http://www.cbsnews.com/news/storms-bring-life-threatening-flooding-to-texas/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/18/us/houston-texas-flooding/ At least 5 dead, hundreds rescued from high water in Houston flooding

These horrific spring floods weren't common in the 90s when I was in Texas. Or maybe I was too stoned to notice. We got 30 inches of snow just outside DC in MD this winter, something that hasn't happened in... well, since before I came up here. Greenland permafrost is fucking melting. But I've only born witness to that indirectly. I think it's pretty obvious we are fucked here if we don't make some changes. Maybe this is fermi's great filter. -- John

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:33:28AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

There have been colder years and colder decades before, and warmer years and warmer decades before.

Having in mind there have been ice period, certainly long ago it have been much colder. Is there easy to plot statistics say about for a century? To my knowledge global warming is scientifically accepted fact. It is debated to what extent humans caused it. AFAICT there is regulation against GW. IMHO it is the extrema that matter, not the average. This February here a day was absolute temperature record of over 25 degrees celcius and in the same month there were quite cold days.

On 4/25/16, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:16:04 +0300 Georgi Guninski <guninski@guninski.com> wrote:

...

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:33:28AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

...

There have been colder years and colder decades before, and warmer years and warmer decades before.

Having in mind there have been ice period, certainly long ago it have been much colder.

Is there easy to plot statistics say about for a century?

To my knowledge global warming is scientifically accepted fact.

And you complain about 'sheeple'...? Not to mention 'global warming' propaganda has been rebranded to 'climate change' propaganda. Please stick to the correct scientific terminolo

Exactly. This one time, about 25 years ago, when the latest "global warming" media scare started, something just got to me, irritated me, so I started expressing my 'sincere' concern about global cooling each time "global warming" was raised - e.g. "actually, they firetrucked up, it's global cooling that's coming". This one time, someone got really concerned asking "REALLY?!!" and got all worried about global cooling as I had an internal chuckle whilst maintaining my austere frown and nodding sagely. Then this one time, it all changed to "climate change" and I knew we contrarians were on to something. Then this one time, a few years ago, a science major said to me words which rang loud, "the most abundant times we've been able to ascertain in the Earth's history are when the carbon dioxide levels were 6 times what they are now, and so for life on this planet the only thing we have to worry about in the next few million years is a new ice age". But hey that's probably all bullshit since the TV tells us we're about to die and the solution is carbon tax.

On 4/25/16, Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:

Subject: Climate Change Has been going on since Earth began https://www.youtube.com/embed/iEPW_P7GVB8

That's natural, and doesnt matter, it's more powerful than us, anyone who doesn't get that is a retard. What matters is that anyone who doesn't get that humans are fucking up their own evironment to their detriment... is severely beyond retarded. And if it takes lies and propaganda and regulation to stop that now... in order to allow humans to reach natural extinction lifetime above... then so be it. Besides, the research and tech from it will be useful. Gotta get off the rock.

From "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 19:25:50 -0800 (PST) To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"

