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"Bigotry" and related topics...a brief comment
by attila＠primenet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <v03007801aed4bbe064e3(a)[207.167.93.63]>, on 12/11/96 at 11:47 AM, "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> said: ::The racial and ethnic groups which are most into "victimology" ::are the least successful--which is _cause_ and which is _effect_ may be ::debatable to many of you, but the correlation is very clear....maybe it's ::time they try something different, like getting their culture to embrace ::learning, reading, science, math, and business success, instead of glorifying ::victimization, crack cocaine, basketball stars, and pimps.) Not to harp, Tim, but the summation thought in and of itself is probably "discriminatory" to many as it, intentionally or not, appears to single out a specific ethicnic group. OTOH, without or without the description, the indicated class best fits your model above --and I agree with the thesis; even so far as to say that the implentation of CA's anti-affirmative action, which is now blocked by yet another bleeding heart liberal Federal judge, will reduce tension vis a vis ethnic relations --if the supposed victims (of the what was at one time the ethnic majority in CA), will stop crying. and so that everyone can see bigotry: when the demographic changes brought along their ethnic gangs, I moved the children to other schools. when the billboards in the far NW corner of LA city/county were converted to Spanish a couple years ago-- "...that's it; we're leaving! now, regardless of the cost!" -attila - -- Now, with a black jack mule you wish to harness, you walk up, look him in the eye, and hit him with a 2X4 over the left eye. If he blinks, hit him over the right eye! He'll cooperate. --so will politicians. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: Encrypted with 2.6.3i. Requires 2.6 or later. iQCVAwUBMq884704kQrCC2kFAQGjvwP/eBEPNRxueY4OOsaTfUAUGctQqdaCSOyn DK5i3u581RTAqixccIgQbC7UpWhlmMwM4/Ildp0kcjxILUsBhoiPc2jnTbKNAejy dI+vONbPlduWsHWAB7xIZjl7lgNqawbD7kHnm3ivGA9UNqe6NSESobgNRNy1agyI NtgBWavsjQE= =IZOR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Redlining
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:47 AM 12/11/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >1. The _general_ subjects of "bigotry" and "redlining" are not >closely related to themes of this list, though the implications of >strong privacy for these issues is certainly on topic. (And my views >on these implications are well known...I've seen no point to step in >to the debate to repeat them, and don't plan to argue with Matt M. >about the "evils of bigotry.") > >2. Many of the posts by Matt M. and "Red Rackham" and others have >been so massive, containing paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttals of >political and ethical points, that I've just given up on trying to >follow the points. > >If anyone has well-formed questions about how redlining and "bigotry" >is affected by strong cryptography and crypto anarchy, fire away. >Just don't bury them deep in a long diatribe about the evils of >"prejudice" and "discrimination." Didn't Tim May originate the "Generation of Science" thread or, earlier, the sliderule thread? I don't think either topic can said to be strictly cypherpunk unless a discrete logarithm sliderule has been invented. The truth is that I enjoyed those threads as did most others on the list. I would like to see more like them. And, I dare say that my posts are more worthwhile than 7 out of 8 posts we've been seeing on the list lately. >(Personally, and off-topic for the list (so I'll be brief),... Point 1: You obviously find the subject interesting enough to comment on it. Others probably also find it interesting. Point 2: Excuse me if I am wrong, but your comments look to me to be precisely on topic for this list, anyway. >...the ills of our society seem to me to have _very little_ to do >with "prejudice." In fact, most people are not "discriminating" >enough, in the sense that discrimination implies value judgements and >assessments of probable success based on data available. As someone >noted, the Asian communities in the U.S. are doing well and are quite >"discriminatory" in lending policies. Get used to it, as crypto >anarchy will make coerced transactions even more difficult. The >racial and ethnic groups which are most into "victimology" are the >least successful--which is _cause_ and which is _effect_ may be >debatable to many of you, but the correlation is very clear....maybe >it's time they try something different, like getting their culture to >embrace learning, reading, science, math, and business success, >instead of glorifying victimization, crack cocaine, basketball stars, >and pimps.) This obsession of "on topic/off topic" is not healthy for the list. It stifles brainstorming and the free exchange of ideas. Red Rackham P.S. Sorry for the length of some of the messages. That Miszewski had the temerity to actually stand up for his beliefs, so it was unavoidable.

