Re: Should we become "suits"?

[dmandl@lehman.com (David Mandl)]

1) God bless Tim May.  I am in complete agreement with his response to
Perry Metzger re his name change proposal (shouldn't be a surprise, as I
believe I was the first one to express my horror at it).

2) The time I can devote here at work to this sort of thing is very limited.
If I had more time, I'd send a much more in-depth response to Perry's
proposal; I don't, so this will have to be shorter and pithier than I'd like.

Perry says:
> No one said anything about becoming "suits", Tim. 

I think you did, even if it was indirectly.

> The problem is this: the name "Cypherpunks" makes us sound like people
> who break into computers for fun or other such stuff. I was on the
> phone with John Markoff of the New York Times a couple of days ago,
> and I was unhappy that no one had yet changed the name of the group
> because I frankly felt that I could not encourage him to subscribe --
> the results would be unpredictable. I encouraged him to read more
> sci.crypt instead, which he has already been doing.

I don't have the same problem you do with people who "break into computers,"
though I wouldn't do it.  Nevertheless, the cypherpunks as a group never
advocate, and rarely even discuss, cracking.  I couldn't care less what
journalists think, especially journalists from the New York Times.  If
someone makes an inference like that (the sort of distortion or basic
cluelessness I wouldn't be surprised to see in the NYT), he's a bad journalist,
and that's his problem.  And what does our name have to do with "the results"
of subscribing to the group?  I take it you're referring to the content of
our discussions, which wouldn't change along with our name--unless you're
also suggesting that we should tone down our more inflammatory rhetoric
(and I think it's a short step from the name change to that anyway).

> I've been associated with radical political causes for a while. I've
> found that in general, the radicals are their own worst enemy. People
> are NOT happy about being lectured to by strange-acting people. 

So don't lecture them.  I don't lecture people.  I think people are open-
minded about reasonable-sounding ideas if they make sense and are 
explained in a reasonable way.

> Bill Winter of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire was their
> chairman over the period in which the LPNH went from four members of
> the state party to actually becoming a force in New Hampshire
> politics. New Hampshire is the *only* LP outpost to make any
> significant electoral inroads, *anywhere*. He once told me this: you
> can get people to accept strange sounding ideas when promulgated by
> normal looking people. You can get them to accept normal-sounding
> ideas when promulgated by strange looking people. You can't get them
> to accept strange ideas when promulgated by strange people.

Big deal.  If they became a wing of the Democratic Party they'd have even
more supporters.  The electoral system is a scam, and the LP is deluding
itself by getting involved in it.  (Ancient anarchist wisdom: "If voting
could change anything, it would be illegal.")  I won't get any deeper into
this, because it's getting way off the subject.

> The simple change in our name from something confrontational that
> makes us sound like machine crackers to something that expresses what
> this group is about would make a radical positive change in our image.
> 
> Now, what are the benefits of keeping the current name "cypherpunks"?
> 
> Well, lets see Tim's list.
> 
> >In a sense, Cypherpunks fill an important ecological niche by
> >being the outrageous side, the radical side...perhaps a bit like the role
> >the Black Panthers, Yippies, and Weather Underground played a generation
> >ago.
> 
> None of whom accomplished any of their goals. You REALLY want to

Do you really think the Black Panthers would have accomplished more if they
wore suits?  Ever hear of Cointelpro?  The murder of Fred Hampton?  In fact, the
Panthers were much more reasonable than John Q. Public thought they were.
There was a massive propaganda campaign from the government and the straight
press to appeal to white America's basic racism and make the Panthers look
like some crazed niggers who wanted to kill whitey and rape his daughter.
It would have been the same thing no matter what.  I've got news for you:
if we do change our name, and the FBI is pissed enough, they'll call us
crackers and cypherpunks anyway.  There are millions of precedents for this.

> emulate them? I've been an occassional visitor to #9 Bleeker Street,
> where Dana Beal, last of the Yippies, holds court. He doesn't wash
> regularly, and he wonders occassionaly why no one takes his drug
> legalization crusade seriously. Hint: they are connected.

I know Dana.  People don't take him seriously because he's a jerk.

> I WANT the New York Times reporter reading this group, but I don't
> want him to think we are crackers or nuts.

How can the name we use influence his opinion of us more than the 50 messages a
day posted to the group?

I don't have time to respond to the rest of Perry's message; there's
just too much to say.  But I repeat: there are more "respectable" groups
involved, like the EFF and CPSR, so you're free to work with them when
talking to the media.

Perry, I have very strong differences with your views of how the media and the
"spectacle" work, and I can't do justice to the subject given this limited space
and time; it's also not directly relevant to cypherpunks business.  For anyone
wanting a more modern take on how the media works today, I humbly suggest you read
the situationists, who addressed all these issues twenty-five years ago, or Jerry
Mander's great book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television."

   --Dave.