Tim Bell wrote: At 10:57 PM +0100 4/7/97, Adam Back wrote:
I can think of at least half a dozen posts dealing with the ethics, the need (they claim) for independent review, the immmorality of the death penalty in general, and so on.
Exactly what more is needed? If you mean that no one is talking about the mechanics of actually setting up such a market, this may be true. For lots of reasons. Could be folks just have no particular interest in spending the time to actually set one up, even a "play" AP system. Could be they perceive other projects to be more important.
Or it could be that those who are setting up AP systems are not leaving themselves open to attack.
(Sidenote: the work Robin Hanson and others did on "idea futures" is an example of something that's more important, and more "doable," and less dangerous. And yet I see precious little discussion of _it_ on this list.
Maybe that is because it doesn't address issues that the government feel are enough of a threat to suppress.
Perhaps I'm just imagining things, but it would seem to me that if one had in the past made comments on the list suggesting that AP might even be a _good thing_, Jim Bell's experience might make one think now was be a good time to disclaim that one was talking theoretically.
But, on the contrary, I've seen more "positive" comments, in absolute numbers, about AP in the last several days than I recall seeing in the last several months.
Perhaps if you weren't so liberal in your use of killfiles, then you wouldn't be so out of touch with what cypherpunks list members discuss on the list.
I've viewed several posters comments on AP ever since Jim Bell got involved in discussing anonymous markets in illegal services as being careful to stay on the side of speech.
It is almost as if they are afraid to discuss openly their views on the subject.
Example, please. Who was previously an advocate of AP on a regular basis that has recently spoken only of it terms of speech?
Tim, lacking the ability to read, asks about those who "advocate" AP. Adam is quite correct in his perception of cypherpunks pussyfooting around their true views on AP since the government attack on Jim Bell's views. Of course, Tim May attacks those who choose to remain anonymous via the cypherpunks remailers. Tim and the IRS make quite a tag-team in denigrating those who would speak freely about AP.
(Actually, I recall very few supporters of AP, even before the list subscribership dropped dramatically.)
Since you shitcan the posts of a variety of list subscribers, your recollections don't count for very much, do they?
I like a lot of your stuff, Adam, but on this one I think you're 175 degrees out of phase with reality.
Perhaps Adam's view of reality encompasses a broader range of posts to the list than Tim's does. Perhaps those who put all cypherpunks in their killfiles could claim that the cypherpunks don't really exist. TruthMonger (#1--the shit disturber)