Anonymous blathered:
If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are implicitly condoning it. Silence gives consent. How many people have objected to Tim May's racist comments? Only one or two. How many objected when William Geiger suggested that more nuclear bombs should have been dropped on Japan? None. How many have objected to the notion that residents of Washington, D.C. should be killed? Hardly any.
How many of us SHOULD bother responding to these trolls? Tim May froths at the mouth. William Geiger froths at the mouth. Dimitri Vulis (KOTM) froths at the mouth. Paul Bradley froths at the mouth. (I just included him as a troll.) Anonymous froths at the mouth. How much pointless outrage should I feign everytime one of these people posts? How much crap do you want to read? If you don't like 'em, stick 'em in your kill file. It's your right to complain, but don't expect me to give a shit.
At one time the cypherpunks stood for freedom of speech and protection of privacy. Today they stand for guns, violence, threats of terrorism and murder, racism, homophobia, jingoism.
No, we've always stood for homophobia, you anonymous cocksucker.
It's ironic to see that the kind of off-topic, flaming, irrelevant posts which have caused such consternation in the past are now the norm. Reasonable people have been largely driven off the list, leaving it to supporters of violence and hate.
Is it better to wave your magic wand and ignore the erosion of our rights, or take up a gun and defend them? You can try the political route if you want, but we're stuck in a tyranny of the majority. The politicos stand behind a podium, claim they've got to "do something" to "save the children" and nobody argues. How can you win an argument on free speech when Joe Sixpack only sees the EyeWitless News drones crying "Children get porn on the Internet!"? Joe Sixpack would like nothing better than to silence the minority. The other 49% of people really piss him off, what with their crucifixes in urine and that other liberal shit. And Catholics. They piss him off too. The Constitution is supposed to protect our right to free speech. Congress, at the urging of this majority of Joe Sixpacks, is trying to suppress it. The answer cannot come through congress. Cypherpunks would have to outnumber the civilians in an election, and that's just not gonna happen. Our only hope is the defenses we can provide ourselves, and if that's court challenges, guns and crypto, well then as Tim almost sez: Lock and load and encypher. (Nuke the lawyers anyway.)
The sad thing is, this is all unnecessary. The original conception was that cryptography would allow people to protect the privacy of voluntary interactions. Laws forbidding voluntary transactions will be difficult or impossible to enforce. We will move into a world where there is far more liberty and freedom for everyone.
There is no need to blast government agents' heads open. There is no need to nuke D.C., or Japan. There is no need to disparage people of other races and cultures.
Step back from this immersion in a culture of violence. Draw the cloak of privacy about your actions. That is the true cypherpunk way.
Oh, come on, Zooko (oops, did I write that? I meant "anonymous".) What the hell do you know about the "True Cypherpunk Way", other than that's the name of the street in Bienfait, Saskatchewan that I live on? JoeSixpackMonger