[gnu at toad.com: May 24: National Day of Outrage at NSA/Telco surveillance]

[Justin]

Nice to see someone else out there believes in general semantics nC)e
Plato's Cave.

On the other hand, for someone who seems stuck on the belief that money
creates an objective reality, RAH certainly did a good job getting you
riled up.

On 2006-05-23T15:31:33+0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Tue, May 23, 2006 at 08:53:26AM -0400, R.A. Hettinga demonstrated
> his comprehension difficulties:
> 
> > >If it's different in your model, then your model is inaccurate,
> > >and needs adjusting.
> >
> > That's right. There are no facts. Just models. Heaven forfend we actually
> > look at the way the world works. Hint: prices are *discovered*, bunky. Not
> 
> We can't. Unless you broke out of Plato's cave you have to stick
> with models. Economics is a model, too.

I prefer to think of it as an exodus from an undesirable place.  It was
too cold, and the shadows were causing eyestrain.  I'm perfectly capable
of imagining such an exodus, at least.  In my place of exile, there are
no models.  Well...

> > As Olsen says, a prince is a bandit who doesn't move. If there's no money
> > to steal, the bandit, er, prince, starves, too. Ask Mssrs Mugabe, Castro,
> > and all the other pissant price-calculators out there.
> 
> You don't have to preach to the choir, you know.

A prince is also a magician.  Ask Fowles.

> > *You're* the one who betrays his desire for the state to "control" the
> > economy, and, apparently physics as well. You keep thinking in those kinds
> 
> Aroo? Too much window-pane acid in your morning coffee?

Too little coffee and milk in his morning window-pane acid.

> > The point is, cryptography solves, economically, financially, and thus
> > physically, the entirety of the problem that perrypunks, ip, politech, et
> 
> Cryptography solves jack if it's not being used. I'm not surprised
> that I have to explain that to you.

Or if every 3rd person is on the government's payroll and gets
government toys with which to spy on their neighbors, or if they or TLA
agents can invade my house at will, or if I'm prohibited from owning
guns or knives or anything that might ouch in the slightest, like the
FINE FOLK of Britannia and its former penile colony.

*I* can't deal with those kinds of threat models, at least.  It's not
worth my effort.  I might just join the government corps and use that as
an excuse to spy on my neighbor's hot 13-year-old daughter.*

* No, you fascist pigfucker government e-tards, not really.  If you
check, you'll find that neither of my neighbors has an underage
daughter, so go fuck yourself.


> [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature
> which had a name of signature.asc]

(RSW, what was the net result of the comments a week or two back about
this?  Thou shalt not suffer a MIME pgpsig to live?)

-- 
The six phases of a project:
I. Enthusiasm.          IV. Search for the Guilty.
II. Disillusionment.    V. Punishment of the Innocent.
III. Panic.            VI. Praise & Honor for the Nonparticipants.