Type III Anonymous message
-----BEGIN TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE----- Message-type: plaintext Tim, I AM GETTING TIRED OF SEEING CYPHERPUNKS RESTRICTING WHAT INFORMATION FLOWS AND TO WHERE IT FLOWS... -----END TYPE III ANONYMOUS MESSAGE-----
On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 03:10:04PM +0100, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Tim,
I AM GETTING TIRED OF SEEING CYPHERPUNKS RESTRICTING WHAT INFORMATION FLOWS AND TO WHERE IT FLOWS...
He is correct, of course. One of these days I'm going to get MailMan working, and resurrect cpunx-news. This list shouldn't be drowned in forwards. It's a good way to drown discussion. Not that there is much discussion, the cyherpunk meme doesn't seem to draw fresh blood too effectively. I'm seeing similiar trends across virtually all my mailing lists, so I presume it's the medium itself that it's in decline. Both IRC and IM are of course even worse content killers than email. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]
On Dec 7, 2003, at 1:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 03:10:04PM +0100, Nomen Nescio wrote:
Tim,
I AM GETTING TIRED OF SEEING CYPHERPUNKS RESTRICTING WHAT INFORMATION FLOWS AND TO WHERE IT FLOWS...
He is correct, of course. One of these days I'm going to get MailMan working, and resurrect cpunx-news.
This list shouldn't be drowned in forwards. It's a good way to drown discussion.
Not that there is much discussion, the cyherpunk meme doesn't seem to draw fresh blood too effectively. I'm seeing similiar trends across virtually all my mailing lists, so I presume it's the medium itself that it's in decline.
Both IRC and IM are of course even worse content killers than email.
I have several theories/conjectures about what is happening to mailing lists. First, a lot of the younger folks--who used to be some of the fresh blood for lists like ours--are not users of mailing lists. I expect some of them don't even know such things exist. For them, IM is the norm. (And IM is mostly an interpersonal, chat format.) Second, blogs seem to have taken over for many formerly active mailing lists. In some of the areas of interest to me, a dozen blogs are frequently read, including the ones with fairly active followup. And example is "Lambda the Ultimate," http://lambda.weblogs.com/, just one of many similar language and programming blogs. (Personally, I think much is being lost in the shift away from Usenet and mailing lists towards these blogs. For while follow-ups exist for many of them, there is always the sense that one is participating in Dave Winer's blog, or Mitch Kapor's blog, or whatever. Further, many of the blogs take on a "my daily diary" and "random musings" tone. By the way, though I read the good blogs, like LtU, I don't post to any of them.) Third, the explosion of mailing lists, Yahoo discussion groups, "pipermail" groups (such as the E language and "capabilities" folks tend to use), etc., has made many groups "subcritical." (Something we began to see half a dozen years ago, when Cypherpunks had a bunch of close competitors (cryptography, coderpunks, etc.), plus several lists run by Hettinga, plus a couple by Declan, and so on. Cross-posting to Usenet newsgroups was bad enough, but cross-posting to many mailing lists was a major pain. Especially as most lists are closed to outsiders, who can sometimes posts, sometimes not, but where context and followups are lost.) Fourth, 9/11. A lot of people got very scared of saying what they think. Read the archives and note the drop-off in certain kinds of political discussion. Even some of the former nodes have vanished; my hunch is that many of those subscribed to the vanished nodes never bothered to find another node. (I have no idea how many subscribers the list has. The nodes I know of don't allow listing the subscribers. I would not be surprised if the subscription total has dropped below a few hundred. And of these, clearly only a few dozen regular posters come to mind.) Fifth, relevant for our list, "crypto is tired." As in Wired's old "wired/tired" joke column (and of course "Wired" is _especially_ tired). Not that crypto is less important now than it was, but, plainly, some things expected have not yet happened, with little prospect of happening soon. And since the basic ideas have been discussed so many times before, in so many ways, not much excitement in discussing "dining cryptographers" for the 7th time, or "how to make PGP more popular" for the 16th time. Sixth, the lack of news about crypto. No prosecutions of a "folk hero" like Zimmermann to pull in newcomers. No Clipper chip. No bans on crypto (at least not yet). But even if crypto got trendy again, I just don't see the young students of today flocking to our particular mailing list. Too many other choices. Probably they'll read someone's daily blog.... One last reason, the most controversial one. When I was 40 I really had no difficulty dealing with the 20-year-olds. They seemed basically a lot like I was when I was their