Three Cheers for the State - RAH RAH RAH
You're on a roll, Mr. Bob Hettinga:
... is a distinction without a difference. Identical to the distinction between "pacifism", or "opposition to war", and treason, in an actual time of war.
Of course, the very concept of tax-free *anything* is anathema to me, these days. At the very least, it's just as much a state subsidy as a cash grant.
To summarize: - Opposing any war is treason. - Every human activity should be taxed. - Failure to tax is equivalent to subsidy.
Nation-states are a bitch, y'all...
And from the above I conclude that you like it that way.
Cheers, RAH
Three cheers for the state, rah rah rah! Digital bearer settlement is treason. -- Patrick "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. ... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." James Madison, April 20, 1795
On Monday, April 21, 2003, at 04:55 PM, Patrick Chkoreff wrote:
You're on a roll, Mr. Bob Hettinga:
... is a distinction without a difference. Identical to the distinction between "pacifism", or "opposition to war", and treason, in an actual time of war.
Of course, the very concept of tax-free *anything* is anathema to me, these days. At the very least, it's just as much a state subsidy as a cash grant.
First, Bob should cut back on his massive cross-posting to his several self-centered groups (including new ones to me: "Philodex Clips" and "dgcchat"). Second, those from other lists who give their hero his "props" (a negro term now being used by many negro wannabees) should do so on lists other than Cypherpunks. Third, I wonder when Bob will stop proliferating "digibucks" and "bearer settlement" and "e$" and "Philodex Clips" and all of his other lists and instead actually _work on_ his "fractally geodesic multi-centered emergent global clearing" b.s. Unless his real career is, as many suspect, just endless self-promotion using the latest snake oil buzzwords. --Tim May
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 5:39 PM -0700 4/21/03, Tim May accused me of pissing in his personal catbox:
First, Bob should cut back on his massive cross-posting to his several self-centered groups (including new ones to me: "Philodex Clips" and "dgcchat").
Ah. Theoretically, that's a claim made in the absence of data, at least as far as Mr. May is concerned, because, last time looked, I was in his killfile. Which might still be the case, because, inevitably, when someone replies to something I send to cypherpunks, Tim flames away. :-). Oddly enough, Patrick's libertarian/anarchocapitalist ideological purity flame was actually an original message, which probably proves the point. So, I plead guilty of creating new mailing list, m'lord, though the idea for the new list not exactly new. Philodox Clips is an attempt to put all the forwarded stuff into one list, like I used to do with the now 5-year-defunct e$pam list, only with, heh, more scope. :-). As a firehose of firehoses, it's probably not useful in its present form, but copyright law prevents turning it into a web-archive or an RSS feed. Besides, I'm going to do it anyway, and, apparently, *some* people want to look at it, including Patrick, :-), so I might as well put it in, heh, one place. However, dgcchat@lists.goldmoney.com isn't mine. It's an unmoderated discussion list ostensibly about digital gold currencies hosted, but not controlled by, GoldMoney.com. It's where lots of the original libertarian/anarchocapitalist (hence Patrick's "purity" flame) e-gold types went after several interesting, not to mention litigious, events occurred on and around the original e-gold discussion list, resulting in an unfortunate over-moderation of same. [Think what precipitated the demise of the old cypherpunks list at toad.com, and you'll get something of an idea.]
Second, those from other lists who give their hero his
Well, somebody *did* call me a "hyperactive genius saint from the future" once, but I attribute that to, um, misplaced enthusiasm. Certainly the only genius saint from the future *I* know is Tim May, who, by all accounts, is not hyperactive, per se...
"props" (a negro term now being used by many negro wannabees) should do so on lists other than Cypherpunks.
...though certainly racist, if not in fact, then in deliberate affect.
