rant on the morality of confidentiality

[Tim May]

At 4:42 PM -0800 1/8/98, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>every respondent to my post has missed the key points.
>I will post soon the list an article demonstrating my
>anger at the betrayal of sound government by a sinister state
>that has hijacked it.

Have they begun torturing you with the snakes of Medusa yet?

...
>if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing
>results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist
>who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good
>scientists for doing so!

"Name me one..."? How about Gauss, who didn't publish many of his results.
Or, of course, Fermat, ironically linked to Wiles.

Not to mention Darwin, who sat on his results for almost 20 years, and only
issued a paper and his famed book because he learned another naturalist was
about to announce similar conclusions.

Publication and, more importantly, discussion and challenge, is often very
important to the advancement of science. But is some cast in stone
requirement? Of course not.

>>Science does not "only advance through the open literature." There are many
>>other checks and balances which accomplish the same effect.
>
>name one.

Building an artifact which embodies the science, for example. Exploding an
atom bomb was pretty clearly a demonstration that the science done was
correct, regardless of whether there was "open literature" or not.

This is just too easy, refuting Detweiler's points. So I'll stop here.

>all this is uninteresting to me-- I was making a moral point in an
>essay that is obviously unintelligable to most people here. its my
>big mistake in this world, to pretent that morality plays a role.
>as EH once said, normative philosophies are a waste of time. what
>room does the world have for someone who thinks only in terms
>of how things should be? things ARE, PERIOD. good lord, no wonder
>Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.


I suggest he get his lithium prescription refilled.

--Tim May




The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."