Re: Warrentless Search
Mr. Davis said: The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. <- What you describe, as near as I can tell, is the effect of "entrepreneurial politics." That is when a policy (allegedly) creates general and widespread benefits at a cost that burdens a small portion of the popolous. The incentive is strong for the few opponents to oppose it. These tend to pass when the opponents are poorly represented and cannot make their objections widely known. Compare these with: Client politics: When the benefits of a policy are concentrated, but the burdens widely spread. Small groups have powerful reasons to support the regulation/legislation. The opponents have little reason to resist if it even is clear that the legislation will effect them. These usually pass when watchdog groups are not present. Interest-Group politics: Costs and benefits are narrowly concentrated. The public doesn't have much incentive to be bothered with the legislation and doubts there is a serious effect to them. Interest groups usually carry the day here. Majoritarian politics: All or most of society hopes to gain; all or most hopes to gain. Interest groups have little incentive to form. In general what you seem to want to attribute to a basic non-concern by the people in general is really the fact that none or little of the citizenry feel themselves effected by the legislation. The circumvention of the rights against warrantless search in such a major way is a majoritarian politic issue, and is not comparable to the example that you gave, (baring more specific information). Ignoring the potential ramifications of a seizure of constitutional rights to fight the symptoms of some invented "Crime Crisis" is to me much more indictive of citizen's apathy. I make this assertion with the admission that I don't know the specifics of your example, as you did not provide them. I feel this conversation, which facinates me, bears off of the cypherpunks topic. Unless the voices calling for a more technical and a less political subject matter have waned, I think we should consider another forum. Personally I find the discussion of centralist issues in general important. It's the tie in to cryptography and the lack of a comprehensive list position on the political nexus with the technical that worries me. Sorry for the bandwidth in any event. See, J.Q. Wilson, The Politics of Regulation (1980) for a deeper discussion. -uni- (Dark)
Black Unicorn writes: ...
I feel this conversation, which facinates me, bears off of the cypherpunks topic. Unless the voices calling for a more technical and a less political subject matter have waned, I think we should consider another forum.
Unfortunately, there are few other forums for this kind of discussion. The Extropians list used to have this kind of discussion, though it was mixed in with all kinds of other stuff--and I hear that list currently has 80 subscribers (Harry or Ray can tell us the facts), which is about 12% of what Cypherpunks has, so the discussion universe may be too small for comfort. Robin Hanson's "AltInst" list exists to discuss "alternative institutions." "Libernet" is for the hard-core libertarians, though most people I know can no longer stand to be on it. A few other groups and mailing lists exist, also, but the problem is that they're all "competing in the same memetic space." Most of the groups are low-volume, so the discussions rarely take off. But discussing politics here is not at all banned--how could it be? Politics comes up a lot, including the Clipper debate and all the recent discussions. The "Cypherpunks write code" credo is related to the idea that actually bringing on the future we want to see, via such things as remailers, anonymity, digital cash (someday), etc., is more important--and more interesting--than the usual political chatter about whether the means of production belong to the ruling class or to the working class, whether trees have legal standing, and whether gold should be the basis of money. Blah blah, we've all heard this stuff before. But with the "ground truth" of strong crypto to keep us honest, to keep us focussed, these political debates take on a new piquancy and a new importance. Our debates about banking, national borders, extortion markets, tax evasion, electronic democracies, and so on, have been fairly useful. So, Black Unicorn, where else will you find another group that has this mix of folks, this combination of crypto expertise and political acumen?
Personally I find the discussion of centralist issues in general important. It's the tie in to cryptography and the lack of a comprehensive list position on the political nexus with the technical that worries me.
A comprehensive list position? My views (which I call "crypto anarchy") are well-known. Many others seem to agree with some or all of the main points. Others don't. But how can 700+ folks on this list be expected to reach a consensus? Furthermore, we have no voting, no leadership--except the "leadership of the soapbox." No central lobbying office such as EFF, CPSR, and other political action groups have. No funding. No treasury. No nothing. Thus, it's unlikely we'll ever be like the EFF, issuing position papers, lobbying Congress, sending out spokesmen to talk to groups, and so on. We're more of an anarchy, appropriately enough. And yet we serve a useful function, as borne out by the citations in the press, the inclusion on mailing lists of CPSR, EFF, etc. It seems to work pretty well. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
On Sun, 17 Apr 1994, Timothy C. May wrote:
Robin Hanson's "AltInst" list exists to discuss "alternative institutions." "Libernet" is for the hard-core libertarians, though most people I know can no longer stand to be on it.
What is the subscription address for AltInst? -- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | Al Billings aka Grendel Grettisson | Internet: mimir@illuminati.io.com | | Nerd-Alberich - Lord of the Nerd-Alfar | Sysop of The Sacred Grove | | Admin for Troth, the Asatru E-mail List| (206)322-5450 | =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Timothy C. May writes:
Black Unicorn writes: Unfortunately, there are few other forums for this kind of discussion. The Extropians list used to have this kind of discussion, though it was mixed in with all kinds of other stuff--and I hear that list currently has 80 subscribers (Harry or Ray can tell us the facts), which is about 12% of what Cypherpunks has, so the discussion universe may be too small for comfort.
Actually, we still have 340+ subscribers, but only 80 or so paid subscribers. I have delayed switching on the auto-deletion of people who haven't paid up because Tanya is still receiving checks and hasn't fully updated the list software database yet. If I did turn it on now, a lot of people who have sent their money in might get accidently deleted 'cause their account hasn't been updated yet. I prefer smaller lists anyway. The people who have paid are obviously more intererested in Extropianism than the free riders. This means that a) most of the subscribers are now participants/interested and not lurkers b) higher signal-to-noise Cypherpunks has a mucher larger distribition, but what percentage contributes to discussions? (this is not an attaack on cpunks) However, if 50% of cpunks were coding, a lot more would get done. Incidently Tim, since you left, the list volume has dropped off a lot. About 1/3 to 1/4 of its previous volume (about 3-10 messages a day vs 30-50)
A few other groups and mailing lists exist, also, but the problem is that they're all "competing in the same memetic space." Most of the groups are low-volume, so the discussions rarely take off.
One of the reason the extropians list persists is that its memetric space has a high number of dimentions. Cryptography, politics, lifeextension, economics, math, space, physics, philosophy etc. If people are bored with math one week, they discuss philosophy the next.
So, Black Unicorn, where else will you find another group that has this mix of folks, this combination of crypto expertise and political acumen?
Dare I mention it? ;-) -Ray -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | politics is the implementation of faith. --
participants (4)
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Al Billings -
Black Unicorn -
rjc＠gnu.ai.mit.edu -
tcmay＠netcom.com