Third, I wonder when Bob will stop proliferating "digibucks" and "bearer settlement" and "e$" and "Philodex Clips" and all of his other lists and instead actually _work on_ his "fractally geodesic multi-centered emergent global clearing"
That's "functionally anonymous instantaneous internet bearer transactions executing, clearing, and settling on ubiquitous geodesic internetworks", to you, Tim. :-). Besides, none of the above is mine, after all. "Anonymous" is David Chaum. "Geodesic Networks" is Peter Huber. Digital bearer transactions is Nick Szabo. "Immediate and final clearing" is Eric Hughes. "Functionally", and "ubiquitous" I leave as an exercise for the reader. I just stuck it all together in the right order. Nonetheless, I do agree that Making Shit Happen is Hard, even in the best of times. Guilty as charged 'mlord. But Tim knew that, like everything else he currently knows, in 1992. :-). Officially, IBUC is a going concern, but only just. Last revenue was a year ago, and last real revenue was in July 2001. We've got more unpaid bills than Carter's has pills, and we haven't made an interest payment on our outstanding bonds in a year either. I'm living proof that bootstrapping in the absence of revenue is not nearly as easy as it looks. :-). I am looking at ways to generate revenue other ways (which is why the Philodox site is probably going to be retooled, if we can figure out what for or how to do it) to pay both IBUC's bills, and to pay for new stuff to do. Not much luck there, yet, either. Making Shit Happen is Hard, these days, in particular. I'm too stubborn, if not stupid, :-), to quit, though. Of course, it's hard to tell whether I've quit or not given the present pace of things. One of the more humorous definitions of insanity is persistent behavior in the absence of evidence to the contrary, and it's starting to feel like it applies, but that can be said of several people we all know. :-).
b.s. Unless his real career is, as many suspect, just endless self-promotion using the latest snake oil buzzwords.
It's amazing to me how many people insult others by describing themselves. 'nuff said. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBPqV89sPxH8jf3ohaEQIvmgCfebX4LGBB+QaNcmYh288KpGlQHZ4AoKO8 kTdDAuV48O04xCJ1Vfw4e3+W =J0Ey -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'
On Tuesday, April 22, 2003, at 11:46 AM, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
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At 5:39 PM -0700 4/21/03, Tim May accused me of pissing in his personal catbox:
First, Bob should cut back on his massive cross-posting to his several self-centered groups (including new ones to me: "Philodex Clips" and "dgcchat").
Ah. Theoretically, that's a claim made in the absence of data, at least as far as Mr. May is concerned, because, last time looked, I was in his killfile.
How could you _possibly_ look in my killfile? I often discard older killfiles when I change my system, when I change my mailer, etc. My recollection is that you were in my Eudora Pro killfile, but that was a year or so ago. True, mostly I delete your stuff after only reading the first paragraph. The phony "ums" and "ers" and the silliness about "listen, boys and girls," all of this stuff should be edited out. And the content is, um, redundant. And, er, uninteresting. And that, boys and girls, is enough to make me blow milk out my nose. To use another, um, Hettingaism.
Which might still be the case, because, inevitably, when someone replies to something I send to cypherpunks, Tim flames away. :-).
And the silly use of smileys.
So, I plead guilty of creating new mailing list, m'lord, though the idea for the new list not exactly new. Philodox Clips is an attempt to put all the forwarded stuff into one list, like I used to do with the now 5-year-defunct e$pam list, only with, heh, more scope. :-).
Have as many lists as you like, er, though it, um, seems to be silly to concentrate so much on spamming material to so many seemingly, um, related lists. Ebuscks, Philodex, E$, DCSB...this seems to be your main industry, creating new little mailing lists.
people want to look at it, including Patrick, :-), so I might as well put it in, heh, one place.
Too many smileys, too many "heh"s and "um"s and "er"s. Bad enough in spoken speech, and utterly pointless in writings. More examples included below. You really ought to consider a major change in your writing style. The smileys and ums and hehs and ers and phony folksiness distracts from what may be your real message. Unless being a certain kind of prose stylist is your goal...in which case I would even _more_ strongly urge you to tighten up your prose.
Well, somebody *did* call me a "hyperactive genius saint from the future" once, but I attribute that to, um, misplaced enthusiasm. ...
That's "functionally anonymous instantaneous internet bearer transactions executing, clearing, and settling on ubiquitous geodesic internetworks", to you, Tim. :-).
I'm living proof that bootstrapping in the absence of revenue is not nearly as easy as it looks. :-). ...
