At 06:05 AM 9/7/95 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
Well, if crypto reduces the role of government in human affairs, it will reduce work for lawyers. Telecoms will certainly break the professional monopoly of lawyers (and other professionals).
The functional equivalent of lawyers will still have a role. When an escrow agent allocates large chunks of money in some fashion, and somebody says X was bad, and X says that Y was bad, and the reputations are worth real money, we will need a public examination to determine what really happened. And if governments collapse entirely, and we get full bore anarchy, lawyers will have even more work because instead of a few reputations being worth large sums of cash, everyones reputation will be worth life and limb. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com