I'm trying to understand site https://mailing-list-archive.cryptoanarchy.wiki/

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 02:58:45AM +0000, jim bell wrote:
> I've probably said, maybe many times before, that ultimately it is
> utterly irrelevant whether a person claims to "like" the AP
> concept.  It simply doesn't matter if YOU, or anyone else, "likes"
> or "dislikes" the idea of AP.   I could, hypothetically (and
> counter-factually), claim I "hate" it, and what would that do? 
> That wouldn't fool anyone.   AP became inevitable the day I
> published it, BECAUSE I published it.
>
> The idea got out because _I_ had the courage to publish it, UNDER
> MY OWN NAME, courage that many on Cypherpunks apparently never
> had.   I could have concealed it, "lost" it.   Eventually it might
> have been discovered again, perhaps a few years later.   But I,
> ever the impatient one, considered for weeks whether exposing the
> idea early might allow the government to permanently prevent it. 
>  Having decided that wouldn't happen, THEN I published it.  So it
> could never be erased from reality.  Forever.  And yes, I give much
> thanks to John Young of Cryptome, who has kept a copy on public
> display for 20+ years.
>
> From the beginning, I claimed that AP, once successfully
> implemented, would complete eliminate the need for, and even the
> possibility of, militaries, war, and nuclear weapons.   Has
> anybody else thought of another idea to accomplish that?   Has my



I believe anarchism aka "direct democracy" (as I understand that
term), is a way to achieve a peaceful transition from the current
failed system, yes. :

  1. Everyone votes on, literally, everything.
     Today this is technologically trivial.

  2. Notwithstanding any and every vote of the collective/ mob,
     the individual human's right to conscientiously and peacefully
     object, is sacrosanct and may not be abrogated.


The question is whether the "carrot" of such a peacful transition,
is possible in the face of the existing powers that be, without the
"stick" of AP.




> claim ever been successfully challenged?   Or even SERIOUSLY
> challenged?   Not here, to my knowledge,   Does ANY of you have an
> argument why an AP-type system won't, or can't, eliminate all
> nuclear weapons?  24 years after I wrote it, does the average
> protesting IDIOT have any idea that somebody has actually
> described the solution to the problem he claims to desire?   A
> solution he hasn't been told about, not because it wouldn't work,
> but instead because it WOULD work.
>
> Does anybody, NOW, 24 years later, believe that my AP concept was,
> is, or should be, "off-topic" on the Cypherpunks list?   Has a
> more-important idea for the future of mankind ever been discussed
> on Cypherpunks?  Step right up and claim it!   What is the ultimate
> purpose of Cypherpunks but to try to eliminate the problems that
> government surely causes?
>
> The Federal Government began to spy on me within weeks, and
> probably not more than a few days, after I had published Part 1 of
> my AP essay on Digitaliberty.     Want to hear more?   See my 2003
> lawsuit,    http://cryptome.org/jdb/jdb-v-usa-oct2004.pdf        at
> least Claims 45-49.    The Government committed dozens of felonies
> in order to further harass me and illegally keep me locked up. 
>   http://cryptome.org/jdb/jdb-v-usa-oct2004.pdf     See Claims 504
> onward.  
>
> I think that time has been far more kind to my rhetorical position
> than other people's.   Prior to the existence of TOR and Bitcoin,
> some people might have doubted that pieces necessary to implement
> AP were likely to become available.  (I'm not saying that TOR or
> Bitcoin is suitable; merely that their existence points the way to
> the eventual existence of AP as a functioning goal, using other
> tools more suitable to the task.)  Now, does anybody on Cypherpunks
> claim that the technical background of AP could never be
> implemented?   The best they can do is to claim that governments
> won't ALLOW AP to be implemented, because they know they will be
> the first targets.
>
> Remember what I said at the beginning of Part 2 of my AP essay:
> 
> "Part 2
> 
> "At the Village Pizza shop, as they were sitting down to consume a
> pepperoni, Dorothy asked Jim, 'So what other inventions are you
> working on?" Jim replied, 'I've got a new idea, but it's really
> evolutionary. Literally REVOLUTIONARY.' 'Okay, Jim, which
> government are you planning to overthrow?,' she asked, playing
> along.
>
> 'All of them,' answered Jim."  "
>
> This conversation actually occurred, although somewhere along the
> way the correct "revolutionary" somehow got changed to
> "evolutionary".  No,  I said "revolutionary" TWICE, and I genuinely
> meant it.  I was in Roslyn, Washington, the small town that the TV
> show 'Northern Exposure' was filmed.  Look at the beginning
> credits, and you will see it:   "Village Pizza". 
>
>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKDzDA-jgRs  at 1:32
>
>   I was there, sitting next to "Dorothy H.".     For at least 5
> years I visited there in one day in early July to meet with other
> Northern Exposure fans,   "Dorothy H." was one, and without
> intending to, she gave me one of the most fantastic and appropriate
> straight-lines in the history of conversation.  Oddly, as I said,
> "All of them", the pizza came...And Dorothy never learned what my
> "revolutionary" idea was!   But probably days later, I wrote of the
> incident in Part 2 of the AP essay.  
> 
> And no, the combination of Ethereum and Augur is not, YET, AP. 
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17611585      "Its not Jim
> Bell's Assassination Politics but we're getting there."   (And no,
> I didn't write that, and I don't know who did.)   But the
> difference is merely the choice of those implementing Augur, not a
> fundamental limitation of the technology.
> 
> The people who claim to be on the Cypherpunks, ostensibly to help,
> need to start considering reality.  
>                Jim Bell


The truth is, most folks would proclaim to prefer a peaceful
transition, where they are their families lives remain safe
throughout the coming transition.

The truth also is, that TPTB ('member the Fed), have demonstrated a
few millenia of unwillingness to shift towards giving up their power
over the majority.

And in the face of these truths, another truth is that at some
tipping point, without a pathway of peace, most folks in angst,
distress and an abject loss to any solution, do tip over into
accepting literal chaos.


We are at an incredible historical junction, a literal tipping point
- although it plays out over some years, historically it's very
quick.

Which way will we collectively turn?