I'm too stubborn, if not stupid, :-), ... several people we all know. :-).
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 At 4:55 PM -0700 4/22/03, Tim May deigned to flame my prose, pointing out a mild inadvertant conundrum:
Ah. Theoretically, that's a claim made in the absence of data, at least as far as Mr. May is concerned, because, last time looked, I was in his killfile.
How could you _possibly_ look in my killfile?
Ah. There you go again, accenting the trivial, while ignoring the substantive. Frankly, forgetting it wasn't September, I expected some undergrad to come running to your logical rescue, but you did so yourself, promptly, in proper adolescent fashion, I might add, with every thing but the "so there" and sticking your tongue out. I knew, reading it as it came back off the list (how's that for self-absorbed?), that that little malaprop would come back and bite me in the ass. Frankly, I was too lazy to fix it. I might have said "heard", of course, instead of "looked", though, literally "looked" was true, since I *see* you, on this list, put me in your kill-file about once a year, every year, since, oh, 1995 or so. So, let's use "heard" instead --metaphorically, of course -- as in "heard" from Mr. May about it, as in publicly "heard". As in repeatedly "heard". As in, dare I say, er, um, redundantly "heard"? Nahhh... that's too lumpy. :-). Frankly, I would never killfile Mr. May, because, at the very least, he provides 9/10ths of the entertainment around here these days, between his affected racism, sexism, anti-semitism, threats of physical violence and genuine paranoia (see Olsen in the .sig, below...), and, like All True Literate Aryans (his word, not mine, folks), he doesn't even use emoticons. ;-). As for me being redundant, guilty as charged, m'lord. Same shit, different day, every day, since heh, May-ish, 1994. That's 18 months less redundancy than October 1992, I suppose. :-P... (See? I have a tongue, too, though I drool a bit when I use it too much.) For entertainment, let's see how fast I can get myself back into Tim's kill-file again, shall we? Let's see if he's read down this far... Hey, Tim, threatened anyone on Usenet with raping their wife and children lately? Cheers, =:-)=- RAH ^^^^^^ (aka BeelzeBob. I'm sooo bad today...) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0 - not licensed for commercial use: www.pgp.com iQA/AwUBPqYP+MPxH8jf3ohaEQIqugCgqUCmfvzy6MvYUAw2sP0Wg/Un6SAAoLaw XCBHnrdSor75B32mO0wJi5zG =XPE5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "When I was your age we didn't have Tim May! We had to be paranoid on our own! And we were grateful!" --Alan Olsen
On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Tim May wrote:
First, Bob should cut back on his massive cross-posting to his several self-centered groups (including new ones to me: "Philodex Clips" and "dgcchat").
Second, those from other lists who give their hero his "props" (a negro term now being used by many negro wannabees) should do so on lists other than Cypherpunks.
Third, I wonder when Bob will stop proliferating "digibucks" and "bearer settlement" and "e$" and "Philodex Clips" and all of his other lists and instead actually _work on_ his "fractally geodesic multi-centered emergent global clearing" b.s. Unless his real career is, as many suspect, just endless self-promotion using the latest snake oil buzzwords.
Jealous? -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 7:55 PM -0400 4/21/03, Patrick Chkoreff attempted to calibrate his apostasy reflex, across three email lists:
You're on a roll, Mr. Bob Hettinga:
And you're on a troll, Mr. Patrick Chkoreff? :-). At the very least he either doth protest too much, or at least mistook my meaning. Let's be charitable, and assume the latter, shall we?
... is a distinction without a difference. Identical to the distinction between "pacifism", or "opposition to war", and treason, in an actual time of war.
Of course, the very concept of tax-free *anything* is anathema to me, these days. At the very least, it's just as much a state subsidy as a cash grant.
To summarize:
- Opposing any war is treason.
Well, if you're the de facto property of one nation-state or another, that's exactly true. Find me someone who isn't, these days. Hint: <http://www.google.com/search?q=failed+states&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8> The very definition of evil these days is the so called "failed" state.
- Every human activity should be taxed.