A couple of people have sent me pinging messages, asking about my status on the Cypherpunks list....apparently it has taken several weeks for folks to notice my absence! :-} This may speak volumes about why I have left the list, and what the list has become..... I chose not to write a "departing flame" (or message, but some might call it a flame) when I unsubscribed several weeks ago--within an hour of reading that John and Sandy had decided to make "their" list a moderated list, by the way--as I saw little benefit. I was also fed up with things, and saw no point in wasting even more of my time arguing against the New Cypherpunks World Order, as the NCWO was clearly presented as a fait accompli, not something ablut which opinions of list members (or even list _founders_, at least not me) were being sought. It's my nature to just say "Fuck it" and leave when I feel I have overstayed my time, or things are no longer fun, or I am made to feel unwelcome. But since several people have pinged me, asking about my status, I'll take some time to say a few things. I've had access to the hks.net archive site, and/or the Singapore site, to occasionally see what was being said on the list (old habits die slowly, so I sometimes drop in to see what you people are flaming each other about...not surprisingly--in fact utterly predictably--I see vast amounts of bandwidth consumed by arguments about moderation, about the putative biases of the Moderator and Director of the New Cypherpunks World Order, about alternative moderation strategies (which is stupid, as John and Sandy announced what they were going to do, not just some of their preliminary thoughts), and so on. I've also noticed fewer substantive essays. With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose substantive essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day. (Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!" ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name Nurdane Oksas, and the occasional bit of crypto news. Ho hum. I'm glad I'm not reading the list in e-mail, and thus can easily avoid replying to these inanities...which would probably not be approved for reading by Sandy, so why bother anyway?) Rather than compose a traditional essay, I'll take the easy way out and list some bulleted points. * First, I don't argue that John Gilmore is unfree to do as he wishes with his machine, toad, which has been the major machine host for the Cypherpunks list. John can tell us we have to write in Pig Latin if he wishes. Much of the debate I saw in the archives was debate that missed the point about what John could and couldn't do. No one can seriously question the right of the owner of a machine, or the owner of a restaurant, etc., to set the policies he wishes. The owner of a restaurant is perfectly free--or used to be, and still is to anyone with even slightly libertarian or freedom tendencies--to set the rules of his "house." He may insist that shirts and shoes be worn, or that smoking is not allowed (or even is required, in theory), etc. He may say "All those eating in my restaurant must wear funny hats and have their costumes approved by Sandy Sandfort." This is unexceptionable. * However, anyone who disputes these rules (disputes in the sense of disliking or disagreeing with them, not legally challenging them) is free to leave. Those who don't like crowded, noisy, smoke-filled sports bars are encourgaged to leave. And so on. Again, unexceptionable. (The more complicated case of contracts, verbal or written, and "changing the rules," does not apply here. No one had a contract with John, or Sandy, or Hugh, etc., so this is not germane.) * But the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? If the list was hosted by, say, UC Berkeley or PGP Incorporated, would we consider these hosts to be the "owners" of the Cypherpunks group? Would we think that a corporate host, say, would have the authority to direct what we could say on the list? (Again, not disputing their corporate property rights...as a libertarian, I cannot. Other issues are what I'm getting at.) * If a Boy Scout troop meets at a local church, and has for several years, continuously, would we consider the church to be the owner of the troop? Could the church insist on avoidance of certain "cuss words" and demand that prayers be said before each gathering? Certainly the church could tell the troop what policies were to be followed if the the facilities were to be used, etc., and the troop could leave if it didn't like the terms (or, in parallel with my situation, any troop member could choose to leave....). This is what we mean by "property rights": the legal right of a property owner to do with his property as he wishes, modulo prior contractual relationships, criminal laws, etc. * How did the mailing list for the group, now called Cypherpunks, get started, and how did it end up being run off of John's hardare? Hugh Daniel got the actual mailing list rolling, based on a discussion Eric Hughes, Hugh, and I had the day after the first physical meeting, in September 1992. We thought the group we had just spent the day with ought to be able to stay in touch, and that a mailing list was the right way to go. There was talk of siting it on the UC Berkeley computers (actually, the Undergraduate Association computers, a la the Cypherpunks archive site at "csua"), but Hugh thought he might be able to use "toad," and this is what happened. (I have not heard from Hugh on his views of this New and Moderated Non-Anarchic List.) * I think we should all be very grateful to John for agreeing to let it run on his hardware, but not let our gratitude turn into some sort of subservience and blather about how John "owns" the Cypherpunks group. * Again, is the "Cyherpunks community" the same as the mailing list? And is the mailing list, hosted at toad, the "property" of John Gilmore? * In my view, neither John nor Sandy in any sense "own" our group. It is a virtual community which sometimes has physical meetings at various places (including corporations, restaurants, and bookstores, none of which are even partial "owners" of the group) and which has had several instantiations on the Net, including sub-lists not connected to toad.com in any way. While John is of course free at any time to suspend his hosting of the list, I think it a serious misapprehension of the basic nature of virtual communities to accept the claim that John should decide on what is appropriate to bear the "Cypherpunks" list imprimatur and what is to be consigned to the flame list. * The mechanics of the announcement troubled me greatly. To be blunt, I was seething with anger. I was mightily annoyed to read that John had made a decision to appoint Sandy as his Moderator, with no discussion on the list. I don't know if Eric Hughes and Hugh Daniel were asked their opinions, but I certainly know I was not. I feel that as one of the two or three founders, depending on how one is counting, and as a frequent contributor to the list since its inception, and so on, I (and others) should at least have been told of this plan. Better yet, have the plans discussed on the list, as some good ideas may have been generated. I'll have more to say about my problems with how things were handled. Frankly, it smacked of the same kind of fait accompli decision John made with the unsubscribing of Vulis. While John had (and has) every legal right to do with his property as he wished, the effect was very negative. First, Vulis found other ways to post (duh). Second, the list was consumed with flames about this, many from Vulis, and many from others. Third, journalists (who love sizzle over substance any day of the week) lept into the fray with articles which gave Vulis the publicity he craved. Fourth, it sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the Cypherpunks have found it necessary to abandon their anarchic ways." (I'm well aware of the issues with pests like Vulis, who seek to destroy virtual communities like ours. But the solution John used did not work, and generated more crap. As you all should know, it was John himself who coined the wonderful saying, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." A delicious irony.) * In the archives, I did see a bunch of "I support Sandy" and "John is our leader" comments from reasonable people. The obvious noise of Vulis and his cohorts like Aga made a "Do something!" attitude somewhat understandable. I don't think the decision made was a wise one, and I strongly doubt it will work to make the list a better one. * The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. Censorship just makes opponents of "speech anarchy" happy--it affirms their basic belief that censors are needed. * "Censorship" is another overloaded term. I don't think the "Definition 1" of dictionary definitions, about _governmental_ restrictions, is the only meaningful definition. Everybody knows what it meant when we say that "Lockheed is censoring the views of employees," even though we know Lockheed is not using government power. A censor is one who censors. And even my "American Heritage Dictionary" gives this as its "definition 1": "censor n. 