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Re: Redlining
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ichudov(a)algebra.com" 11-DEC-1996 14:01:18.43 >The problem is, people can choose what credit history they want to have >(I can be a saver or a spender, for example), but nobody can change the >color of their skin. >This is central point of the theory why discrimination based on credit >histories is OK, while the discrimination based on race is not. First, I would point out that redlining does not necessarily equal credit discrimination based on race; it may mean credit discrimination based on poverty, which has an unfortunately high correlation with being a member of some races. (I won't go into the explanations for why this is the case here; most people who try to explain it don't take enough factors into account.) Second, let's take a look at whether inequalities based on factors that people cannot change is something that is wrong. This topic is wider in its application than redlining and credit; one example important to me in my field is in genetic screening usage for insurance purposes. (In that case, you've also got that limits on insurance uses of data when individuals can gather the data in question mean that someone can predict their own chances of needing insurance... leading to those who are healthy not purchasing it, and those who aren't purchasing it.) The first topic to mention in this regard is that of privacy. I believe I am among most people in finding a question about my behavior (e.g, my sexual activities) significantly more intrusive than a question about my personal characteristics (e.g., my gender). But I would hope that everyone would agree that it would be idiotic and irresponsible not to have someone's payments for insurance vary with their behavior; this would encourage irresponsible behavior and discourage responsible behavior. The second topic to mention in this regard is that inequality due to factors one cannot change is a fact of life. This is particularly true of capitalism (e.g., someone who has a genetic tendency toward large size will consume more food and thus spend more money on food), but it is also a problem in any other economic system - economics is not all of life. Even if one concludes that inequality is wrongful and needs to be "alleviated", there are many areas more important than credit on which one would logically start... such as forbidding merit-based admissions, which are biased in favor of those with higher IQs. I trust that my audience sees exactly why this idea, and similar ideas, are ultimately nonsense? The third topic is that one commonly applied idea used by the proponents of absolute equality is that found in Rawls' _Theory of Justice_, under which the just outcome is said to be found by a group of people who do not know what situation they will be in. (This is a vast oversimplification of the book(s) in question, which upon closer examination may realize the idea I am about to write down.) The simplistic conclusion is that everyone will want everything to be the same, since any individual might be in a bad or good situation. But if you have a choice between 49 dollars and a 50/50 chance of 0 or 100 dollars, you should take the latter. In other words, a situation in which inequalities exist can still be one that is overall better than a fully equal situation. There are a number of respects in which the insurance and credit markets fall under this category. The most obvious is the direct cost of regulation. Less obvious but perhaps more important is the uncertainty factor; the use of more data (for an insurance or credit decision) leads to less uncertainty in the ultimate outcome, and thus to less risk of unexpected claims (for insurance) or defaults (for credit). Thus, smaller businesses (which are also made more possible by lowering other regulatory costs) can exist in a deregulated insurance or credit market. The removal of the current ogliopolistic situation in such markets for the initial insurance or credit grantor would improve prices. -Allen

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Re: "Bigotry" and related topics...a brief comment
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" "Timothy C. May" 11-DEC-1996 18:12:33.87 >If anyone has well-formed questions about how redlining and "bigotry" is >affected by strong cryptography and crypto anarchy, fire away. Just don't >bury them deep in a long diatribe about the evils of "prejudice" and >"discrimination." Yes... an analysis of the ways in which an insurance or credit company could keep its disallowed data in secret, with sufficient incentives for the individuals with knowledge of it not to disclose this practice, is an interesting topic. One of the more obvious ways is to subcontract the risk analysis to businesses operating in countries without such limits, leaving the main insurance or credit company with just the claims process, reserves management, and paperwork. Unfortunately, as shown by the EU's attempts to make multinationals doing business there keep data inside EU borders and under EU privacy laws, countries are likely to clamp down on this process. >difficult. The racial and ethnic groups which are most into "victimology" >are the least successful--which is _cause_ and which is _effect_ may be >debatable to many of you, but the correlation is very clear....maybe it's >time they try something different, like getting their culture to embrace >learning, reading, science, math, and business success, instead of >glorifying victimization, crack cocaine, basketball stars, and pimps.) While I would fully agree with you that such cultural factors are a considerable amount of the problem, I'd have to call attributing all of the problem to them an oversimplification. I'd also point out the cultural factors caused by the development of cultures under uncivilized (in the sense of lacking cities) and unindustrial conditions, something that is not helped by the current PC multiculturalist wish to bring such cultures back. (The reasons for African cultures not developing in this route are an interesting debate; I find Sowell's argument of lack of navigable rivers and the presence of various diseases such as malaria reasonably convincing.) Other factors include the lack of parental education and nutrition resulting in lower parental IQs resulting in lower child IQs; interracial adoption, while opposed by the PC types, is one way to solve this problem. Another factor is lingering racism, which is regretably still present in subsections of the country. Hopefully, as various factors promoting large, noncompetitive corporations (and unions) disappear, the resulting companies will be forced to be sufficiently competitive to ignore such prejudices. -Allen