age. But something has changed. Maybe it's me, maybe it's not. But now, at the age of almost 52, I find dealing with most of the people in their 20s I encounter, even at CP meetings, much harder. Maybe it's their usually bald heads (seems many guys in their 20s shave their heads). Maybe it's the rings through their noses and eyebrows and lips and other places (shudder). Maybe it's that openly embrace "geekiness" without actually having a solid foundation in math and physics and such. And probably it's that when I was 40 I was not _that_ much older than the people in their 20s...but now I am older than their own parents! Whatever, I find when I talk to these newcomers with their bald heads, their piercings, their Linux geek talk, I have almost nothing in common with them. And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L). This was the fertile ground Cypherpunks started in (myself, Gilmore, Stewart, Sandfort, etc., whether or not they called themselves libertarians or not). This shows up in the fact that protests against global capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of globalism and free trade. In other words, politically-speaking, Cypherpunks is out of tune with what most twentysomethings seem to believe. --Tim May "As my father told me long ago, the objective is not to convince someone with your arguments but to provide the arguments with which he later convinces himself." -- David Friedman
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Tim May wrote:
I have several theories/conjectures about what is happening to mailing lists.
First, a lot of the younger folks--who used to be some of the fresh blood for lists like ours--are not users of mailing lists. I expect some of them don't even know such things exist. For them, IM is the norm. (And IM is mostly an interpersonal, chat format.)
Not true. I personally run several mailing lists with heavy political bents. One in particular, "antisocial" (the name is a play on a post someone made a long time ago) is vibrant and continually growing. But they need to be nurtured - this is the failing of this list. We no longer take care to bring in new blood. We have failed utterly to encourage new ideas. And any new blood which may test the waters with a posting that doesn't follow median doctrine is likely to find themselves and their deviant ideas under heavy attack, rather than discussion. People won't post ideas that conflict with the mainstream (which obviously is different in each unique forum) if these ideas are either dismissed out of hand or attacked ad hominem.
Second, blogs seem to have taken over for many formerly active mailing lists.
Not really. The blogs tend to be more of a "pulpit" that an idea exchange point.
In some of the areas of interest to me, a dozen blogs are frequently read, including the ones with fairly active followup. And example is "Lambda the Ultimate," http://lambda.weblogs.com/, just one of many similar language and programming blogs.
Yes, but these suffer from the same malaise of everyone having the same opinion :-(
(Personally, I think much is being lost in the shift away from Usenet
Usenet is the perfect example of an inherently hostile arena. Even worse, its a perfect example of what true anarchy really is - usenet has been lost to the disruptors.
and mailing lists towards these blogs. For while follow-ups exist for many of them, there is always the sense that one is participating in Dave Winer's blog, or Mitch Kapor's blog, or whatever. Further, many of the blogs take on a "my daily diary" and "random musings" tone.
Precisely.
By the way, though I read the good blogs, like LtU, I don't post to any of them.)
Third, the explosion of mailing lists, Yahoo discussion groups, "pipermail" groups (such as the E language and "capabilities" folks tend to use), etc., has made many groups "subcritical." (Something we began to see half a dozen years ago, when Cypherpunks had a bunch of close competitors (cryptography, coderpunks, etc.), plus several lists run by Hettinga, plus a couple by Declan, and so on. Cross-posting to Usenet newsgroups was bad enough, but cross-posting to many mailing lists was a major pain. Especially as most lists are closed to outsiders, who can sometimes posts, sometimes not, but where context and followups are lost.)
Fourth, 9/11. A lot of people got very scared of saying what they think.
Totally agree, however, CP has been going "subcritical" since long before 9/11.
Read the archives and note the drop-off in certain kinds of political discussion. Even some of the former nodes have vanished; my hunch is that many of those subscribed to the vanished nodes never bothered to find another node. (I have no idea how many subscribers the list has. The nodes I know of don't allow listing the subscribers.
None of mine will allow it either, with the reason being the protection of the list contributors.
I would not be surprised if the subscription total has dropped below a few hundred. And of these, clearly only a few dozen regular posters come to mind.)
