Force is not physical
elton@sybase.com:
"Rule", or "political ... control" are only ever exercised through force. People keep using that word, "enforce", without looking carefully at it.
"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in cyberspace. In cyberspace, if you loose your net connection, right to post, read whatever, you're dead. You could be 'killed' by a coalition of system providers, or a 'government monopoly'. You _will_ follow the rules, won't you? The point of this discussion was a model government for cyberspace (and here the sense of 'governance' is administration), and its possible extension to brickspace. It is not true that cyberspace is invincible, that the Net can't be tamed and all that rot. The Internet cannot be censored as long as a part of it exists. The money, power and intention could destroy it completely, which would of course be foolish in the extreme. Assuming that it survives, 'untamed', how is it to be run, and how will it affect the way the rest of our lives are run? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab@dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA
rishab@dxm.ernet.in writes:
"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in cyberspace.
One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered to be punishable by force. This leads to the position that double spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so you can't get away with it). It also suggests that contracts as such cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words and people can repudiate them freely. Nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work you do and deliver. If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you). I think this position is consistent and interesting, but it does seem like it may be inefficient compared to a system in which people can authorize the use of physical force applied against themselves under agreed-upon circumstances. It also seems like historically people have not used non-binding contracts as much as binding ones, and I wonder whether this suggests that non-binding contracts are less useful. Hal
Hal sez:
rishab@dxm.ernet.in writes:
"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in cyberspace.
One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered to be punishable by force. This leads to the position that double spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so you can't get away with it).
Force is something that happens in the physical realm and the government reigns supreme there. Do you want the Government getting involved in cyberspace? They surely will try, but we needn't encourage them. Perhaps, however, a more important consideration is the fact that our systems are highly flawed if we can NOT rely on them to protect us without government intervention. Its a good sound design criterion. Besides, what is the probability of a physical realm Government [Duncan's convention for the great evil :) ] catching an anonymous thief who went through a well designed remailer system. Not bloody likely...
It also suggests that contracts as such cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words and people can repudiate them freely. Nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work you do and deliver. If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).
A contract should ALWAYS contain enforceable breach provisions. The amount of misery that is caused in the physical realm each year due to people not following this rule is enormous. In cyberspace there is even less excuse for not following this rule because transaction costs are so low. [In the physical realm there are numerous situations in which high transaction costs render the negotiation of breach provisions for low probability events inefficient.] If you can't enforce a contract or the enforcement is not explicitly spelled out you've done something wrong and you are inviting both misery and inefficient litigation. Cheers, Jason W. Solinsky
Hal Finney writes:
One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered to be punishable by force. This leads to the position that double spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so you can't get away with it). It also suggests that contracts as such cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words and people can repudiate them freely. Nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work you do and deliver. If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).
I don't strongly argue for the position: "anything is OK if you can get away with it." In fact, I can think of many actions that, if "performed in cyberspace" would warrant physical retaliation up to and including deadly response. An example would be theft of "my" personal secrets, my digitial money, etc. The hard part, of course, is catching the person. And I see no point in making a big deal about "outlawing" such thefts, given that enforcement is so problematic. I don't know if this makes my personal morality clearer, or if my personal morality matters. I just wanted to make this clear, to prevent misunderstandings. Let me state a set of points in the context of locking doors, laws about entering a house even when the doors are unlocked, the role of the law, etc. (This has actually come up a couple of times as a parallel to crypto, to leaving files around for decryption, etc.) * Wise people don't just trust to laws about breaking-and-entering, they put locks on their doors. (And they use strong crypto when necessary, etc.) * An unlocked door is not a legal excuse for entering a house. Basic idea of property rights, a Schelling point for rights. (The issue of "unauthorized access" to computers via modems is a more problematic one in property rights; I have no firm conclusions yet, and hence I support using cryptographic access protocols to make the issue technologically moot.) * Regardless of whether I've locked my doors, if I find an intruder inside my house I'll shoot first and ask questions later. Though I don't support the ex post facto imposition of a death penalty for this entry, I support those who defend their property and themselves. * The law should not distinguish between locked and unlocked doors, period. While prudence dictates that doors should be locked, to cut down on the issues above, the law should be blind on this. To the extent there is any centralized law, that is. * A better solution: private law. One contracts with a PPL agency. They will likely charge for enforcement, as insurance and security companies currently do. Having an unlocked door--deduced somehow--may result in cancelled service, or higher premiums, etc. (There are too many issues to debate here, so I won't. Hal and others are well familiar with this...newcomers are urged to read up first. I've cited the books several times.) In summary, I can see some cyberspatial actions as triggering me into taking physical actions. With strong crypto though, and untraceability, the playing field changes dramatically and most cyberspace actions are unpunishable in the "real world." --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."
