On Friday, December 21, 2001, at 09:34 AM, Michael Motyka wrote:
Bought a copy of True Names and read it last night. Great story, especially considering the date. The first net-fi I read was Neuromancer in '84.
Tim's essay was mostly the familiar stuff, nicely organized and presented. The style was almost academic but I notice he did slip one "spokesvermin" reference in there.
I've written about this book, and my contribution, in the past. Briefly, I was contacted by Vernor and Jim several years ago, asked to write a chapter, did so in a rushed 10-day period over Xmas 1996, and then....nothing. Nothing for several years, until Jim contacted me a few months ago and said the book was "On" again and that I needed to make some galley page corrections in the next 36 hours! "Hurry up and wait," indeed. Jim had made some edits, which I didn't object to. I checked the galleys and made a few changes...I haven't checked my copy to see if he accepted by changes (in some cases, my changes to his changes). It's done, and that's that. I doubt it will change the world.
So, Tim, we seem to have raced closer if not past the fork in the road, especially since September. Recalling Yogi Berra's "when you come to the fork in the road, take it", have we taken it? And if so which path?
The "fork in the road" metaphor comes from my strong liking for geometrical/picture/map thinkiing (which I can't express here in ASCII very well, except through talking about paths, spaces, XY plots of cost/benefit, millicent ghettoes, sweet spots, and other things better expressed in the form of chalkboard drawings). I don't want to recount what I wrote in "True Nyms," so I won't. People should read it if they want to see what I said then. And it's worth the $12-15 just to get Vernor's novella (earlier publications are going for absurd levels on Ebay and Amazon). I expect we are on the "liberty" or "crypto anarchy" side of the fork in terms of basic speech (or encrypted speech, which is the same thing). However, we are on the other fork, the fork toward statism, on the "money" side. Now, a plausible argument can be made that "all money is speech," that is, what one spends money on is protected speech (vis-a-vis the U.S. Constitution, and vis-a-vis "normal market anarchies" in Indonesia, Russia, Afghanistan, etc.). However, the Authorities seem to think that our money is _their_ money, and are severely restricting how we spend our money. Speak politically incorrect words and one may find one's bank accounts frozen under the PATRIOT Act. And so on. I don't need to fill in the details. It goes without saying that anyone attempting a real digital cash system must do so with no traceable nexus to himself, his programmers, his assets, or his physical nexus. Freezing of assets under earlier FinCEN and money-laundering laws would be the least of his worries.
The fork analogy may be too simple. The natural path for a vital culture is the crypto-anarchist path. The path of increasing state control is the natural path for the maintenance and accumulation of power. We all see the forces in operation, it's pretty much the topic 24/7. I think the forces that bind this mess together increase with distance, the more free the net becomes the greater the perceived threat and the desire to reign it in. The tighter the controls the greater the desire to break free. On each side there are those for whom compromise is unacceptable. In the middle are the nearly oblivious masses who can with varying degrees of success be swayed one way or the other from time to time. Fear seems to be their main motivator.
I don't disagree with your view. The nature of the upcoming battle is becoming clear. This is one reason I have been hoping in recent years that someone simply wipes out Washington, D.C. Vaporizing the millions of statists and liberal fascists who work in that viper pit would be a public good. If some innocents die, big deal. They should get out while they can. If they don't, think of it as evolution in action.
Rather than making a choice and following any single path we are following two concurrent and divergent paths and the energy level is increasing. We are headed for a period of escalation. It's definitely a new 'War on Drugs' scenario, just as dangerous, just as futile and just as sustainable.
Don't forget that WD I was lost by the statist side: Prohbition was eventually repealed, with folks dancing in the streets in ways similar to the way Afghanis are dancing in the streets as the Taliban were defeated. WD 2 is still underway, but the proles are getting restless at the costs, the suppression of liberties, and the jailing of their sons and daughters. Again, the vaporization of Greater Washington would go a long way toward ending this War on (Some) Drugs. Let's just hope the reports that UBL and Al Quida smuggled two RP-59 suitcase nukes to the West are correct. --Tim May "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." --Robert A. Heinlein