Fifth, relevant for our list, "crypto is tired." As in Wired's old "wired/tired" joke column (and of course "Wired" is _especially_ tired). Not that crypto is less important now than it was, but, plainly, some things expected have not yet happened, with little prospect of happening soon. And since the basic ideas have been discussed so many times before, in so many ways, not much excitement in discussing "dining cryptographers" for the 7th time, or "how to make PGP more popular" for the 16th time.
CP has always been so much more than crypto. The history here is political, with crypto not always playing a part. Even the non-crypto discussion is almost completely lost.
Sixth, the lack of news about crypto. No prosecutions of a "folk hero" like Zimmermann to pull in newcomers. No Clipper chip. No bans on crypto (at least not yet).
But even if crypto got trendy again, I just don't see the young students of today flocking to our particular mailing list. Too many other choices. Probably they'll read someone's daily blog....
Unless someone goes out of their way to try and introduce them to the list. We regularly solicit for antisocial - especially from areas that are anathema to the posting-core of the list. To put it simply, CP has lost many of the core values that made it so important - Information Wants To Be Free, right? Or does it. We are not spedning much time trying to dig up information from people with positions we may consider abhorrent...
One last reason, the most controversial one. When I was 40 I really had no difficulty dealing with the 20-year-olds. They seemed basically a lot like I was when I was their age. But something has changed. Maybe it's me, maybe it's not. But now, at the age of almost 52, I find dealing with most of the people in their 20s I encounter, even at CP meetings, much harder. Maybe it's their usually bald heads (seems many guys in their 20s shave their heads). Maybe it's the rings through their noses and eyebrows and lips and other places (shudder). Maybe it's that openly embrace "geekiness" without actually having a solid foundation in math and physics and such. And probably it's that when I was 40 I was not _that_ much older than the people in their 20s...but now I am older than their own parents!
Oh jesus: the "Young People Are So *Different*" BS. Spare us. This is the easy way out - it places the onus on others, when really the weight falls to all of us. We need to either put up or shut up.
Whatever, I find when I talk to these newcomers with their bald heads, their piercings, their Linux geek talk, I have almost nothing in common with them.
And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L). This was the fertile ground Cypherpunks started in (myself, Gilmore, Stewart, Sandfort, etc., whether or not they called themselves libertarians or not).
Then why aren't you inviting them here to listen and learn? Maybe you can convert them? Or maybe they will convert you?
This shows up in the fact that protests against global capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of globalism and free trade.
In other words, politically-speaking, Cypherpunks is out of tune with what most twentysomethings seem to believe.
No. Cypherpunks has become out of tune with what most CPs claim to believe.
--Tim May "As my father told me long ago, the objective is not to convince someone with your arguments but to provide the arguments with which he later convinces himself." -- David Friedman
-- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org Father, you are a great and mighty God. Help our governments to remember the lessons of our history and to appreciate the purpose of your son Jesus. Teach our representatives not to be so arrogant as to speak in one way, but doing another, for surely this not the way of truth. Help us to understand that your will is not death but life, not the darkness of hatred but the light of friendship in Christ. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. Merle Harton, Jr.
When I got censored by cypherpunks@lne.com a couple of weeks ago I tried to subscribe to these nodes: Algebra Infonex Lne Minder Sunder Pro-ns Openpgp Ccc Subscription was successful only on: Algebra Pro-ns Both of thse provided a "who" response on 11/10/03 of Algebra 122 Pro-ns 14 I get the same messages from Algebra, Pro-ns and Lne, though Lne still refuses mail from me. How many other subscribers are exluded by the censorious and dead nodes is not known. Eric calls his Lne block a result of spam from my provider, to me it's no different than censorship, a perfect imitation of how government justifies its suppression of dissent. Tim didn't mention as a cause of cpunk decline the fucking with the list by shitheads who thought they knew best how to run things, the first goal being censorship of those who didn't behave. Once, Tim was a prime target of such shit and he did a nice job of killing the controllers. Now if you kill the bureaucrats, and the youngsters, for overreaching, or indifference to authority, you got to figure out how to do the dirty work of cleaning up after the masters' spiteful running the country, the firm, the estate, the family, the ideology into the ground. What I like about the ring-in-the-flesh crowd is their pleasure in grossing out the stodgers. Makes me wish I still had that knack instead of only the memories.