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable." (Other dictionaries of course give similar definitions. The notion that censors are confined to being government employees is a misconception.) * OK, even given that John had decided to censor "his" list, what about his choice of Sandy Sandfort as the censor? I've known Sandy for several years (I was the one who invited him to the second Cypherpunks meeting), but he's a poor choice as a censor, moderator, whatever. First, because he has so often gotten involved in protracted flame wars, such as with Vulis (remember the dozens of messages about the "bet" to bring Vulis out? I stayed out of the charade completely.), with Hallam-Baker, and with others. Second, because he has not been actively composing essays for a while, perhaps because of his job with Community Connexion. Other reasons, too. (I count Sandy as a friend, but I'm just being honest here. Sandy is just not a "Peter Neumann" (moderator of the "RISKS" list). * Nor do the announced criteria make any sense. While the inane one-line scatological insults have been filtered out, many "flames" make it through, based on what I've seen in perusing the hks archive site. And some reasonable comments get dumped in the flame bucket. * As expected, those who only want to talk about cryptography (but who rarely do, themselves, also as expected) waste bandwidth saying the "anarchist" and "libertarian" stuff ought to go in to the "rejected" list. More bandwidth wasted, as each group lobbies to have its ideological opponents censored by Sandy. * I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of Good Stuff. After all, both Eric Blossom and Ray Arachelian already offer just such lists, and more would not hurt. But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things considerably. * (Frankly, one of my considerations in leaving was the feeling that I would never know if an essay I'd spent hours composing would be rejected by Sandy for whatever reasons....maybe he might think my essay was off-topic, or used one of the Seven Deadly Words, or was "too flamish." Whatever. I realized that life is too short to have Sandy Sandfort deciding whether my essays should go out to the main list (which is really just a list like Eric Blossom's best-of list, except it is be edict now the main list) or be dumped into the flames list, to be read by a handful of people.) * Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the "Cypherpunks-Unedited) (or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger with the issues raised above. The imperiousness of the decision, the notion of favoring Sandy's tastes in a more "first class" way than, say, the tastes of Eric Blossom, Ray Arachelian, or, for that matter, me. "Some censors are more equal than others." * The decision to "moderate" (censor) the Cypherpunks list is powerful ammunition to give to our opponents, and Vulis is certainly gleeful that his fondest wishes have been realized. And it won't work. People are consuming even more bandwidth arguing the merits of John's decision, the traffic is presumably being slowed down by the need for Sandy to wade through the traffic and stamp "Approved" or "Rejected" on what he glances at, and people are "testing the limits" of what they can say and what they can't say. * It also sends a message that people are incapable of filtering out bad speech, that they need a censor to do it for them. (Again, I have no problem with competing "screeners," a la having Ray, Eric, or David Sternlight filtering what they think is OK and what is not. Let a thousand filtering services bloom.) But the clear message by having Sandy censor the main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the list we all know about, etc.) is that Cypherpunks need Big Brother to shelter them from Bad Thoughts, from Naughty Words, from Evil Flames, and from Impure Desires. Foo on that. * Psychologists might point to random reinforcement, even to the effects of terror. How many of us are likely to write controversial posts knowing that Sandy might wake up having a "bad hair day" and thus reject our posts? How many will begin to skew their opinions to match those of Sandy? (I would venture a guess that a Duncan Frissell would almost certainly get a libertarian rant past Sandy while a Phill Hallam-Baker might easily fail to get a leftist rant past him.) * Those who want "less noise" should subcontract with the filter services of their own choosing. This is the "Cypherpunk Way." Having Sandy as the censor is the easy way out. * By the way, the moderated list "RISKS" works pretty well. But it is not a _discussion_ group. It is, rather, a digest of news items related to computer and technology risks, with some discussion by various contributors, and with a long turnaround time of a few issues per week, tops. Peter Neumann also devotes a lot of time to making it run smoothly and bases part of his professional career on running it. I surmise that Sandy is not prepared to do the same. Nor would this be a good idea, as this would kill the spirit of the debate. * Had there been a debate about the policy, I can think of several approaches I'd like better. But inasmuch as John made it clear that there would be no debate (and, perhaps as part of the "problem," John has not really been a active member of the mailing list, in terms of participating in the debates), this is all moot. In any case, my several years with the list have taken a huge amount of my time. Given the way this whole thing was handled, and the way the list is degenerating even further, it looks like it's good that I'm moving on to other things. * To summarize: - the decision to censor the list was made without any discussion on the list, without any discussion with at least some of the longterm core contributors, and was presented as a "fait accompli." - while John has every right to do with his hardware as he wishes, he does not "own" the Cypherpunks group (though whether he owns the "list" is a semantically debatable point) - whatever our group once was, or still is, is not dependent on having a particular mailing list running on someone's home machine...and it cannot be claimed that any person "owns" the Cypherpunks group. - there is some talk of creating another Cypherpunks list, on other machines; I don't know whether or not this will fly, or if I'll devote any time to such lists. - the effect of censorship, such as I have seen it so far, is not producing a better list. In fact, as I would have expected, it is producing a more boring and sheltered list. And so there you have it. I had no plans to set down my views, feeling it was a waste of my time and your time. Rather than foam and rant the way some did (and Vulis must have posted 100 messages on the subject), I chose to simply make my exit, quickly. But as I have recently seen several mentions of my absence (including a particularly complimentary comment from Asgaard--thanks), I do feel I owe it to you all to explain my views. Which I have done. Have a nice year, and a nice millenium in a couple of years. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

