December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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[PCS] Fighting the cyber-censors
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dumbbell Vindictive styles his facial hair to look more like pubic hair. D\___/\ (0_o) Dumbbell Vindictive (V) ---oOo--U--oOo---

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

pdh(a)best.com (Peter Hendrickson) writes: > What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A > message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each > machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of > these machines should be across borders. Ever heard of Usenet? It works exactly like that...

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: > Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> writes: > > I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day > > Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the > > cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go > > to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. > > What about the leaks? (rc4.c, Mykotronics dumpster contents, etc) > Where do they go? How about sci.crypt, where they usually go before being forwarded to cypherpunks?

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Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Farber allegedly said: > > My favorate Ben Franklin quote is > > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784 In the constitutional convention a property requirement for voting was discussed. Franklin said "A man owns an ass; he can vote. The ass dies; he cannot vote. Who owns the vote?" (I may not have quoted it precisely.) -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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Re: what's in a name?
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wei Dai allegedly said: > > I've stayed out of the debate about list moderation so far, but a recent > post from tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com reminds me of something I've been > thinking about. An interesting way to look at what happened is that John > Gilmore owns the name "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" and has chosen to exercise > that ownership. Even though those of us who disagree with the way he has > done so are free to leave and set up our own mailing list, it is costly to > do so, and the problem of central name ownership remains. List > subscribers have made investments that are specific to the name > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com", and most of the cost of switching to a new list is > in the new investments they would have to (re)make. The fact is that a > promise of no censorship is not enough incentive for us to do so. > > I suspect that the hierarchical nature of name ownership on the Internet > today will be an important technological barrier for the establishment of > truly anarchic virtual communities. Unless this problem is solved, the > closest we'll come is pseudo-anarchies that exist with the tolerance of > beneficent dictators. While the name hierarchy may have some effect similar to what you suggest, I think the real issue is more likely economic hierarchy -- toad.com is a name of some value, true, but toad.com is also a T1 connection and some compute power that many people simply can't afford. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, in his Ruskie disguise: hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. ...................................... LD, when you say "community" it means something else than when others do. When the cpunks said "community" they meant the camaraderie which develops in the company of people with similar interests. When you say it, it means a group of people stuck to each other by rules of order and socialization, with boundary lines predetermining the limits of their arena. The cpunks had intended that everyone would self-determine the extent or limits of their interactions, thus arriving at a sense of "community" from the decision to do so, rather than from being squeezed along through "proper" channels. == one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. ............................... Typically, people who yell for LEADERSHIP are those who either need it themselves or are eager to supply it for others - i.e., to determine the course of events. Which one of these categories do you yourself fall into? == <<* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. ........................................ I would more precisely say that the solution to bad speech is better speech, thus eliminating the need for 5 messages when 1 will do. YMMV. Do you think this would hold up in reality? == quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? ................................ You're starting to sound like Ayn Rand. (heh) .. Blanc

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scott V. McGuire allegedly said: [...] > I didn't change my subscription from the filtered to > the unfiltered list because I expected this to end in a month and I was > willing to participate in the experiment. You can't ask someone to try > something for a month to see if they like it and call there use of it in > that month evidence that they like it. I agree. But there is more. As much as anything else, I didn't change lists because of inertia and laziness. I suspect that most people are like me in this regard. I suspect that if the tactic had been to require people to subscribe to the moderated list we would see just the reverse of the current numbers. In fact, in the interests of fairness, integrity, and adherence to the scientific method, I suggest that after this month trial has passed that we reverse the lists, and see how many change to the moderated list. [snip] > Sandy, you said that you thought the list had improved since you began > moderating. How could you think otherwise? When you send an article to > the flames list its because you think the list would have been worse > otherwise. I don't think the moderators opinion should be considered in > determining if moderation is a good thing. I think there is a conflict of > interest there. Absolutely no doubt that there is a conflict of interest. In Sandy's shoes a saint couldn't be objective. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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Re: [PICS] Credentials without Identity--Race Bits
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment does NOT eat pussy. He only eats asshole if it's got a big dick up in front. Whoever calls him bisexual is a fucking liar. He likes to suck cocks in front of an audience. _ O O _ \-|-\_/-|-/ Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment /^\ /^\ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^

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