This mighty wind header of Pro-ns outblows most messages, and appears to confirm that only Algebra, Lne and Pro-ns are in the X-loop:
On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 07:37:26PM -0800, John Young wrote:
... What I like about the ring-in-the-flesh crowd is their pleasure in grossing out the stodgers. Makes me wish I still had that knack instead of only the memories.
Hey, John -- wear some of that shit, and I promise to be grossed out. But seriously, has anyone considered that maybe the problem is Tim May? His hate-filled ignorance is a real impediment to anyone who might otherwise be interested in "the cause." His spews are pretty distasteful, and to him, anyone who didn't start cp a zillion years ago is just an ankle biter come-lately. I've only been on the list for 3 years, but I'd say that things were a lot more interesting before (In-) Choat jumped ship. As to John's comments, they're right on: getting subscribed is a major PIA, and even finding out where the information about the list *is* is non-trivial for the uninitiated. Lack of cooperation from list managers is just the tip of the iceberg... unfriendliness to wanna-be participants is endemic. So "decline" is the exact right word: the same people, more or less, with attrition: a downward curve. And a big "fuck you, too" to anyone who thinks otherwise. -- Greg
On Dec 7, 2003, at 6:54 PM, Greg Newby wrote:
On Sun, Dec 07, 2003 at 07:37:26PM -0800, John Young wrote:
... What I like about the ring-in-the-flesh crowd is their pleasure in grossing out the stodgers. Makes me wish I still had that knack instead of only the memories.
Hey, John -- wear some of that shit, and I promise to be grossed out.
But seriously, has anyone considered that maybe the problem is Tim May? His hate-filled ignorance is a real impediment to anyone who might otherwise be interested in "the cause." His spews are pretty distasteful, and to him, anyone who didn't start cp a zillion years ago is just an ankle biter come-lately.
Fuck off and die, along with all of your fellow travellers. You have contributed _nothing_ here.
I've only been on the list for 3 years, but I'd say that things were a lot more interesting before (In-) Choat jumped ship.
In your three years here, nothing.
And a big "fuck you, too" to anyone who thinks otherwise. -- Greg
I hope you and your family are some of the first of the tens of millions who will die in the Great Burnoff of Useless Eaters. --Tim May "Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound"
On Sun, 2003-12-07 at 16:11, J.A. Terranson wrote:
On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Tim May wrote:
I have several theories/conjectures about what is happening to mailing lists.
First, a lot of the younger folks--who used to be some of the fresh blood for lists like ours--are not users of mailing lists. I expect some of them don't even know such things exist. For them, IM is the norm. (And IM is mostly an interpersonal, chat format.)
Not true. I personally run several mailing lists with heavy political bents. One in particular, "antisocial" (the name is a play on a post someone made a long time ago) is vibrant and continually growing. But they need to be nurtured - this is the failing of this list. We no longer take care to bring in new blood. We have failed utterly to encourage new ideas. And any new blood which may test the waters with a posting that doesn't follow median doctrine is likely to find themselves and their deviant ideas under heavy attack, rather than discussion.
People won't post ideas that conflict with the mainstream (which obviously is different in each unique forum) if these ideas are either dismissed out of hand or attacked ad hominem.
Clay Shirky has some good thoughts on this in his essay 'The Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy', found at http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html [big snip] I've been on and off the list for years, mostly as a lurker, occasionally as a poster. Up until last month (or so) I thought the list had died. I remember that the S/N radio went way down and toad.com was going to drop the list a few years back. Some of the list 'goals' have been achieved, we now have good solid crypt that we can use. We have operating remailers (although they really need to be more user friendly). For me personally the biggest obstacle is time. As I've gotten older I don't seem to have the time to focus on following discussions in 10 different lists, or work on dozens of projects. Brian ---[Office 72.2F]--[Fridge 34.4F]---[Fozzy 90.3F]--[Coaster 63.4F]--- Linux Software Developer http://www.brianlane.com [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
From: "Brian C. Lane" <bcl@brianlane.com>
Clay Shirky has some good thoughts on this in his essay 'The Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy', found at http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
"So we're back, and we're taking wizardly fiat back, and we're going to do things to run the system. We are effectively setting ourselves up as a government, because this place needs a government, because without us, the place was falling apart." Interesting motivation for setting up a government. Mark
-- On 7 Dec 2003 at 15:26, Tim May wrote:
Whatever, I find when I talk to these newcomers with their bald heads, their piercings, their Linux geek talk, I have almost nothing in common with them.