On 04/26/2016 05:56 AM, John Young wrote:

Great repost. May is unique. And well armed and bunkered, physically, philosophically, politically.

Corralitos is a good place to 'bunker down' at. He still lives up there last I knew (2015) http://santacruzupdate.com/2015/05/06/how-do-you-maintain-a-balance-between-...

At 01:27 AM 4/26/2016, you wrote:

...

From "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net> Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 19:25:50 -0800 (PST) To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"

A couple of people have sent me pinging messages, asking about my status on the Cypherpunks list....apparently it has taken several weeks for folks to notice my absence! :-} This may speak volumes about why I have left the list, and what the list has become.....

I chose not to write a "departing flame" (or message, but some might call it a flame) when I unsubscribed several weeks ago--within an hour of reading that John and Sandy had decided to make "their" list a moderated list, by the way--as I saw little benefit. I was also fed up with things, and saw no point in wasting even more of my time arguing against the New Cypherpunks World Order, as the NCWO was clearly presented as a fait accompli, not something ablut which opinions of list members (or even list _founders_, at least not me) were being sought. It's my nature to just say "Fuck it" and leave when I feel I have overstayed my time, or things are no longer fun, or I am made to feel unwelcome.

But since several people have pinged me, asking about my status, I'll take some time to say a few things. I've had access to the hks.net archive site, and/or the Singapore site, to occasionally see what was being said on the list (old habits die slowly, so I sometimes drop in to see what you people are flaming each other about...not surprisingly--in fact utterly predictably--I see vast amounts of bandwidth consumed by arguments about moderation, about the putative biases of the Moderator and Director of the New Cypherpunks World Order, about alternative moderation strategies (which is stupid, as John and Sandy announced what they were going to do, not just some of their preliminary thoughts), and so on. I've also noticed fewer substantive essays. With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose substantive essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day. (Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!" ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name Nurdane Oksas, and the occasional bit of crypto news. Ho hum. I'm glad I'm not reading the list in e-mail, and thus can easily avoid replying to these inanities...which would probably not be approved for reading by Sandy, so why bother anyway?)

Rather than compose a traditional essay, I'll take the easy way out and list some bulleted points.

* First, I don't argue that John Gilmore is unfree to do as he wishes with his machine, toad, which has been the major machine host for the Cypherpunks list. John can tell us we have to write in Pig Latin if he wishes. Much of the debate I saw in the archives was debate that missed the point about what John could and couldn't do. No one can seriously question the right of the owner of a machine, or the owner of a restaurant, etc., to set the policies he wishes. The owner of a restaurant is perfectly free--or used to be, and still is to anyone with even slightly libertarian or freedom tendencies--to set the rules of his "house." He may insist that shirts and shoes be worn, or that smoking is not allowed (or even is required, in theory), etc. He may say "All those eating in my restaurant must wear funny hats and have their costumes approved by Sandy Sandfort." This is unexceptionable.

* However, anyone who disputes these rules (disputes in the sense of disliking or disagreeing with them, not legally challenging them) is free to leave. Those who don't like crowded, noisy, smoke-filled sports bars are encourgaged to leave. And so on. Again, unexceptionable.

(The more complicated case of contracts, verbal or written, and "changing the rules," does not apply here. No one had a contract with John, or Sandy, or Hugh, etc., so this is not germane.)

