Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19
Tim May
timcmay at got.net
Mon Dec 8 11:07:06 PST 2003
On Dec 8, 2003, at 12:11 AM, Bill Stewart wrote:
> At 07:55 PM 12/7/2003 -0800, Tim May wrote:
>> The Libertarian Party started at about this time, in 1972, and nearly
>> all of the volunteers, spear carriers, etc. were in their 20s. This
>> is very well known.
>>
>> (And today most of the LP volunteers and spear carriers are in their
>> 40s and 50s. A correlation here.)
>
> Yes, and one of the LP's problems is that we've largely turned into
> old farts there also....
Indeed.
I can imagine a bunch of possible reasons for this development. In no
particular order:
* In the 1950s and 60s, the effects of Rand and Heinlein were
pervasive. Many college kids in the 60s were reading "Atlas Shrugged."
(I won't get into how badly it's written, except to say I devoured it
in 2 days in 1968, when I was 16, and quoted from it to all who would
listen in the next couple of years. But I haven't been able to read it
_since_. I can't get past about page 10 before throwing it down. It's
strong propaganda, but badly written.)
* The mood of the 50s and 60s was actually one of nearly boundless
possibilities for the future, at least in America. Not because of
socialists in Congress and JFK, but because of a booming economy,
technology, and all the usual things of the time. The generation which
entered the work economy in the 1960s through the early 1980s is the
wealthiest generation in history...especially those who did so in
Silicon Valley or similar areas.
(My implication being that things were different for the generation
which came of age much later, with more of a sense of limited horizons,
dead-end jobs at Starbucks making lattes for Yuppies, etc. Maybe if I
were 25, working for $9 an hour at Starbucks, I'd shave my head and
look like a refugee from the Apple "1984" commercial too.)
* A lot of these folks, the ones who came of age in the 60s and 70s,
were enthusiastic libertarians. Some of them joined the Libertarian
Party, most of them dislike government drug laws and redistribution of
their income, and so on.
* A lot of the younger folks I see interviewed describe "income
inequality" and "discrimination" and "globalization" as the serious
problems the world and America face. They may favor drug legalization,
as libertarians do, but they certainly aren't sympathetic to most
laissez-faire, "survival of the fittest" libertarianism.
A couple of folks here have followed-up in this latest thread with
claims that the old farts, especially me, quash discussion of new
theories, new outlooks.
Hey, this is an anarchy. I have absolutely no power whatsoever to quash
_anything_ related to this list!
When we were a young list, but when I was still an old fart by most
standards (I was 40 in 1992), we didn't need any permission or approval
to post what we wished. And some of the folks then were even older than
me (Sandy Sandfort, Arthur Abraham, maybe Jude Milhon...).
And new subscribers and young people who join the list today are
perfectly free to make good contributions. I recall few such newcomers,
however. (One of them was Dave Molnar, now a grad student in
CS/something at Berkeley, interested in many of the issues we are
interested in. He was not "censored" by the old farts when he had
something interesting to say.)
Bottom line is that this crap about how the old farts are suppressing
the young guns is bullshit. If someone has something to say, they
should say it. They may not get a positive response to calls for
passing new laws to raise taxes "on the wealthy," or to break up
Microsoft, or to tell people what kind of software they can write, but
that's because the underlying philosophy of the list is what it is:
call it libertarian, call it anarcho-capitalist, call it whatever, but
don't call it "there ought to be a law" sentiment.
--Tim May
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." -- Nietzsche
More information about the cypherpunks-legacy
mailing list