-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com> writes:
it seems to me the main proponents of "cryptoanarchy" tend to suggest a government structure is a completely useless construction. perhaps so but they would end up erecting othre systems to deal with the void they might not call "govt" but would have most of the features of one, imho. something "govtlike" is a measure of a civilized society, imho, hence my distaste in cryptoanarchy with its seeming naivete on the legitimate and crucial role of govt in a society. the specifics may vary between implementations, but imho in general something "govtlike" is crucial to civilized society.
This concluding paragraph got me to thinking of something I read recently in "Bionomics" [1] about the public education problem. The point being made there is that injecting even a little real competition into a monopoly situation improves things tremendously. It is the counter argument to the objection that allowing students choice of schools will destroy the majority, as the "good" kids flee. What will happen instead is that most schools, seeing imminient flight, will take measures to avoid losing students (and taking their tuition with them). A few, that really can't adapt in time, fail and their students are forced to seek other schools. The result is that all schools, even "public" schools improve dramatically. It seems to me that the government as a whole may be subject to this same force. If cryptoanarchy can inject even a little real competition into the business of government (in the "providing services crucial to a civilized society" sense) it may succeed, even if few people actually use bona fide cryptoanarchical tools. If this is true, we can expect existing government organizations to try to improve to avoid extinction (some will doubtless try other things besides improvement). Perhaps the US Postal Service is a leading indicator of this process. This suggests that the transition to cryptoanarchy may be rather gradual and peaceful after all. Ted Anderson I'm still behind on cypherpunks, so apologies if this response is dated. [1] http://www.bionomics.org/text/resource/biobook.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMoihwwGojC9e/wyBAQHcJAQAoFO3a/kNxlp30A1CUTxKNoLgKPtATTp/ jYpqpeq29oh4195OvIIUVzx8DUyZgmdVJEtfPakatDuXsVPMwab18BriI7AJeq0u 1w43jimazlKCbbKFT9ZanzpJlohVxvsNlL132o7jq/4SHDnS0py3tIr/4HY0nUoL dKh0avqHGeo= =TIIL -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----