* But the really important issue is this: is the _physical hosting_ of the Cypherpunks mailing list coterminous with the "Cypherpunks"? If the list was hosted by, say, UC Berkeley or PGP Incorporated, would we consider these hosts to be the "owners" of the Cypherpunks group? Would we think that a corporate host, say, would have the authority to direct what we could say on the list? (Again, not disputing their corporate property rights...as a libertarian, I cannot. Other issues are what I'm getting at.)

* If a Boy Scout troop meets at a local church, and has for several years, continuously, would we consider the church to be the owner of the troop? Could the church insist on avoidance of certain "cuss words" and demand that prayers be said before each gathering? Certainly the church could tell the troop what policies were to be followed if the the facilities were to be used, etc., and the troop could leave if it didn't like the terms (or, in parallel with my situation, any troop member could choose to leave....). This is what we mean by "property rights": the legal right of a property owner to do with his property as he wishes, modulo prior contractual relationships, criminal laws, etc.

* How did the mailing list for the group, now called Cypherpunks, get started, and how did it end up being run off of John's hardare? Hugh Daniel got the actual mailing list rolling, based on a discussion Eric Hughes, Hugh, and I had the day after the first physical meeting, in September 1992. We thought the group we had just spent the day with ought to be able to stay in touch, and that a mailing list was the right way to go. There was talk of siting it on the UC Berkeley computers (actually, the Undergraduate Association computers, a la the Cypherpunks archive site at "csua"), but Hugh thought he might be able to use "toad," and this is what happened. (I have not heard from Hugh on his views of this New and Moderated Non-Anarchic List.)

* I think we should all be very grateful to John for agreeing to let it run on his hardware, but not let our gratitude turn into some sort of subservience and blather about how John "owns" the Cypherpunks group.

* Again, is the "Cyherpunks community" the same as the mailing list? And is the mailing list, hosted at toad, the "property" of John Gilmore?

* In my view, neither John nor Sandy in any sense "own" our group. It is a virtual community which sometimes has physical meetings at various places (including corporations, restaurants, and bookstores, none of which are even partial "owners" of the group) and which has had several instantiations on the Net, including sub-lists not connected to toad.com in any way. While John is of course free at any time to suspend his hosting of the list, I think it a serious misapprehension of the basic nature of virtual communities to accept the claim that John should decide on what is appropriate to bear the "Cypherpunks" list imprimatur and what is to be consigned to the flame list.

* The mechanics of the announcement troubled me greatly. To be blunt, I was seething with anger. I was mightily annoyed to read that John had made a decision to appoint Sandy as his Moderator, with no discussion on the list. I don't know if Eric Hughes and Hugh Daniel were asked their opinions, but I certainly know I was not. I feel that as one of the two or three founders, depending on how one is counting, and as a frequent contributor to the list since its inception, and so on, I (and others) should at least have been told of this plan. Better yet, have the plans discussed on the list, as some good ideas may have been generated.

I'll have more to say about my problems with how things were handled. Frankly, it smacked of the same kind of fait accompli decision John made with the unsubscribing of Vulis. While John had (and has) every legal right to do with his property as he wished, the effect was very negative. First, Vulis found other ways to post (duh). Second, the list was consumed with flames about this, many from Vulis, and many from others. Third, journalists (who love sizzle over substance any day of the week) lept into the fray with articles which gave Vulis the publicity he craved. Fourth, it sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the Cypherpunks have found it necessary to abandon their anarchic ways."

(I'm well aware of the issues with pests like Vulis, who seek to destroy virtual communities like ours. But the solution John used did not work, and generated more crap. As you all should know, it was John himself who coined the wonderful saying, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." A delicious irony.)

* In the archives, I did see a bunch of "I support Sandy" and "John is our leader" comments from reasonable people. The obvious noise of Vulis and his cohorts like Aga made a "Do something!" attitude somewhat understandable. I don't think the decision made was a wise one, and I strongly doubt it will work to make the list a better one.

* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. Censorship just makes opponents of "speech anarchy" happy--it affirms their basic belief that censors are needed.

* "Censorship" is another overloaded term. I don't think the "Definition 1" of dictionary definitions, about _governmental_ restrictions, is the only meaningful definition. Everybody knows what it meant when we say that "Lockheed is censoring the views of employees," even though we know Lockheed is not using government power. A censor is one who censors. And even my "American Heritage Dictionary" gives this as its "definition 1":

"censor n. 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable."

(Other dictionaries of course give similar definitions. The notion that censors are confined to being government employees is a misconception.)

* OK, even given that John had decided to censor "his" list, what about his choice of Sandy Sandfort as the censor? I've known Sandy for several years (I was the one who invited him to the second Cypherpunks meeting), but he's a poor choice as a censor, moderator, whatever. First, because he has so often gotten involved in protracted flame wars, such as with Vulis (remember the dozens of messages about the "bet" to bring Vulis out? I stayed out of the charade completely.), with Hallam-Baker, and with others. Second, because he has not been actively composing essays for a while, perhaps because of his job with Community Connexion. Other reasons, too.