Hal writes
If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).
I think this position is consistent and interesting, but it does seem like it may be inefficient compared to a system in which people can authorize the use of physical force applied against themselves under agreed-upon circumstances. It also seems like historically people have not used non-binding contracts as much as binding ones,
Surely contracts binding by honor only are better than contracts binding by force. Honor has been predominantly used, rather than force. For example I have about $60 000 in unsecured credit. If I blew all that and told the banks to piss off, there is nothing they can do, other than burn my credit rating. And the US government (unfairly and unjustly) prevents them from burning my credit rating permanently. The legal system in the US has effectively collapsed. It is cheaper to use honor, than force. In cyberspace the cost advantage of honor is even greater. I expect that in the future, fifty to a hundred years, we will see a freeman class, literate and numerate, whose contracts are based entirely upon honor, and an illiterate servile class whose contracts are based primarily upon force: "If you do not pay back this loan with accumulated compound interest we will break your arms and legs, as you agreed." "Duh, whats compound interest?" "Or alternatively you could work for me for food and board until the debt is, Heh, heh, (evil laugh) paid off." -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com
One question [...] is whether it makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered to be punishable by force. I, personally, will steer clear of making any such broad normative prescriptions. We have barely yet begun the task of determining whether violence-free systems can be stable in the long term. It's not yet fully clear to me that this is even true about a payments system, even though I've argued that it may well be so. And the payments systems are the only ones for which I've seen anything approaching a specification. Normative statements are, generally speaking, ones which contain the words "you ought to" or "you should" or "it would be wrong to". They imply some sort of obligation, but the recipient of that obligation is rarely explicitly stated. Normative statements create and bolster the "policeman inside"; they are intended to create in the hearer some sort of mental restriction--"I won't do that because I shouldn't". Why do normative statements ever even work? The simplest statement of the situation seems absurd--one person says "you ought" and then another person says "I will". "Those who do not will are willed." A wise man indeed. Normative statement work because of the implicit threats contained therein, threats of either violence or shunning. Years of conditioning, and not only by parents, are required to make these threats effective, and their effects persist long after. I want my threats to be overt. I would much rather say "If you steal from me I will hunt you and kill you" than say "People shouldn't steal from each other". One of the whole points of anonymity and pseudonymity is to create immunity from these threats, which are all based upon the human body and its physical surroundings. What is the point of a system of anonymity which can be pierced when something "bad" happens? These systems do not reject the regime of violence; rather, they merely mitigate it slightly further and make their morality a bit more explicit. (And now the flip side, where instead of saying "this is good" I will rather say "this is what I want".) I desire systems which do not require violence for their existence and stability. I desire anonymity as an ally to break the hold of morality over culture. Cyberspace is a substrate for identity whose locus is not a physical body. Not all of cyberspace will have these characteristics. There will be segments of the electronic world which are fully mapped one-to-one with individual bodies, and the actions taken here will be subject to the same morality of the physical world. Anonymous systems are neither necessary nor inevitable nor, because of the prevailing culture, obvious. The will of many individuals will be necessary into order to bring about their creation. Anonymous systems will start from a position of relative weakness, without the resources and familiarity that identified systems will have. I desire the anonymous spaces and the hidden places. I rejoice in the discussion of their creation on this mailing list. I want to win rather than to feel good about losing. Eric
participants (6)
-
Hal -
hughes＠ah.com -
jamesd＠netcom.com -
rishab＠dxm.ernet.in -
solman＠MIT.EDU -
tcmay＠netcom.com