On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 03:08:20PM -0700, Matt Beland wrote:
On Friday 02 May 2003 02:38 pm, Bill O'Hanlon wrote:
It's analogous to a radio astronomy mailing list constantly being trolled by flat earthers.
Bad analogy. It is more like a radio astronomy list being populated by astronomers who support both the constant-expansion ("open") universe model and those who support the eventual-collapse ("cyclic") universe model. Both groups are astronomers, but because they are both intelligent people who support different models, the models are constantly refined to prove one side or the other.
I think my analogy is good. I think your error is displayed by your analogy. In your example, both groups are astronomers. In the current situation on this list, both groups are _not_ cypherpunks, if you accept the definition of cypherpunks as "people who use encryption technology to make statism impossible." If you don't accept that definition, that's fine, but I think my definition is consistent with the history of the list, and my guess is that Tim would agree. And he's the one who asked the question in the first place. I think it's a good question, and I'm curious to hear the answer from one of the folks it's aimed at.
A few years ago, this list was highly interesting, and highly volatile. Populated by libertarians, anarchists, crypto experts, feds, political science students, scientists, cranks, gun nuts, gun control nuts, etc. Now? Looks like you've driven most of the interesting people away. Who's left? The ones who agree with you? Where's the fun in that?
You left statists out of your list, unless you were including them when you said "cranks" and "gun control nuts". The original question was about statists. Some interesting people have left. Other interesting people have joined and are contributing. -Bill