(I count Sandy as a friend, but I'm just being honest here. Sandy is just not a "Peter Neumann" (moderator of the "RISKS" list).

* Nor do the announced criteria make any sense. While the inane one-line scatological insults have been filtered out, many "flames" make it through, based on what I've seen in perusing the hks archive site. And some reasonable comments get dumped in the flame bucket.

* As expected, those who only want to talk about cryptography (but who rarely do, themselves, also as expected) waste bandwidth saying the "anarchist" and "libertarian" stuff ought to go in to the "rejected" list. More bandwidth wasted, as each group lobbies to have its ideological opponents censored by Sandy.

* I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating a new list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of Good Stuff. After all, both Eric Blossom and Ray Arachelian already offer just such lists, and more would not hurt.

But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things considerably.

* (Frankly, one of my considerations in leaving was the feeling that I would never know if an essay I'd spent hours composing would be rejected by Sandy for whatever reasons....maybe he might think my essay was off-topic, or used one of the Seven Deadly Words, or was "too flamish." Whatever. I realized that life is too short to have Sandy Sandfort deciding whether my essays should go out to the main list (which is really just a list like Eric Blossom's best-of list, except it is be edict now the main list) or be dumped into the flames list, to be read by a handful of people.)

* Why, many reasonable people may ask, did I not simply unsubscribe from the "Cypherpunks" list and subscribe to the "Cypherpunks-Unedited) (or whatever it is called) list? Because of my overall anger with the issues raised above. The imperiousness of the decision, the notion of favoring Sandy's tastes in a more "first class" way than, say, the tastes of Eric Blossom, Ray Arachelian, or, for that matter, me. "Some censors are more equal than others."

* The decision to "moderate" (censor) the Cypherpunks list is powerful ammunition to give to our opponents, and Vulis is certainly gleeful that his fondest wishes have been realized. And it won't work. People are consuming even more bandwidth arguing the merits of John's decision, the traffic is presumably being slowed down by the need for Sandy to wade through the traffic and stamp "Approved" or "Rejected" on what he glances at, and people are "testing the limits" of what they can say and what they can't say.

* It also sends a message that people are incapable of filtering out bad speech, that they need a censor to do it for them. (Again, I have no problem with competing "screeners," a la having Ray, Eric, or David Sternlight filtering what they think is OK and what is not. Let a thousand filtering services bloom.) But the clear message by having Sandy censor the main list (the default list, the list name with the main name, the list we all know about, etc.) is that Cypherpunks need Big Brother to shelter them from Bad Thoughts, from Naughty Words, from Evil Flames, and from Impure Desires. Foo on that.

* Psychologists might point to random reinforcement, even to the effects of terror. How many of us are likely to write controversial posts knowing that Sandy might wake up having a "bad hair day" and thus reject our posts? How many will begin to skew their opinions to match those of Sandy? (I would venture a guess that a Duncan Frissell would almost certainly get a libertarian rant past Sandy while a Phill Hallam-Baker might easily fail to get a leftist rant past him.)

* Those who want "less noise" should subcontract with the filter services of their own choosing. This is the "Cypherpunk Way." Having Sandy as the censor is the easy way out.

* By the way, the moderated list "RISKS" works pretty well. But it is not a _discussion_ group. It is, rather, a digest of news items related to computer and technology risks, with some discussion by various contributors, and with a long turnaround time of a few issues per week, tops. Peter Neumann also devotes a lot of time to making it run smoothly and bases part of his professional career on running it. I surmise that Sandy is not prepared to do the same. Nor would this be a good idea, as this would kill the spirit of the debate.

* Had there been a debate about the policy, I can think of several approaches I'd like better. But inasmuch as John made it clear that there would be no debate (and, perhaps as part of the "problem," John has not really been a active member of the mailing list, in terms of participating in the debates), this is all moot.

In any case, my several years with the list have taken a huge amount of my time. Given the way this whole thing was handled, and the way the list is degenerating even further, it looks like it's good that I'm moving on to other things.

* To summarize:

- the decision to censor the list was made without any discussion on the list, without any discussion with at least some of the longterm core contributors, and was presented as a "fait accompli."

- while John has every right to do with his hardware as he wishes, he does not "own" the Cypherpunks group (though whether he owns the "list" is a semantically debatable point)

- whatever our group once was, or still is, is not dependent on having a particular mailing list running on someone's home machine...and it cannot be claimed that any person "owns" the Cypherpunks group.

- there is some talk of creating another Cypherpunks list, on other machines; I don't know whether or not this will fly, or if I'll devote any time to such lists.

