At 3:05 AM 12/11/1996, drose@AZStarNet.com wrote:
Matthew J. Miszewski wrote: Many people of good will find racial discrimination to be abhorrent. OTOH, I'm sure that as an attorney you are cognizant of the fact that financial institutions have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.
In any case, have you given any consideration to taking your well-meaning but off-topic thoughts to any one of a number of perhaps more appropriate fora?
A discussion of redlining is very much on topic for cypherpunks. Capital markets and their (alleged) inefficiencies are very close to the heart of cypherpunk thinking. A thread we haven't pursued, but will likely get to, is the ways in which inefficiencies are typically introduced by the government, even in the case of redlining. After that point is made, a discussion of the ways in which cryptoanarchy will circumvent governmental scheming will certainly be germane to this forum. Discussions of the nature of bigotry and racial discrimination lie very close to the cypherpunk thinking. In a cryptoanarchy it will be very hard to enforce our ideas of what other people should think. Affirmative action, anti-redlining laws, etc., will likely become far less effective. Disaster? No, a blow struck for human dignity and freedom. Similarly, allegedly well-meaning programs to help the poor through seizure of other people's assets will not do well in a cryptoanarchy. Is this a terrible outcome? Not really. The reasons why are worth discussing and they are worth discussing in this forum. The cypherpunks list benefits from a wide ranging discussion. This was one of the original ideas of the group and is, presumably, why it is a completely open mailing list. These sorts of complaints are particularly inappropriate now that there are two other restrictive mailing lists available for those who want them. One is coderpunks. The other is Perry Metzger's cryptography list. A wide ranging discussion is beneficial because it allows us to truly explore our ideas. Not only do we then achieve a deeper understanding, but completely new ideas also arise. "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend." I note that in your comments above, you couldn't resist making a comment which is, apparently in your view, off topic. I would encourage you to pursue these ideas. You obviously find them interesting. Rather than making killjoy comments, which do nothing to promote the discussion, perhaps you should consider posting long thoughtful posts which you believe would raise the level of discourse in this forum. Barring that, learn how to use a killfile. You can killfile on subject line. You can killfile on origin. (I sign my posts consistenly, so they can be killfiled, even though I am posting through the remailers.) Red Rackham