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Re: Redlining
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

M. Miszewski wrote: >Actually, my assertion was that the basic motivation was racism and >ignorance. My example of student loan default rates should clear that up. >College graduates generally live outside of redlines and yet are regularly >offered credit. And yet default rates on student loans are outrageous (the >government backing of these loans is irrelevant to individual >creditworthiness). Whoa! How 'bout backin' out minority-oriented "beauty" and other phony trade "schools" from your assertions? Looka-here: the moment that you exclude merit from scholastic and credit decisons, the more that you get into unfortunate decisons for society.

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Re: Redlining
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matt Miszewski wrote: (snip) > I wish I lived where you did where racism hurts nobody. Just >give me a general location and Ill start to move my clients there ;-|. A general location? Hee hee!

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Re: Redlining
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ichudov(a)algebra.com" 11-DEC-1996 18:34:46.50 >Thanks for an interesting reply. Quite welcome. Due to the links to my own field, I've been thinking about these issues for a bit. >It is the cross-section test that evidences discrimination: suppose >we have two large groups with the same credit-related parameters >(credit history, etc). If one group gets better treatment from a >bank, I see a discrimination. Is it the credit history that should be the same... or the outcomes? In other words, if two groups of different races are all granted credit and have equal credit histories, are the default rates greater for one group as opposed to the other? If so, then there _is_ a fiduciary responsibility by the bank's directors to not loan to the group that has greater default rates. Now, there's the problem in testing this that if a bank (or, more likely, some loan officers at the bank) is practicing discrimination, those of the discriminated-against races who do get credit evidently had _something_ that convinced the bank to still offer the people credit. This something may or may not be controlled for by the credit factors equalization I mentioned above. If it isn't controlled for, you'll get a bias in the outcome toward the discriminated-against race being _better_ credit risks than they actually are, on the average. This would remove any actual evidence of poor credit riskworthiness on the part of that race (such as for cultural reasons, to the (highly unfortunate) degree that race and culture are correlated). In other words, banks with prejudices (which I do fully admit are out there) will tend to make any actual differences much harder - close to impossible, in fact - to see. >The crucial question is: do we believe that the characteristic >that we are considering directly linked with future performance? As I point out above, studies on this topic are somewhat difficult, and are prone to being biased in favor of discriminated-against races. (This isn't even mentioning political biases...) You may or may not be able to say _why_ a given characteristic is linked with future performance; it's easy to come up with plausible explanations in most cases. >This is a valid concern. Quite... I seem to recall a story involving a "Handicapper General" - perhaps someone would recall the title and author? In it, those with higher IQs were forced to be less intelligent through distractions, those with greater beauty were forced to wear ugly masks, etcetera. >> The third topic is that one commonly applied idea used by the >> proponents of absolute equality is that found in Rawls' _Theory of >> Justice_, under which the just outcome is said to be found by a group >> of people who do not know what situation they will be in. (This is >> a vast oversimplification of the book(s) in question, which upon >> closer examination may realize the idea I am about to write down.) >> The simplistic conclusion is that everyone will want everything to be >> the same, since any individual might be in a bad or good situation. But >> if you have a choice between 49 dollars and a 50/50 chance of 0 or 100 >> dollars, you should take the latter. In other words, a situation in >Not necessarily. With the exception of needing <=49$ to live, under what conditions would the former choice be better than the latter choice? -Allen

