RE: tcmay in favour of redistribution of wealth? NFW/ROTFL
attila@primenet.com wrote:
et tu, Brute? I thought I was the only one who deliberately stiffed the United Way,
I treated it as a generic example, not a specific one. For the record, I have never donated to the United Way either.
Tim redistributing the wealth?!? I'll be ROTFL for days over the "insult."
Come on, James, get with the program.
I liked Zaid Hassan's response better. In general, I try not to "get with the program" (c.f. Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood" by Robert Frost). But in spite of my best efforts, I still find myself in a well defined demographic group. ;-)
in Canada, you call [redistribution of wealth] National Health Services which supposedly provides cradle to the grave social services (which is bankrupting Canada).
In spite of these services the spread between Canadian and U.S. Bonds is in favour of Canada out as far as ten years. Interest rates this morning for 90 Day T-Bills: Canada 3.23%; U.S. 5.02%. Remember: correlation is not causation.
=There is naivete and then there is complicity. =jbugden@alis.com
so where do you draw the line?
Aye, there's the rub. So far I haven't *explicitly* drawn one. And the line I may draw now is probably different from the line I might have drawn 5 years ago or 5 years from now. Ambiguity I can accept, its ambivalence, apathy and agnosticism that annoy me more. Tim's occasional combination of justifiable apathy tends to be the best combination to trigger a response. Ciao, James The rules of the game: learn everything, read everything, inquire into everything... When two texts, or two assertions, or perhaps two ideas are in contradiction, be ready to reconcile them rather than cancel one by the other; regard them as two different facets, or two successive stages, of the same reality, a reality convincingly human just because it is complex. Marguerite Yourcenar quoted in Complexification by John L. Casti. Les regles du jeu: tout apprendre, tout lire, s'informer de tout... Lorsque deux textes, deux affirmations, deux idees s'opposent, se plaire a les concilier plutot qu'a les annuler l'un par l'autre; voir en eux deux facettes differentes, deux etats successifs du meme fait, une realite convaincante parce qu'elle est complexe, humaine parce qu'elle est multiple. Margueite Yourcenar, Memoires d'Hadrien
I enjoyed reading James Bugden's comments. With all the clamoring about how "Cypherpunks write code!!"--a phrase which has been taken to mean this list is only about "malloc" and elliptic curves--there has been very little discussion of the "moral basis of crypto anarchy." Much of my argumentation along these lines is contained in various places in my Cyphernomicon and in essays written in the early days of this list (and on the Extropians list, before the CP list existed). While I won't get started again here, understand that my views are much more than just "justifiable apathy" about the people of the world. A few comments: At 9:31 AM -0500 10/28/96, jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca wrote:
attila@primenet.com wrote:
in Canada, you call [redistribution of wealth] National Health Services which supposedly provides cradle to the grave social services (which is bankrupting Canada).
In spite of these services the spread between Canadian and U.S. Bonds is in favour of Canada out as far as ten years. Interest rates this morning for 90 Day T-Bills: Canada 3.23%; U.S. 5.02%. Remember: correlation is not causation.
Agreed, of course, that correlation is not causation. And I for one draw no firm conclusions about the U.S. vs. Canada vis-a-vis national health care. In fact, if this was _all_ the debate was about--nationalized health care--I would gladly accept nationalized health care if various other obnoxious U.S. policies were dropped. A girlfriend is from a European country, where everyone has universal health care. She likes it. And I tend to agree that it simplifies a lot of bookeeping. While I don't like the coercion aspects, in some sense it's just another tax. The _efficiency_ and _effectiveness_ arguments, that a socialized system is less efficient and effective at supplying some types of health care, is a valid one, and I won't argue with free markets. (But it is also true that many of us never even visit hospitals, partly, in my case, because the web of paperwork and mandatory insurance (almost, as even my _dentist_ is befuddled and confused when I pay cash for work done...they are programmed to deal with insurance carriers) makes the prospect daunting. I'll visit a hospital if and when I need to, but I fear that by then the system will have moved to an essentially nationalized health care system, with the disadvantages of the socialized plans _and_ the disadvantages of the terrible U.S. legal climate...and with anyone who can pay then being charged utterly disproportionate rates.) However, the things about the American system that sicken me, far more than having my taxes go up slightly to have some health care system, are the things that add to health care costs and that make a single day's stay in a hospital cost more than $2000. (Woe unto he who pays cash for his stay, for, verily, he shall be soaked.) Namely, malpractice insurance related to frivolous claims ("the CAT scan caused me to lose my psychic powers and I deserve $3 million"), the sandbagging of medical costs ("to pay for the deadbeats and indigents the law says we have to treat, we'll charge you $50 for an aspirin and $675 for the wheelchair we say you have to sit in whether or not you need it"), and on and on. (My European friend snorts when she hears things like this. In her native country, this nonsense does not occur. _Other_ nonsense occurs, but not this kind of nonsense. Nobody in her country could possibly win a multimillion dollar judgment for supposedly losing her psychic powers in a CAT scan, or any other way, for that matter.) Having said this, I think anyone who can _afford_ an expensive medical operation should of course be utterly free to make arrangements to have it, with no restrictions, waiting periods, or other market distortions. Free markets in medicine and all that. (And of course, eliminating the FDA and letting consumers either do their own research or contracting with other parties to look out for their interests. On the Web, we're moving in this direction. Note that some medical and psychiatric groups are already pushing for limits on free speech on the Net, and uses of anonymity, to control access to this liberating information. This has direct Cypherpunks relevance, as even the "Cypherpunks write code" chanters have to admit.)
so where do you draw the line?
Aye, there's the rub. So far I haven't *explicitly* drawn one. And the line I may draw now is probably different from the line I might have drawn 5 years ago or 5 years from now. Ambiguity I can accept, its ambivalence, apathy and agnosticism that annoy me more.
Tim's occasional combination of justifiable apathy tends to be the best combination to trigger a response.
"Justifiable apathy" is a good word for my beliefs. Yes, I am agnostic, even atheistic, about most beliefs most people have. For me, the skepticism of Nietzsche is far more comforting and believable. The human animal concentrates its efforts and attentions on itself, its family, its friends, and its various cohorts. Sometimes these cohorts are local, sometimes on a mailing list like this one, sometimes international groups. My point? I feel more strongly about the death of one of my pets than I do about hearing that some natural catastrophe in Bangla Desh has killed 100,000. And I think all honest persons will admit that this is a natural reaction. The "Hamming distance" matters, and people I have never met on the opposite side of the earth simply are _abstract numbers_ to me, as I am to them. Natural. Cryptography and networks allow the creation and maintenance of "virtual communities" which alter Hamming distances, so that a list member in Bangla Desh or Poland or Singapore may indeed become important to me. Social spaces _are_ important--the death of a John Lennon is almost certainly felt more strongly around the world than the deaths of 100,000 Bengalis as a river overflows its banks. Sorry for the digression from "coding" (:-}), but I thought I'd provide a few more insights into my political views. Saying I display "occasional combinations of justifiable apathy" is not the full picture. And, as the other libertarians on the list will likely also say, it is not that we libertarians and anarchists think the masses of the world are not worth helping. It is more that we think the masses will best be helped by lessening the burdens of the state--the recent worldwide (except China and Cuba) collapse of Communism as a credible ideology moves us in this direction. The best thing *I* can do to help the various players I care about--myself, my friends and family, my virtual communities, and some abstract aggregate called "the future"--is to do what I'm doing now, by furthering an ideology/system which is in tune with technological and political trends. --Tim May "The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology." [NYT, 1996-10-02] We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
participants (2)
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jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca -
Timothy C. May