I just got through reading another hilarious post from Anonymous, and I realized that instead of filtering anonymous posts _out_ of my reading list like I used to, I've gradually started filtering them _in_. I was thinking about why, and it illustrates a counter- intuitive hypothesis that's been germinating in my head for a few days/months/years. I'll call it "Zooko's Law of Evolutionary, Counter-Intuitive, Painful Serendipity": In an evolving ecosystem, things which appear to do harm often result in benefit. For example, if you consider having lots of healthy, happy bunnies to be a benefit, you might consider an influx of voracious wolves to be bad news. But in many cases the selective pressure exerted by the wolf population will result in stronger bunny genes, healthier bunnies, more bunny babies and cetera. In the case that the wolves leave again, or some other aspect of the environment changes (winter comes, etc.) then the population of passive grass-nibbling bunnies will turn out to be disappointingly fragile compared to the population of well-exercised wolf-fleeing bunnies. Now you might complain that I am not playing fair by tossing in these hypothetical environment changes late in the game. If we are evaluating _just_ the influx of wolves, and not some possible developments such as the wolves passing on, winter coming and so forth, then "obviously" the bunnies were better off without wolves. But perhaps that's just the point. In an evolving ecosystem, you _can't_ measure success without considering the likelihood of continual change. You might also object that I am sneaking in some unfounded Platonic concept of "bunny goodness" which only holds in certain contexts. I.e. maybe the environment will change in a way that penalizes bunnies with sinewy muscles and fast hearts and rewards big fat stupid bunnies who only think of the next nibble. Okay. Maybe I am. But my intuition tells me that this isn't some human-prejudice Platonic Ideal slipping in, but that in fact competition _does_ usually make the competitors better suited for all sorts of likely environmental changes. Now why do the cpunks care? Because I think the invasion of flaming, spamming Vulisses and "Graham-John Buellers" was good for the cpunks list. It drives away people with too little intelligence, stomache-strength, technical know-how or egostic attitude manage their own list input without depending on group dynamics to manage it for them. Okay, so like all "natural" selections, it takes out a few of the good guys too. I still miss Perry Metzger's involvement, but if we had to lose Perry in order to lose a few dozen clueless loudmouths, then so be it. Anyway, I consider it a Bad Thing that anonymous remailers are so difficult to learn and use. I would approve if point-n- click remailers and remailer clients were widely distributed. But in another application of Zooko's Law of Evolutionary Serendipity, the fact that remailers are hard to use means that the people who use them are smarter than average. So maybe _that's_ why I've found it rewarding to select _for_ anonymous posts instead of against in recent times. And why I toy with the notion of fomenting the kind of infowar "war games" that Phill Hallam-Baker hates. Damn, I wish Daniel Dennett were reading this list. Regards, Zooko Journeyman P.S. Just to tie up one loose end-- you might notice that I counted the flame-invasion as a goodness because it drove off "clueless loudmouths". But what's the difference between a "Graham-John Buellers" and a normal crypto-groupie? Is this a double-standard? Not at all. The clueless loudmouths that I am glad to be rid of are an insidious sort, like William H. Geiger III, Paul Bradley, and rest-his-soul Jim Bell who are on-topic and sane enough to attract attention from the real thinkers, but who are prolific and mediocre enough to pull down the over-all quality of discourse. Apologies to the named people for hurting your feelings. It's nothing personal, but I have to call 'em like I see 'em. Cut down the volume of your output to just the very best of your articles, and maybe I'll stop filtering you out.