Why are there so many statists and communists here on this list now?

[John Kelsey]

At 06:17 PM 5/2/03 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
...
>Perhaps more to the point, this list has always been about
>(at least I discovered it in late 1994) the social and political
>impacts of crypto and related technologies, and those are probably not
>incredibly friendly to a hyper-regulatory state.

Well, that part is still to be determined.  Maybe the direction of 
technology will ultimately lead to the collapse of the nation state and the 
rise of David Friedman style anarchocapitalist protection agencies to 
replace it (good luck solving the military defense problem!), or maybe it 
will lead to a global, "ubiquitous governance" implementation of 
Singapore--clean streets, low crime, and economic productivity, all under 
the watchful eye of the state.  Or another zillion possibilities, including 
the apparently more likely ones that include continuing existence and power 
of states, but with a change in the balance of powers in different 
areas--no privacy in public, but enormous privacy in what you do on your 
computer at home, etc.  Or an expansion of the current situation, where the 
new technology results in less privacy from the government, but enormously 
more privacy from neighbors and family members.  (Think of cellphones, 
cordless phones, the internet, and home video rentals.  For most people, 
keeping their nosy neighbors from knowing they watch porno films is more 
important than keeping the FBI from knowing.)

>So, yes, the "Klansmen, feminists, nazis, Libertarians of any sort,
>Democrats, Greens, Republicans" are welcome. But may we ask in turn
>that they appreciate the vocabulary and literature?

A huge amount of the value of this list, for me at least, is that events 
and news are seen through the lens of a certain kind of skepticism that 
only security people seem to have, along with some technological 
sophistication and a willingness to "think the unthinkable."  This is 
consistent with a wide range of political and social and religious 
beliefs.  It's how you can mix anarchocapitalists and greens and 
anarchocommunists and various flavors of libertarians and various others, 
and still get an interesting list with real discussion on it, instead of 
endless flamewars.

>-Declan

--John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com
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