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Re: Credentials without Identity--Race Bits
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:38 PM 12/11/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: By the way, on this >oftentimes off-topic issue of "bigotry" and "racism," here's a zinger >some of you may not have thought much about. And it's certainly >related to the themes of Chaumian "credentials without identity," >which is very much on-topic. > >While it has been claimed by some that "crypto anarchy" means that >race won't matter, that cyberspace interactions will be color-blind, >this is misleading. > >While many--probably most--users will care only for cyberspace >personna issues, and not meatspace personna issues of race, color, >height, weight, etc., this is not something built in to anonymous >transactions. > >Consider a "race credential" offered by some entity. Perhaps one goes >down to the local Aryan Nations office and gets one's genetic >heritage stamped, or down to the Kwanzaa Youth Center to be similarly >stamped.... > >(Why some groups might want this is left as an exercise for the >reader. Perhaps a less-inflammatory example (to some of the >sensitive amongst you) might be that some women want to interact in >"women only" forums--a clear case of discrimination, no?--and may >want a "gender bit" avaiable to display as a credential.) Tim May is to be commended for making this fine point. I simply had not thought of this possibility. This is also empirical evidence of the worth of a wide ranging discussion. If Matt and I hadn't pursued our discussion, this excellent point would not have been made. As Tim has pointed out, it is time to reconsider our beliefs regarding the morality of discrimination. The fact is, sometimes we like to spend time with people who have a lot in common with ourselves. This often supports a higher level of communication because the parties involved really understand where the other is coming from. This is true of men in the locker room, women, Albanians, or whomever. And what is occuring is not even a bad thing. It's good for people to spend time with people they like and respect or at least know well. ("No man is a hero to his valet.") The "politically correct" fully recognize this. That is why they see gay groups, feminist groups, etc. as worthwhile. It is only people perceived as successful or powerful who are not supposed to associate with each other. Instead, they are expected to volunteer their time and personalities for everyone else's benefit. Somehow we never hear what they are supposed to receive in return for this, but I am guessing they are supposed to lovingly accept rudeness, abuse, and guilt for their services. Tim said in another message that there are times when discrimination is rational. I have no doubt this is true. How often do we look at a degree from MIT on a resume and hire? The degree to which we fear cryptoanarchy is the degree to which we fear leaving people alone to run their lives as they see fit. I do not greatly fear cryptoanarchy. Red Rackham

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New export controls to include code signing applications
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It has been speculated in the past that certain crypto schemes, such as proposed by Microsoft and Sun, using signed crypto plugins might be helpful to the cause for strong crypto if non-US branches of US software companies would certify foreign developed crypto software. According to the recent proposal by Commerce, this will not happen. It will be illegal to export the software required to sign the code. So much for the government's claim that they make no attempt to limit the export of signing-only software. >From http://www.steptoe.com/commerce.htm [Listing specific software prohibited from export] "c.2. "Software" to certify "software" controlled by 5D002.c.1; " And, btw, virus checkers are also prohibited from export. Makes you wonder. "c.3. "Software" designed or modified to protect against malicious computer damage, e.g., viruses;" -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Merry Christmas, HipXmas-SantaSpam!
by Santa Claus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* * /|\ ///*\\\ * * * //\\ * //\\ * * * * * // \\ // \\ // \\ S A N T A * * * N O R T H P O L E | | \____/ Wherever you go, whatever you do, Remember that Santa is always with you. I live in your heart, I dance in your soul, I show you what love is, and good things to know. The Spirit of Christmas spreads all through the land, With joy and the giving of gifts you should have. But gifts are just one thing to give and to get -- We wish you much more, far more than that. My elves send you pride in whatever you do, My reindeer give strength on days you feel blue, My wife, Mrs. Claus, grants wisdom and grace, Belief in yourself and all you create. And me, what do I give? Is there much more? Plenty and plenty you won't find in stores. I give you the knowledge that you can do more Than you ever knew -- of that be quite sure. My sleigh's packed with toys, my list sweeps the floor, A cup of hot cocoa and I'm out the door. Just gaze high in the sky where Peace always soars, And you live in my heart as I live in yours. * * * * * * M e r r y C h r i s t m a s * * S a n t a C l a u s --------- This santa poem was sent to you from a person who visited the ReplyNet site (www.reply.net) and entered your name and address on our Santa page. Your e-mail address is NOT being collected.

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