- the effect of censorship, such as I have seen it so far, is not producing a better list. In fact, as I would have expected, it is producing a more boring and sheltered list.

And so there you have it.

I had no plans to set down my views, feeling it was a waste of my time and your time. Rather than foam and rant the way some did (and Vulis must have posted 100 messages on the subject), I chose to simply make my exit, quickly.

But as I have recently seen several mentions of my absence (including a particularly complimentary comment from Asgaard--thanks), I do feel I owe it to you all to explain my views.

Which I have done. Have a nice year, and a nice millenium in a couple of years.

--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I 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, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Corralitos is a good place to 'bunker down' at. He still lives up there last I knew (2015)

Wow, all the times I went through there on the way up Eureka Canyon to Rider Road or Summmit, and I had no idea....

all fucking rich fucks hate the camping hippies? On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 8:33 PM, Robert Hettinga <hettinga@gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Apr 26, 2016, at 1:58 PM, David <wb8foz@nrk.com> wrote:

Wow, all the times I went through there on the way up Eureka Canyon to Rider Road or Summmit, and I had no idea....

Like Heinlein before him, and as John has already observed, Tim hates having hippies camp out on his driveway.

Cheers, RAH

-- Cari Machet NYC 646-436-7795 carimachet@gmail.com AIM carismachet Syria +963-099 277 3243 Amman +962 077 636 9407 Berlin +49 152 11779219 Reykjavik +354 894 8650 Twitter: @carimachet <https://twitter.com/carimachet> 7035 690E 5E47 41D4 B0E5 B3D1 AF90 49D6 BE09 2187 Ruh-roh, this is now necessary: This email is intended only for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of this information, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email without permission is strictly prohibited.

On 04/26/2016 11:57 AM, Robert Hettinga wrote:

...

On Apr 26, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Cari Machet <carimachet@gmail.com> wrote:

all fucking rich fucks hate the camping hippies? Yup. Especially the rich fucks who earned their own money… Especially the hippies who smell bad. :-)

Cheers, RAH

I've noted over the years that many software developers 'smell bad'. I think it's the cocaine and alcohol. RR Ps. Most of those "Rich fucks who earned their own money" blew it off just as fast as they earned it on hookers and lamborghinis (because they had no class and didn't understand why they had to wait for delivery on a Maserati) . A LOT of them can be found down on the San Lorenzo levee. Burned out and sucking a bottle of two buck chuck.

On 4/26/16 2:33 PM, Robert Hettinga wrote:

Like Heinlein before him, and as John has already observed, Tim hates having hippies camp out on his driveway.

I'm too old and round to be a hippie, alas. Besides which, my then-client had a 4600 ft driveway of his own there...and a few dozen acres. I stayed in a house in Aptos.

Watch out for the suspended animation Nazi shock troops squirreled away in the bombed out for WWII Laurel train tunnel at the summit, and also the area around Western Atomic Vaults (I think their name's changed) up in Zayante hosts a plethora of Zombie Hippies hiding amongst the Sillycon Valley crowd. On 04/26/2016 10:35 AM, John Young wrote:

Right. A few days ago we slipped under the lasers, slithered past motion detectors, aimed a night scope at the silhouette trying to calm a gaggle of squabbling cats, quickly snapped a dozen of infrareds, setting off bam, bam, bam, instantly felt the shadows fireball around us, singeing our asbestos foiled tents, stun grenades blasting our shallows, swarm of drones peppering us with dum-dums, teams of robots roaring and thrumming and spewing greenish skin-eating droplets and lung ravaging vapors, thankfully we were ready for all that, except one little oversight: a great chasm split the desert, a mushroom rose into the air, there was begoggled Ninja'd Tim hanging upside down like a giant dope-wizened bat from a black balloon, well, that's the last thing we saw before awakening atop the Empire State Building, naked and afraid.

...

Corralitos is a good place to 'bunker down' at. He still lives up there last I knew (2015)

http://santacruzupdate.com/2015/05/06/how-do-you-maintain-a-balance-between-...