The change is in you, not them. Your postings now sound like old fart postings. A similar transformation is visible in Doonesbury. I don't know the cure for it. I don't think it has hit me yet, but I suppose I will be the last to know. It is probably incurable, like going bald. It does not strike everyone. Some, like Feynman, never become old farts, but it strikes a lot of people.
And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L).
When you were a teenager, everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest, had a picture of Che Guevera on their wall, and thought the Soviet Union was going to win. I would say that the kids of today are a damned lot more libertarian than when you and I were kids.
This shows up in the fact that protests against global capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of globalism and free trade.
The cartoonist in "reason" (or perhaps "liberty" not sure which) depicts these protests as being dominated by old farts about your and my age, with the young folk in reluctant tow. I suspect if you and he attended the same demo, he would see a crowd of old farts, and you would see a crowd of young punks with nose rings. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG /JGPIvI11TGnJc6gE6/w/g6k0rZwAOZZoka0PiIJ 4DnWpX4iPZy18KuWpdzmsERHsIS6O34J+itCHGsE2
On Dec 7, 2003, at 7:15 PM, James A. Donald wrote:
And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L).
When you were a teenager, everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest, had a picture of Che Guevera on their wall, and thought the Soviet Union was going to win.
Nonsense. "Everyone" did not think this. Far from it. YAF was going strong back then. Of 8 of us who rented a place, 6 were fairly extreme libertarians, one was confused but went along, and one was apolitical. (One of these guys wore a dollar sign pin and subscribed to Nathaniel Branden's newsletter.) This, was, by the way, when we were 18-20 years old. The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This is very well known. (And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their 40s and 50s. A correlation here.)
I would say that the kids of today are a damned lot more libertarian than when you and I were kids.
Quite likely you, as you have said you were a Marxist. I never went through such a phase, having started reading Heinlein and that crowd when I was around 11 or so. It always seemed self-evidently silly to think that "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" could be taken seriously by anybody. And I remember taking some cheer that day in November, 1963 when the Big Government guy was zapped. My family left the U.S. that afternoon and did not return for 13 months. I was a Goldwater supporter in 1964, when I was 12. (Goldwater was way too liberal for me in many ways, but he was against the "Civil Rights Act" and other such Marxist nonsense, so I supported him. I didn't care for his Vietnam views, except I agreed with him we should either fight to win it very, very decisively, or get out. Still think most of the baldies of today, with rings through their noses, marching against Coca Cola and Intel and Big Business, and arguing for affirmative action are "more libertarian"? Again, apparently more so than you. In any case, saying "everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest" is silly.
This shows up in the fact that protests against global capitalism draw vast crowds of young people, and even several subscribers to our list have nattered on about the dangers of globalism and free trade.
The cartoonist in "reason" (or perhaps "liberty" not sure which) depicts these protests as being dominated by old farts about your and my age, with the young folk in reluctant tow. I suspect if you and he attended the same demo, he would see a crowd of old farts, and you would see a crowd of young punks with nose rings.
This is certainly so. But it doesn't dispute my point. In fact, it supports it. My generation was very active, on all sides. The droids born after about 1980 are mainly followers. Probably what the nose rings are for. --Tim May, Corralitos, California Quote of the Month: "It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; perhaps there are no true libertarians in times of terrorist attacks." --Cathy Young, "Reason Magazine," both enemies of liberty.
At 07:55 PM 12/7/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote:
The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This is very well known.
(And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their 40s and 50s. A correlation here.)
Yes, and one of the LP's problems is that we've largely turned into old farts there also....
On Dec 8, 2003, at 12:11 AM, Bill Stewart wrote:
At 07:55 PM 12/7/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote:
The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This is very well known.
(And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their 40s and 50s. A correlation here.)
Yes, and one of the LP's problems is that we've largely turned into old farts there also....