Isn't it already? Certainly I think that *nothing* should be done without profit, that nothing really *is* done without profit to somebody, no matter what its governmental designation, and that *all* economic activity should be taxed if any of it is, and it *will* be, directly in cash, or indirectly in regulation, since we're all the "property" of one nation state or another, whether we say we "own ourselves" or not. So, maybe you're right. When you think about it too hard, Non-Governmental Organizations aren't Non-Governmental, and that Non-Profit isn't. Churches, included, if you remember one of the three(?) original posts you're clipping from.
- Failure to tax is equivalent to subsidy.
Given the above, indeed. Think about the implicit government subsidy for medicine (I hate to commit the commie-code neologism "healthcare" in polite company...) by making it tax-deductible on a corporate tax return. Certainly the home interest rate deduction is a subsidy for single housing. Taxes, since nation-states have their guns at our heads and take them whether we want them or not, shouldn't have deductions, if the word "should" has anything to do with it. It "should" not distort the economy anymore than it has to to pay the guys with guns.
Nation-states are a bitch, y'all...
And from the above I conclude that you like it that way.
I think you mistake a statement of naked fact for approbium. Since the nation-state is caused by physics, I expect that changing physical phenomena is the only way to solve the problem.
Three cheers for the state, rah rah rah!
Fancy that. My initials make a cheer. Never heard that one before. <Hyuk!>
Digital bearer settlement is treason.
Possibly. Certainly lots of people, you and others, hope so, apparently. But, hope, as exemplified by one's politics, or ethics, for that matter, doesn't have much to do with it. Like I said, nation-states are caused by physics, not politics. Politics is a result. It is not a cause of anything. These days, I tend to prefer economics, myself, as a reason for doing things. YMMV. Religion, applied fiction, if you will, doesn't make physical reality change anymore except through non-coercive economic means, and I live for the day when politics, whose very modern definition is the control of force monopoly, doesn't either. I figure that suckers are born every minute, if they want to pay money to people who tell them what to think, ethically, or politically, that's fine by me. I'm not resigned to, much less in favor of -- not that what you or I *want* actually matters -- the ubiquity of the nation state or any other monopoly, force or otherwise. Nonetheless, we do live in a world of geographic force monopoly, funded by expropriation and extortion. Like Philip Dick said, reality doesn't change when you change your mind. Part of that expropriation is that nation-states can expropriate your physical person, put you in jail or kill you, for not agreeing with them, much less actively thwarting their behavior, particularly in time of war between nation-states. Part of that extortion is that they can threaten you with every thing from mobs and vigilantism to, again, murder and kidnap you if you don't pay them what they tell you you owe them. Their attempts to do this as efficiently as possible with the least amount of violence, usually through bribery of their supporters and fraud about that bribery as a "public good", do nothing more than sugar-coat the fact of their basic extortion and theft. Life is hard. As I said before, "Nation states are a bitch". Certain financial cryptography protocols hold out the, promise, the *hope*, that functionally anonymous, and completely secure, non-repudiable transactions can be done on ubiquitous geodesic internetworks without the requirement of the monopolistic force of nation-states in order to execute, clear, and settle. Economics, and not politics, will determine the answer to that question. Furthermore, as has been said by Tim May and others, those transactions must, sooner or later, execute, clear, and settle in the face of vigorous *repression* of those transactions, by most, if not all nation-states. Though certainly said as expressions of political opinion by Tim May and others, the efficacy of their survival in the face of such opposition will be the ultimate determinant of their *economic*, their physical -- and not political or ethical -- usefulness. That's not surprising, or, for that matter, hostile to nation-states, per se. Any more than railroads or television are hostile to nation states, even marginal or "failed" ones, like Bhutan, or Somalia, or Afghanistan. Ultimately, however, *if* those transaction technologies work as advertised, orthogonal to the nation-state, if you will, they will have consequences to the nation-state, and, as others have said, might be considered threats. Clearly lots of people *want* them to threaten nation-states, but what people want in the absence of *profit* is, also orthogonal. However, and this is most important, at *every* step of the way these protocols must make money. You can't be like Trotsky and say that the revolution hasn't come *yet*, with "yet" being permanently defined as "not now". That means that, plugged into and collateralized by existing *book-entry* assets, bearer certificates on the net are cheaper than book-entry transactions on public internetworks, much less the considerably more expensive book-entry transactions over the proprietary networks of meatspace. My other claim, contingent on the above admittedly long stretch of conditionals, that bearer transactions on the net, because they execute not only anonymously, but more important, *without* the force monopoly of the nation state, make the transaction costs of nation states, and, ultimately non-monopolistic force contracting itself, fall, and, accordingly, dramatically increase the number of "firms", and competition in markets for force. Anarchocapitalism, right here in River City, folks. Crypto-Anarchy, in other words, but not because nation-states can't *catch* previously illegal transactions, causing their fall and, ultimately, violent chaos, but because their *competition* in newly emerging non-monopolistic force markets reduces their market share -- as the net does to centralized information, the surfacting of markets for force into recursively smaller and smaller market actors, at lower and lower cost, with no loss of, if not actual gains in, total individual security -- and liberty. Finally an even bigger stretch, contingent on all of the above, is the idea that if the above really does happen, it, among other things, would prove something that I've always thought was true, something someone else has probably said before somewhere, though I haven't come across them yet, that our social structures map to our communication networks, and that Moore's "Law", in making our network architectures geodesic makes, in turn, our social structures less hierarchical and more geodesic themselves. That, boys and girls, would be very cool indeed, but we ain't there by a long shot. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'
On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
- Opposing any war is treason.
Well, if you're the de facto property of one nation-state or another, that's exactly true. Find me someone who isn't, these days.
I refuse to be a property. Whoever handles me as such, gets open disrespect and either my open refusal to obey, or, in compliance with Czech national tradition, a hidden refusal to obey[1]. Unique concept of sabotage by obedience. [1] Refer to "The Good Soldier Schweik", local national hero. <http://my.core.com/~zenny/index.html> See also http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1999/07/5-NOT/not-090799.html for the international politics applications.
Isn't it already? Certainly I think that *nothing* should be done without profit, that nothing really *is* done without profit to somebody, no matter what its governmental designation, and that *all* economic activity should be taxed if any of it is, and it *will* be, directly in cash, or indirectly in regulation, since we're all the "property" of one nation state or another, whether we say we "own ourselves" or not. So, maybe you're right.
This is enforceable only with purely money-based economy. But there are activities that are done for non-monetary profit: knowledge, experience, fun. Or plain barter. I remove a virus from your computer, you later drop by to repair my TV; barter, no paper trail. Help me and I will help you when you'll need. Instead of shelving out money for expensive courseware, drop by and I'll explain you how TCP/IP works. Then do the same for me with SQL couple weeks later. Skills and knowledge are a kind of capital as well - the kind of ownership no IRS can audit you for. Tax this. Regulate this. Good luck.
At 10:16 PM +0200 4/22/03, Thomas Shaddack wrote:
Tax this. Regulate this. Good luck.
Try to do it for a living. I.E., buy something. Say, food? ...and don't give me that Karl Marx labor theory of value happy horseshit either. :-). As Rocky the Flying Squirrell said onece, "That trick never works!". Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'
On Tuesday 22 April 2003 18:38, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
Try to do it for a living. I.E., buy something. Say, food?
Heh. As the World's Worst Businessman (tm), I can't even buy food when I'm consulting (allegedly) for pay. Good thing I have an employed girlfriend, eh?
As Rocky the Flying Squirrell said onece, "That trick never works!".
As Bullwinkle J Moose said once (in the fairly recent live/animated movie, not in the old series), "Kinda makes you feel discouraged." -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel Guns will get you through times of no duct tape better than duct tape will get you through times of no guns. -- Ron Kuby
At 8:07 PM -0400 4/22/03, Steve Furlong wrote:
As the World's Worst Businessman (tm),
Take heart, I think I've got you beat, at the moment. :-). Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'
On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
Since the nation-state is caused by physics,
Bullshit. Nation states are a consequence of psychology. To look at it any other way is nothing more than saying 'It's not my fault, nature made me do it." How silly. -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (6)
-
Jim Choate -
Patrick Chkoreff -
R. A. Hettinga -
Steve Furlong -
Thomas Shaddack -
Tim May