Declan wrote:
Or there's something about the cypherpunks list that attracts 'em, which I tend to think is the case.
Agreed, that is what distinguishes this list, now, and based on the archives, from its beginning. While Tim used miswiring coyly, the term fits most of what produces innovative stuff in human affairs. The wired, no pun Declan, just repeat, exploit, copy, plagiarize, steal, and claim as their own what the miswired originated, again as evidenced here but hardly only here. And the wired are forever proclaiming the need for more innovation, but when they attempt to demonstrate what they mean, all too often it is very slyly repackaged fruit cultivated by, ahem, nobodies. Reputation is an obession with the wired, knowing as they do that without that they are nothing. So they must erect fantastic images of themselves, constantly culling their output for new ways of packaging it; they must destroy whatever innovation puts their reputation at risk; they must band together to promote each other's brand; and they must ever be alert for threatening other totems and taboos which diminish their own voodoo. The wired are pathetically traditional, are addicted to pantheons of heros, fear genuine novelty, vainly struggle to impose their carapacial vision on reality to hide their dread of the unknown. The love special connections to others like themselves, a web of trust, a secret, exclusive web is best of all (though cloaked with a scrim of openness). Miswired, yeah, that's the the true cypherpunk waywardness, and within that open-minded ambience a few self-filtered, -censored wired are tolerable to remind what not to do, how not to be, what not to say, who not to hang with, who to be kindly to despite the deliberate self-incapacitation to avoid risk. The wired love grammar and other strict rules of human affairs so they can play at defying them in an approved manner, having banked their all on insider cheating, using the rules to favor themselves. The wired love government and its perfect mate anti-government. But fear going too far and rationalize cowardice as shrewdness. None of this is to be taken seriously for it adopts the style of the long-winded wired: shut up and listen to my infallible preaching.