Indeed. I can imagine a bunch of possible reasons for this development. In no particular order: * In the 1950s and 60s, the effects of Rand and Heinlein were pervasive. Many college kids in the 60s were reading "Atlas Shrugged." (I won't get into how badly it's written, except to say I devoured it in 2 days in 1968, when I was 16, and quoted from it to all who would listen in the next couple of years. But I haven't been able to read it _since_. I can't get past about page 10 before throwing it down. It's strong propaganda, but badly written.) * The mood of the 50s and 60s was actually one of nearly boundless possibilities for the future, at least in America. Not because of socialists in Congress and JFK, but because of a booming economy, technology, and all the usual things of the time. The generation which entered the work economy in the 1960s through the early 1980s is the wealthiest generation in history...especially those who did so in Silicon Valley or similar areas. (My implication being that things were different for the generation which came of age much later, with more of a sense of limited horizons, dead-end jobs at Starbucks making lattes for Yuppies, etc. Maybe if I were 25, working for $9 an hour at Starbucks, I'd shave my head and look like a refugee from the Apple "1984" commercial too.) * A lot of these folks, the ones who came of age in the 60s and 70s, were enthusiastic libertarians. Some of them joined the Libertarian Party, most of them dislike government drug laws and redistribution of their income, and so on. * A lot of the younger folks I see interviewed describe "income inequality" and "discrimination" and "globalization" as the serious problems the world and America face. They may favor drug legalization, as libertarians do, but they certainly aren't sympathetic to most laissez-faire, "survival of the fittest" libertarianism. A couple of folks here have followed-up in this latest thread with claims that the old farts, especially me, quash discussion of new theories, new outlooks. Hey, this is an anarchy. I have absolutely no power whatsoever to quash _anything_ related to this list! When we were a young list, but when I was still an old fart by most standards (I was 40 in 1992), we didn't need any permission or approval to post what we wished. And some of the folks then were even older than me (Sandy Sandfort, Arthur Abraham, maybe Jude Milhon...). And new subscribers and young people who join the list today are perfectly free to make good contributions. I recall few such newcomers, however. (One of them was Dave Molnar, now a grad student in CS/something at Berkeley, interested in many of the issues we are interested in. He was not "censored" by the old farts when he had something interesting to say.) Bottom line is that this crap about how the old farts are suppressing the young guns is bullshit. If someone has something to say, they should say it. They may not get a positive response to calls for passing new laws to raise taxes "on the wealthy," or to break up Microsoft, or to tell people what kind of software they can write, but that's because the underlying philosophy of the list is what it is: call it libertarian, call it anarcho-capitalist, call it whatever, but don't call it "there ought to be a law" sentiment. --Tim May "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Nietzsche
-- Tim May:
And, as many have noted, very few of the "kids" today are libertarians (either small L or large L).
James A. Donald:
When you were a teenager, everyone thought that Ho Chi Minh was the greatest, had a picture of Che Guevera on their wall, and thought the Soviet Union was going to win.
Tim May
Nonsense. "Everyone" did not think this. Far from it. YAF was going strong back then.
Well, not everyone, but that was surely the way the wind was blowing. The Che Guevera poster symbolizes that era. In "austin powers", they make the spy sound sixties by depicting him as expecting the victory of the Soviet Union, and perhaps rather favoring that outcome. If they had him quote Ayn Rand, he would not have sounded sixties. When the mass media want to cash in on nostalgia for the sixties and early seventies, it is the young commies they remember.
Still think most of the baldies of today, with rings through their noses, marching against Coca Cola and Intel and Big Business, and arguing for affirmative action are "more libertarian"?
Go to the mall: observe the mall rats. See any baldies or nose rings? (Come to think of it, you probably would, but I do not.) Nip down to that park in San Jose where all the young people get their drugs. See any baldies or nose rings? You are further out of it than Doonesbury. The leadership of the Death-to-coca-cola crowd are old farts. These days Chomsky needs an interpeter. The could-pass-as-young pinko activists of the sixties are still in the business as old fart pinko activists of today. And if the same is true of the libertarian party, well it has been walking dead for some considerable time, but its death does not reflect the health of libertarianism. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG kHn9sx1THFU+pOMZQFj1k0jU7RnUtA877TClsJYB 4KSl9qDarOhEujymWANpT3Le2YbPsr5NOMfIblUzm
On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 04:27:38PM -0800, James A. Donald wrote:
the business as old fart pinko activists of today. And if the same is true of the libertarian party, well it has been walking dead for some considerable time, but its death does not reflect the health of libertarianism.