As I read the literature, there is one whopping flywheel out there (underwater) -- but it is unclear to me how that tiny sliver which is land+air can be the driver. Put differently, either it is irrelevant or it is not; if irrelevant then we have to ask how it is that the oceans are warming when the land+air which we are modifying is so puny -or- if fully relevant then we have to ask how much negative excursion the land+air has to take in order to wind down that flywheel. If it takes 300 years of burning coal to create the warmed waters, then would one not have to scrub the atmosphere clean of greenhouse gases for a couple of centuries to cool those waters? As I recall the models for "snowball earth," the presence of ice down to the equator was a direct result of global algae blooms that did, in fact, strip the atmosphere of greenhouse gases and sequestered them in marine sediments leaving only volcanism as the source of replenishment. If taking the flywheel at face value, then one must conclude that prevention is lost and only adaptation remains as an option. Depopulating the coasts would thus be the most urgent target for human-preservation planning, no? Zurich would seem well positioned to take over from London and NYC, for example. The biggest public display of scepticism to date w.r.t. global warming might have been the $jillions of taxes spent to rebuild New Orleans' 9th Ward. If one remains convinced that action is possible and needful, the question (for the anarchist persuasion, in particular) is what government would you trust to administer compensatory global cooling? Would you happily inject sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere(*) for that purpose? Should weather modification be subject to direct democracy or does interventionist climate management require a despotism? Is this where sovereign unilateralism ends and world government begins (wherein your personal needs and desires will be vastly less relevant than they are even now)? However satisfying, please to not pick one phrase in the above to argue with; for cpunks relevance, the question is one of control in a world of data-driven algorithmic regulation by non-human actors acting in the name of the common good but uninterrogatable. --dan (*) "One kilogram of well placed sulfur in the stratosphere would roughly offset the warming effect of several hundred thousand kilograms of carbon dioxide." -- The Geoengineering Option, Foreign Affairs, March 2009

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:33:28AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

...

Yes, the glaciers in Iceland are retreating - to reveal the ruins of farmhouses.

And while they melt they raise global sea levels, projected to raise a minimum of ~3ft bt 2100.  And sea levels won't magically stop raising at 2100. This spells fucking catastrophe for major coastal cities -> e.g. New York, Miami, Bangkok, New Orleans, etc etc. I've recently read that sea level is rising about 2.6-2.9 millimeters per year.  in 84 years, that would be 0.231 meters, or a bit less than one half foot.  Where do you get the "a minimum of 3 feet"?    Sea level rise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

| | | | | | | | | | | Sea level rise - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia | | | | Another thing:  While I haven't done the numbers, perhaps the practice of pumping water from wells, almost always ending up in the oceans, will have some effect.   If that turns out to be significant, what is needed is a practice of restoring fresh water to water tables where it started.  (Or at least where it relatively recently happened to be.)

-- John

On Apr 27, 2016, at 9:21 PM, John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

...

On Apr 27, 2016, at 4:06 PM, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:33:28AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

...

...

Yes, the glaciers in Iceland are retreating - to reveal the ruins of farmhouses.

...

And while they melt they raise global sea levels, projected to raise a minimum of ~3ft bt 2100. And sea levels won't magically stop raising at 2100. This spells fucking catastrophe for major coastal cities -> e.g. New York, Miami, Bangkok, New Orleans, etc etc.

I've recently read that sea level is rising about 2.6-2.9 millimeters per year. in 84 years, that would be 0.231 meters, or a bit less than one half foot. Where do you get the "a minimum of 3 feet"?

A book called The Flooded Earth by Peter Ward, an astrobiologist with NASA. But there are lots of places on the net that quote similar numbers -

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html#sealevel

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/3_gregory13sbsta.pdf

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_sea_level -- John

Denying anthropomorphic climate change is the last bastion of cranks, anti-science republicans and fundamentalist religious nuts who want to teach creationism in school and claim the earth is 6000 years old. -- John

On Apr 27, 2016, at 10:26 PM, juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> wrote:

http://notrickszone.com/2011/02/16/a-level-look-at-sea-levels/

But if you want to know how all this bullshit really works look at what the great grarpamp commented on the topic

"And if it takes lies and propaganda and regulation to stop that now...then so be it."

The guy is clearly admitting that lies, propaganda and murdering psychos with guns, aka 'the state', are 'legitimate means' for the scammers/green nutcases like him and all the rest of the 'scientific' mafia to further their interests.

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 21:55:32 -0400 John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

...

-- John

...

...

On Apr 27, 2016, at 9:21 PM, John Newman <jnn@synfin.org> wrote:

On Apr 27, 2016, at 4:06 PM, jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 11:33:28AM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

...

...

Yes, the glaciers in Iceland are retreating - to reveal the ruins of farmhouses.

...

And while they melt they raise global sea levels, projected to raise a minimum of ~3ft bt 2100. And sea levels won't magically stop raising at 2100. This spells fucking catastrophe for major coastal cities -> e.g. New York, Miami, Bangkok, New Orleans, etc etc.

I've recently read that sea level is rising about 2.6-2.9 millimeters per year. in 84 years, that would be 0.231 meters, or a bit less than one half foot. Where do you get the "a minimum of 3 feet"?

A book called The Flooded Earth by Peter Ward, an astrobiologist with NASA. But there are lots of places on the net that quote similar numbers -

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/science/future.html#sealevel

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/cop19/3_gregory13sbsta.pdf

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_sea_level

-- John