Egalitarianism vs. Strong Cryptography

Mike Duvos mpd at netcom.com
Wed Aug 3 19:44:51 PDT 1994


solman at MIT.EDU writes:

[other excellent stuff elided]

 > Imagine if the government stopped trying to force people to
 > join it. Or imagine if they tied decision making power to
 > how much you pay in taxes. The more you pay, the more say
 > you get. After accepting the idea that government is a
 > product by which you get the warm fuzzies of giving to
 > society, government could make itself into a more desireable
 > product by undertaking changes like these. The possibilities
 > are endless in this reguard. Its very easy for me to imagine
 > a government in cyberspace which is substantially more
 > successful at collecting taxes than the IRS.

The notion of government as a product which must compete on an
equal footing with others in society definitely wins "Nifty Idea
of the Week" in my book.

Reminds me of something TS Eliott once said.  "If only we had a
system so perfect it did not require that people be good."
Perhaps "government in cyberspace" will be the first working
example of this paradigm.

-- 
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd at netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $






More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list