The latest issue of Liberty Magazine (which I have started reading again) has an excellent article by Bradford about the death of the Libertarian Party. Uses the California election as a tool for analysis, or dissection. -Declan
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, James A. Donald wrote:
SNIP In "austin powers", they make the spy sound sixties by depicting him as expecting the victory of the Soviet Union, and perhaps rather favoring that outcome. If they had him quote Ayn Rand, he would not have sounded sixties.
When the mass media want to cash in on nostalgia for the sixties and early seventies, it is the young commies they remember.
That's because the sixties commies sold out as quickly as they could when they were no longer threatened with compulsory military service. The sixties commies are the worst of the "how much is enough" crowd out there whipping slave kids harder to make more nikes and gap clothing. The folks doing the heinlen/randian ranting haven't sold out yet.
Eugen Leitl wrote:
Not that there is much discussion, the cyherpunk meme doesn't seem to draw fresh blood too effectively.
I've been wondering why I havent seen more discussion on wireless networking (802.11a/b/g) and anon/mix /dark nets. Is this a subject of interest to anyone? I am curious what kinds of work has been done in this area... A few examples: - cryptographic dead drop or anonymous broadcast: wifi broadcasts with clients monitoring for tagged packets. Anonymous transport for a number of miles. (probably requires amps) - (encrypted) wireless hops in a mix network for additional attack resistance, and/or all wireless (mesh?) routing. Is the mapping of existing cryptographic techniques to wireless transport straighforward and uninteresting, or is there additional capabilities in a wireless envrionment that open up new uses for secure and/or anonymous communication?
I've been wondering why I havent seen more discussion on wireless networking (802.11a/b/g) and anon/mix /dark nets. Is this a subject of interest to anyone? I am curious what kinds of work has been done in this area...
Check the archives. Wireless solves all crypto anonymity problems for the sender by making them completely irrelevant - it provides good old physical anonymity. ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/
On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 09:34:24AM -0800, Morlock Elloi wrote:
I've been wondering why I havent seen more discussion on wireless networking (802.11a/b/g) and anon/mix /dark nets. Is this a subject of interest to anyone? I am curious what kinds of work has been done in this area...
Check the archives.
I think I've been guilty of this too, but (as someone else in this thread pointed out), it's not a terribly useful suggestion. The archives are not well-organized, and a URL would be helpful. Does anyone have a reasonably complete cypherpunks archive available for FTP? Perhaps I could host them on my server and let Google index them. That might be useful. -Declan
Does anyone have a reasonably complete cypherpunks archive available for FTP? Perhaps I could host them on my server and let Google index them. That might be useful.
There are only two live ones. Someone knows more ? The second one is FTP-able: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cypherpunks-lne-archive/ http://lists.lab.net/archive/cypherpunks-exploder/ ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/
'92-'94 here: http://www.cybershamanix.com/punk.html with a link to the later stuff here: http://cypherpunks.venona.com/ On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 06:56:07PM -0800, Morlock Elloi wrote:
Does anyone have a reasonably complete cypherpunks archive available for FTP? Perhaps I could host them on my server and let Google index them. That might be useful.
There are only two live ones. Someone knows more ?
The second one is FTP-able:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cypherpunks-lne-archive/
http://lists.lab.net/archive/cypherpunks-exploder/
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-- Harmon Seaver CyberShamanix http://www.cybershamanix.com
On 7 Dec 2003 at 22:25, Eugen Leitl wrote:
I'm seeing similiar trends across virtually all my mailing lists, so I presume it's the medium itself that it's in decline.
Spam. people are continually abandoning old addresses. Of course it does not help that the cypherpunks list itself under permanent massive spam attack from two hostile subscribers. I have found a wonderful free, highly effective, spam filter K9, from Keir.net. Everyone should use it, I expect the medium will recover, when everyone uses it or something similar.
participants (15)
-
Bill Stewart -
Brian C. Lane -
coderman -
cubic-dog -
Declan McCullagh -
Eugen Leitl -
Greg Newby -
Harmon Seaver -
J.A. Terranson -
James A. Donald -
John Young -
Marcel Popescu -
Morlock Elloi -
Nomen Nescio -
Tim May