Seeing Both Sides
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Bob Hettinga wrote:
But then, logic, much less independent thinking, was never Foucault's strong point.
I took this statement at face value, but out of curiousity I decided to find out who this guy Foucault was. The things I read about him lead me to believe otherwise. Some quotes from Michel Foucault: "The judges of normality are present everywhere. We are in the society of the teacher-judge, the doctor-judge, the educator-judge, the 'social worker'-judge." "Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline." How quick we are to condemn those who step out of the "norm", no? As soon as someone says something even slightly controversial, our inner censors rush in to separate ourselves from that person, to chastise him, to condemn him, regardless of the relationship we have developed with him in the past. There is this unfortunate property in man that leads him to disassociate himself from the ideas he holds true if it is convenient, and especially if it will allow him to avoid the ridicule, hatred and disdain of others. In the never ending "pursuit of happiness" we seek to make our lives so comfortable that we will give up that which we hold dearest. "The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and...to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play)." In other words, to make people think. This is the goal of the intellectual. To subtly influence the mass of humanity by appealing to their minds, their reason, instead of their base instincts and emotions. Tolerance and acceptance are results brought about in us by communion with the mind, that which is greatest in us. Hatred, persecution, violence are what we fall back upon when we cease to live to our fullest potential. We degenerate into the animals we once were. Once again, Bob wrote:
The world's foremost pseudomystical relativist cited to support an absolutist position. The logic escapes me. But then, logic, much less independent thinking, was never Foucault's strong point.
Perhaps one way of looking at it is that if you can't see the black and the white, you're missing the whole picture. After all, who would think that one would need to use an anonymous remailer and a pseudonym to express oneself in a free and open society such as ours? Nerthus -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNGu85OFWwZe05jcJAQGvYwgAlI0R3rJW67A9fFIs9ai5FY/jEAwV2oQ1 112bd/UmgfJ11DYPWUpG6GKt2XcBUd6UfYPnidY27hT+GGBTTKjAeF88z0XMu6Ep jWUPllwb0Dw5or1o9IBg8ZAOPaAu/SMy9yVgcfaEbAqmfNken+dBhbfoAORjaLd8 BJSYCGs1Bw3Aw1gE7e3aJdjlYs/gKKNkoTQCkgkt6VBBCEQ7dXG1qbq2BTYS3py9 meK2utOM+YLG/+bJSoGRLT5oFiIpnYrkIwAziAtO7WAfydq+vwf8EsTdnX5mwUxg THngvvyaAbZtVm/yObAPgifbfpfDbnfYOL/rrJQzGMXVJCUBNKTQKg== =zZLC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 5:17 am -0500 on 11/17/97, Secret Squirrel wrote:
How quick we are to condemn those who step out of the "norm", no? As soon as someone says something even slightly controversial, our inner censors rush in to separate ourselves from that person, to chastise him, to condemn him, regardless of the relationship we have developed with him in the past.
I find this particularly interesting in light of my treatment on this list the past week or so. I point out that Tim threatens a federal judge, and all shriek apostasy. I never knew there was cypherpunk orthodoxy until now. It's vaguely refreshing to watch. Makes me feel positively radical.
Once again, Bob wrote:
The world's foremost pseudomystical relativist cited to support an absolutist position. The logic escapes me. But then, logic, much less independent thinking, was never Foucault's strong point.
Perhaps one way of looking at it is that if you can't see the black and the white, you're missing the whole picture.
Yes, but I'm not sure that people with a moral handle on their universe can't see in shades of grey. I just said that relativism is, fundamentally, an idiot's philosophy.
After all, who would think that one would need to use an anonymous remailer and a pseudonym to express oneself in a free and open society such as ours?
Ironic, isn't it? If I had kept my criticism of Tim anonymous, I wouldn't have to shovel out from the gales of protest, to mix a metaphor like a dead horse. Oh, well. Persistance breeds character, or some such Neitchean platitude. However, I refuse to be shouted down around here when I'm right. Armageddon ain't here yet, folks. Hell, 1984 is still behind schedule, and, frankly, it'll never happen, because the PERT chart for it is a spaghetti bowl, and because people are out there, right now, writing code instead of putting a few hundred rounds a week through their ARs and Glocks, holing up in the mountains, throwing (metaphoric) rocks at the local gendarmarie, and keeping their lawyers on hot-standby. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>
<Nice to see I'm back out of TCM's killfile. He apparently figured out he can run, etc.> At 12:41 am -0500 on 11/23/97, Tim May lobs a low, slow one, right over the plate:
Oh, and as for your typically Hettingian "writing code instead of putting a few hundred rounds a week through their ARs and Glocks" insult, you'd be surprised to know who I ran into at the Los Altos Gun Range this afternoon. And to think he was shooting an AR when he could have been coding "for the Cause"!
