At 1:36 AM 5/25/96, Rich Graves wrote:

I think forgiveness, within reason, tends to have a positive economic effect. I'm not the same person I was seven years ago, or even seven months. (Is it 7 years, btw? Or was it 12? It's arbitrary, in any case.)

But "forgiveness" is highly personal. That you set your personal statute of limitations at X years does not mean others do.

I have no objection to allowing someone to become, and remain, a productive member of society years after fucking up badly. Note there are no statutes of limitations and no forgive-and-forget mandates for the more heinous violent crimes.

You are of course free to act on your beliefs and forgive such persons. I am of course free to remember what they did and not forgive them. Or, more likely, not give them a job, not lend them money, not enter into business dealings with them, etc. (The likeliest main application of data havens are for such things. Things like "rent deadbeats," credit data extending further back in time than the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" chooses to allow, data bases of bad doctors and lawyers, etc.) Like most laws "banning discrimination," the Fair Credit Reporting Act is a gross violation of freedoms. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."