Decline of the Cypherpunks list...Part 19

[Tim May]

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