Actually, <insult> ya yutz </insult> :-), it's exactly *why* I wrote it, if you notice the time of my posting. Shooting is a good skill to have. I wish I had it myself. However, I have a lot more respect for Vinnie, putting in practice at the range -- a firearms instructor who shoots not only for self protection, but because he likes it *and* is good at it (as you probably noticed) -- than I do for you, someone who's on the verge of joining a militia somewhere, though not because you're shooting per se. There's a difference between being ready for a confrontation involving gunfire and going out and causing one, which you clearly seem to be trying to do lately. The former is good sense. The second is, of course, the act of a loon -- oops, "Freedom Fighter". Interestingly, those people who are most interested in starting a revolution are also the people who want to be in charge when the revolution is over. cf., Townsend's "Don't get fooled again", and Radovan Karadzic. Is that *you*, Tim?... Nawwww... If attacked under the proper conditions, like, say, at Concord, fighting is a real good idea. :-). If you read interviews with people at the time, and not, say, 50 years later after several historical revisions, those folks defended themselves more because an occupying army was marching up the road straight at them, threatening their lives, limb and property, than for any political consideration. That and the fact that they actually had the military wherewithall to slow, and apparently stop, that army. :-). Being a near-frontier society, where people still used a, um, geodesic, force architecture :-) to fight bandits, and had at least a memory of dealing with marauding indians that way, paid off handsomely. Texas and the Texas Rangers were an analogous situation with the Commanches, for instance. Concord is clearly proof that Britain didn't understand that they couldn't control America anymore and acted on that misinformation. It was *their* problem, as the revolution bore out. And, frankly, as a member of a congregation whose church was broken up for firewood as a "nest of traitors" during the occupation of Boston, and, having done some myself once in a while, I'm no stranger to the fun and games of good old fashioned rabble-rousing, something this list seems to excel at these days. But, the point is, if someone went out alone, in the middle of, say, occupied Boston, and started shooting, they'd die, and everyone would call them a fool. And, no, I don't think that modern Corrolitos, much less Boston itself :-), is the equivalent of occupied, or even pre-revolutionary war, Boston, either. Finally, as far as code is concerned -- or even *talking* about cryptographic technology and what it can do anymore -- the irony of what *you* do all day, Tim, versus what Vinnie does, is of course, rather immense. I'll answer the rest of your post when it crawls to the top of the dreck pile, like all the rest of them... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>
At 8:59 PM -0700 11/22/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
Hell, 1984 is still behind schedule, and, frankly, it'll never happen, because the PERT chart for it is a spaghetti bowl, and because people are out there, right now, writing code instead of putting a few hundred rounds a week through their ARs and Glocks, holing up in the mountains, throwing (metaphoric) rocks at the local gendarmarie, and keeping their lawyers on hot-standby.
Spare us the "writing code instead of" appeals to some sort of guilt. The moral equivalent of "unlike you, I have a _life_." Or the German war guilt posters, "What have _You_ done for the War today?" Not many people are "writing code," at least not _interesting_ code, at least not recently. A lot of reworkings of basic crypto, a lot of mindnumbingly boring SET crapola, but not a lot of truly interesting stuff. The remailers, the implementations of digital cash...a lot of those who did this at one time are now off working at real companies. Unfortunately, they appear to be mostly buried in corporate projects of little interest to causes of any importance. (I certainly don't blame them for working for Verisign, or Cybercash, or whatever.) Several days ago you listed some number of projects or articles or such you're working on, and claimed this proved your Greater Worth to the Cause. I'm happy for you that you believe this to be the case. In several of your rants you have repeatedly fallen into this pattern of attempting to lay a guilt trip on me, suggesting, variously, that I should be sending you money for your dreams, or that I should be funding other people, or that I should be "doing something." I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I think I do it pretty well, Certainly better than learning C or C++ and becoming YACC (Yet Another C Coder). No insult to C coders, but at age 45, after making a bundle of money doing physics and AI, and retiring eleven years ago, I hardly think training myself at this point to be a C journeyman is what I want to do with my life. (Nor, as I have said several times, to no avail, am I hot to "fund a startup." So don't repeat your pleas on this score, either.) So, as I have said before, knock off on the moralizing about what I should be doing and about how I'm Not Doing Enough for the Cause. Your moralizing reminds me of Detweiler, who had an unnatural fixation on me and my exact words and how my words were torturing him and on and on. Get a life. Preferably, your own. Oh, and as for your typically Hettingian "writing code instead of putting a few hundred rounds a week through their ARs and Glocks" insult, you'd be surprised to know who I ran into at the Los Altos Gun Range this afternoon. And to think he was shooting an AR when he could have been coding "for the Cause"! Deep down, you're still basically a liberal. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
At 2:01 PM -0700 11/23/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
<Nice to see I'm back out of TCM's killfile. He apparently figured out he can run, etc.>
A red herring. I last had Hettinga in my filter file about a year ago, after his "Watching the MacRubble Bounce" eruption and aftermath. It is true that I usually just glance at your posts and then hit the D key....it's tough to extract meaning out of strings of expressions like: "The ganglia twitch... don't forget to swallow your milk before you read this....Don't want to blow it all out your nose... Er, thanks. I think. Makes me sound like an ibogaine-crazed Barbie doll with an AK... :-).... <BudLightMan> I *Love* you man...</BLM>... Ooops. I am. I do. With e$pam, I mean. Well -- never mind. Can I, um, backpedal that?... So, boys and girls,... Ooops. Sorry. Heh... Lost my train of thought... Vinnie saying to him (YANC), in effect, we need him (YANC) for a proper Laying-On of Hands, him being a Piece of the True Crypto Cross, and all.... The ganglia, um, twitch... Thanks to the e$ e$lves... (at 360lbs soaking wet, *I* should talk...)... Now, where *is* that "kick me" sign... Ding! You rang? Welcome to Random Acts of Kindness, Inc. Our motto: "You never know when we're going to make your day!"..." (These are just a few of the Bobisms out of my "H-Files." This weird mix of "Alice's Restaurant" and "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Las Vegas" styles is incomprehensible to me. Maybe it makes sense to Bob's intended audience...maybe to Guy Kawasaki and other such hucksters. What nuggets of truth Bob uncovers are usually buried in mountains of florid rhetoric. More than anything, he needs to get back on his Ritalin, or whatever he takes for his ADD, and
Finally, as far as code is concerned -- or even *talking* about cryptographic technology and what it can do anymore -- the irony of what *you* do all day, Tim, versus what Vinnie does, is of course, rather immense.
