people promoting them -- which ultimately benefits their genes. The only way out is to believe in the afterlife, and religion, and that life has meaning beyond the genes and material world. Doing so doesn't make moral dilemmas go away, and you never know, people may just be believing such things for the benefit of genes, after all natural selection has no real concern for "truth". Wayne ---------- From: Blanc[SMTP:blancw@cnw.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 7:20 PM To: waynerad(a)oz.net Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality >X-Authentication-Warning: netcom5.netcom.com: vznuri@localhost didn't use HELO protocol >To: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> >cc: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com>, Blanc <blancw(a)cnw.com>, > cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net, vznuri(a)netcom5.netcom.com >Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality >Date: Wed, 14 Jan 98 15:07:48 -0800 >From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri(a)netcom.com> > >timmy predictably states the case for moral relativism. > >>I think it's an error to use "moral" or "immoral" as a modifier for "science." >> >>It's a matter of opinion/ethics as to whether some science is "for immoral >>purposes," but calling something "immoral science" is fraught with trouble. >> >>To a vegetarian, any science related to meat production is "immoral science." > >well, the concept of "criminality" is likewise fraught with trouble. >what is criminal and what is not? obviously some definitions stretch >the limits. is a jaywalker a criminal? a political dissident? ok, how >about an axe murderer? similarly, I think your predictable opposition >to the use of the word "immoral" is specious. > >moreover, I think such a misunderstanding, or worldview, is >detrimental to human welfare in general. I think all the evil >government scientists I've been referring to recently would >very much agree with you on rejecting ideas of "morality" and >"conscience". a person does not need an infallible definition >of morality to navigate the world, imho, but a person that has >none, or rejects any such attempt, is part of the problem and >not part of the solution, imho. > >>Personally, I don't view scientific experiments done on condemned prisoners >>as immoral. If a human being has already been sentenced to die, and, for >>example, accepts some payment (perhaps for his heirs) to die in some >>scientifically interesting way, why call it "immoral"? > >oh, well, lets see, you have a very obvious glitch in your reasoning. >you presume the prisoner gives his permssion. now lets see, assume he >doesn't? just to pop a hypothetical example out of the blue, >say someone named timmy gets arrested for gun violations and >gets thrown in jail temporarily. would it be immoral for the >police to remove his organs? perhaps without his permission? >perhaps without anesthetic? if not immoral, what? criminal? criminal >but not immoral? > >>While I would not have, I hope, worked in a Nazi death camp, the science >>obtained is undeniably real science, some of the only solid data we have on >>freezing humans, on exposing them to pathogens, etc. > >I've seen your defense of these experiments before-- its a topic of >interest for you for obvious reasons; it presents a possible glitch >in your moral relativism. > >I don't think BWs claim that there is a difference between >immoral scientists and immoral science. immoral science is what >immoral scientists practice. what's the point? my personal point >is that if we had a culture of people who were concerned about >morality, perhaps we would have institutions that reflect >integrity. > >contrary to most here, I believe that our institutions >are correctly representing the people of a country-- their thoughts, >their motivations, their concerns. its key to the philosophy of >disenfranchisement, apathy, and nihilism (and anarchism) to >claim that the government is not representing the people. what >is the evidence for this? > >because the government is corrupt, >the people are not necessarily corrupt? because the government >is greedy and full of powermongers, the population is not >full of greedy powermongers who would do the same given the >opportunity? government is a mirror into our psyches that >few people care to gaze on, precisely because we are not >the fairest of them all. > >we've got the government we deserve, and it reflects our >own pathologies within our psyches back to us. it reflects our >laziness and apathy, our cynicism, our alienation, our >withdrawal. and it takes a person who can master themselves >to face up to this simple truth-- something that most everone of our >country has failed to admit. > >when we begin to ask questions like "what is integrity" and >"what is moral" and come up with serious answers, our world >will improve. it will degenerate otherwise, and has given us >a tremendous existence proof of that fact to date. > >but just remember, again, that I'm aimlessly ranting here, and there's no >need to take any of this seriously <g> > > >

2 1