Morality masks technical ignorance

blancw at pylon.com blancw at pylon.com
Thu Dec 29 22:41:33 PST 1994


Responding to msg by rishab:

:And the key word in _my_ post was _means_, 
:not _reason why_.

Oh  -  I thought maybe it was "ours is not to reason why". ( 
kidding! )

:I.e. that  (in my view of the Cpunk position) one 
:can protect privacy not through morals,  policies or 
:law, but through technology. 

I also don't see much success in attempting to protect privacy 
through the promotion of morals, policies, or laws, either.   
However, the list is always engaged in discussing 'privacy 
rights' as a basis for their own objections to governments' 
attitudes against the unfettered use of new technologies.  

Recognizing that we all live in a context made up of 
philosophical stands, politics, and legalities, and that as you 

said, "these are the glitches in discourse we have to face on a 

list  that's for both technology and policy", it can't seem 
real to position this aspect completely out of the realm of 
thought as a non-valid element.  

Some people are going to want to think of the applications of 
technology in moral terms, and in a free society one must make 
allowances for those kinds of people.   It should be possible 
to at least think about its proper place, occasionally, without 

suffering too much from the association.

    ..
Blanc 







More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list