Yet another claim that I am not doing enough for the Cause, or at least that Bob's friend Vinnie is doing ever so much more. (Knowing Vinnie, however slightly, I imagine he must find this hero worship by Bob a bit unseemly.) --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
Tiny Timmy May <tcmay@got.net> writes: <a long collection of statist quotes from Bobby the geodesic baron>
(These are just a few of the Bobisms out of my "H-Files."
Now who's displaying an unnatural obsession?
What nuggets of truth Bob uncovers are usually buried in mountains of florid rhetoric. More than anything, he needs to get back on his Ritalin,
I suggest cyanide. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
Tim May <tcmay@got.net> writes:
I'm happy doing what I'm doing. I think I do it pretty well, Certainly better than learning C or C++ and becoming YACC (Yet Another C Coder). No insult to C coders, but at age 45, after making a bundle of money doing physics and AI, and retiring eleven years ago, I hardly think training myself at this point to be a C journeyman is what I want to do with my life.
Let's take an inventory of what Tiny Timmy can contribute to our cause: * capital * ability to spec out projects and figure out what needs to be done He lacks: * time * C coding skills * understanding of non-RSA cryptography (such as elliptic curves) Here's an idea. Suppose you want a certain program to be written and made available for free. Spec out the design and offer to pay a few thousand dollars for someone to code it and post it. Put your money where your mouth it, Tiny Timmy. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
Tim May wrote:
Your moralizing reminds me of Detweiler, who had an unnatural fixation on me and my exact words and how my words were torturing him and on and on.
More foolish speculation on Tim's part, as well as a shoddy attempt to associate my eloquent missives with the mad ramblings of Detweiler. As for Tim's grandoise claims of my having an "unatural fixation," on him, my stalking of him and my use of binoculars and electronic devices to monitor him have proven well worthwhile in helping to gain the information needed to expose him for what he is (although I am afraid I cannot share this information with anyone without violating the confidential integrity of the stalker-victim relationship.) An "unnatural fixation" is revealed by more personal and sick, twisted habits, such as Bill Stewart using his Eudora software to filter Toto's posts to a special directory he projects onto an overhead screen during his sexual orgies with farm animals. (Pictures to follow...) I am astounded that Bill as much as admitted so on the list, much as I was astounded when Tim announced that he would be murdering Jim Bell's judge on Friday, at 4 p.m. Cheers, Bad BobbyH
Robert Heidegger <rh@dev.null> writes:
Tim May wrote:
Your moralizing reminds me of Detweiler, who had an unnatural fixation on me and my exact words and how my words were torturing him and on and on.
More foolish speculation on Tim's part, as well as a shoddy attempt to associate my eloquent missives with the mad ramblings of Detweiler.
I have great respect for Detweiller. LD is kewl. You're no Detweiller, Bobby, and neither is Timmy.
As for Tim's grandoise claims of my having an "unatural fixation," on him, my stalking of him
I agree with Timmy on this one. Your fixation on Timmy is unnatural.
An "unnatural fixation" is revealed by more personal and sick, twisted habits, such as Bill Stewart using his Eudora software to filter Toto's posts to a special directory he projects onto an overhead screen during his sexual orgies with farm animals.
Proof, please. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
On Sat, Nov 22, 1997 at 10:59:19PM -0500, Robert Hettinga wrote: [...]
I find this particularly interesting in light of my treatment on this list the past week or so. I point out that Tim threatens a federal judge, and all shriek apostasy. I never knew there was cypherpunk orthodoxy until now.
Get used to it. I described the cryptoanarchy cult some months ago (check the archives). The result was a hilarious chorus of letters assuring me how unique and individualistic cryptoanarchists were. "...lost in a twisty maze of little passages, all alike". -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html
participants (6)
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dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Kent Crispin -
Robert Heidegger -
Robert Hettinga -
Secret Squirrel -
Tim May