Refutations Considered Unnecessary

[Tim May]

At 12:22 PM -0500 1/10/01, John Young wrote:
>
>Steve at one point cited cypherpunks as a hopeless
>venture to overturn government with ideas of
>cryptoanarchy. And laughed at that. Then continued
>propounding the false idea that NSA is needed
>to protect US interests. Not a word about such interest
>being those of the USG.
>
>The full story of crypto is yet to be written, in particular its
>deceptions, perhaps a piece by Vin McLelland, one by
>Declan, one by Tim May, if not by distributed cyperhpunks
>not quite so malleable as solo individuals given privileged
>access on the condition that . . .
>
>What about that timing of CRYPTO release and the NSA
>show?


But, John, weren't you just a week or two ago speculating that the 
very _origins_ of the Cypherpunks group and list in 1992 had 
something dark to do with NSA covert ops?

As one who was there, at all times, I can most assuredly tell you 
that neither Eric Hughes nor Hugh Daniel nor Arthur Abraham nor John 
Gilmore nor Jude Milhon had any links to the NSA or other TLAs. If 
you knew these folks, you would know, too.

As for writing a book, this is for book writers.

Remember when Brin's book came out a few years ago? I had some folks 
in Palo Alto pressuring me to join in on a "collective refutation" of 
the "bad memes" in Brin's book, with the idea of some kind of 
speaking tour or counter-book to follow Brin around as a kind of 
"truth squad." I declined to be part of such a collective effort, 
because:


a) better things to do with my time

b) I don't like committee or collective efforts

c) no such truth squad would get even a fraction of the "air time" 
that a published author like Brin would get

d) the sheeple really don't care, anyway

e) Brin's book would be just another drop in the ocean, anyway. His 
vision of the future is unlikely in the extreme (t.v. cameras in 
police offices...sure, whatever), so refuting his "bad memes" is just 
a waste of time

As it happens, I never heard a peep out of this group. Maybe they 
dropped the idea. Maybe they got no one to sign up for the Anti-Brin 
Brigade. Maybe they got no press coverage. Who cares, anyway?

As for Levy's new book, I've only read parts of it. My copy from 
Amazon hasn't arrived, so I only checked out a few pages in the local 
bookstore. What I saw looked accurate.

As for his views toward "crypto anarchy," what else would one expect? 
If the future many of us think is likely is in fact _actually_ 
likely, then what does it matter whether Levy makes dismissive 
comments on his book tour or not? I didn't find him making dismissive 
comments in his book, which is what will be read, anyway. (And even 
if he did, see previous point...)

Look, it was fairly clear to me back in 1987-88 what was going to 
happen. I have all of my notes from that period, as well as some 
published essays. Without going into details here, many of the things 
I thought would clearly happen have _already_ happened. (And, by the 
way, I made a lot of money by investing in companies based on my 
expectations.)

I've already written a _ton_ of stuff on these matters. Some essays 
collected into books by others. (Maybe even the new Vinge book, 
though the editor has been incommunicado with me for three or four 
years, so I don't even know if my piece will be in the long-delayed 
re-issue of "True Names.")

So count me out on some effort to Write Yet Another Refutation (of a 
book that doesn't, in my view, need refuting).

Others are welcome to. I hear Gary Jeffers is still kicking around, 
eager to be asked to write such a book. Jim Choate would probably 
like to be a part of it, too.


--Tim May


-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns