"Then what are you doing here? This list is for discussing and implementing cypherpunk concepts. If you deny them, you should go elsewhere to pursue your goals." Tsk tsk...this sounds like Orthodoxy to me. Part of the benefit of an anarchy is to support otherwise-suppressed forms of existence and states of mind. If Variola can't at least suggest these ideas here, then Cypherpunks has become Cypherfacist. While I personally still believe that Crypto and other technologies will be enough ("The meek shall inherit the earth"), that's by no means obvious yet. Variola and May and others are the little nagging voices that force one to consider whether physical measures will be necessary and/or called for. -TD

From: An Metet <anmetet@freedom.gmsociety.org> To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: Re: On Killing Blaster Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:29:06 -0400

Major Variola writes:

...

Language is how you manipulate people from a distance. Much more convenient than hitting them.

Crypto *can* keep bits free. And so maybe language.

But Men with Guns control physical reality, which limits what those bits can do. Read the archives on the problems with linking "credits" to dollars or physical merchandise.

Fine; you are questioning the feasibility of the cypherpunk model for achieving freedom through cryptographic anonymity. It is true that power in the physical world can, in principle, prevent the operation of the information infrastructure necessary for the cypherpunk dream to be realized. Whether it can do so without also impairing "good" information transfers to an unacceptable level remains to be seen.

But suppose you're right; suppose men with guns keep crypto anarchy from working, and the only recourse is to use force of your own. Then what are you doing here? This list is for discussing and implementing cypherpunk concepts. If you deny them, you should go elsewhere to pursue your goals.

The practical problem with using force is that people will fight back. And there are far more of them than you. In a democratic system, government policies have widespread support. If you start knocking off California legislators you will soon find the massive might of the State directed against your health and well being. Your goals of anarchy and freedom are never going to be popular enough to let you win by using force in this way.

Some have said they want to use cypherpunk technology to facilitate their plans for using force to fight the oppressors. They can set up assassination markets; or more simply, hire hitmen anonymously using ecash. In this way they can bring force to bear without risk.

But this reasoning is self-contradictory. If force is necessary, it is because cypherpunk technology has failed. As you predict, "Men with Guns" will be controlling the bits via their control of physical reality. There will be no anonymous assassination markets to help you pursue your violent goals.

But the reverse is true as well: if and when such markets come to exist, it can only be because the cypherpunk dream has succeeded beyond our wildest hopes. A world in which such applications exist despite the most stringent efforts on the part of the State to eradicate them is one in which cypherpunks have truly succeeded in burrowing so deep into the information infrastructure that they can never be stopped. It is a world in which anonymity is preserved, one where contracts and payment systems have been developed for even the most risky and uncertain enterprises.

If cypherpunk technology works to this degree, then it will open up tremendous new opportunities for people to evade the power of government. The one overwhelming trend as we move into the 21st century is the power of information. This is why governments more and more are trying to crack down and limit its propagation. If cypherpunk technologies are able to transcend these restrictions, as is implied by the potential existence of assassination markets, there is essentially no limit to what they can do.

The physical world is going to be increasingly less important as we go forward. What counts is the flow of information. That is what needs to be protected and made free from interference. If we can achieve that, the physical world won't much matter. You won't need your guns, and assassination markets, if they exist, won't be a force for freedom, but merely another hazard of the physical world, that most people avoid as much as possible.

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