Re:Crypto Credentials

[Andrew S Hall <ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>]

Tim May writes:

>It turns out that I was smack in the middle of both events Andrew just
>referred to, and I can tell you first-hand that folks on the Net are
>getting too freaked out over the views of others.

Maybe it's just you, Tim...

>Even better are in-person meetings, even if this contradicts the
>"jacked-in," "wired" image of cyberpunks and console cowboys! The
>Cypherpunks physical meetings in Mountain View are friendly, helpful,
>and not at all rancorous. Likewise, the Extropians events I've
>attended in the Bay Area (Thursday lunches, a couple of lectures, and
>some parties) have been friendly and free of divisiveness and flaming.
>This aspect of the in-person contacts has not been adequately
>duplicated on the Net.

This touches on what bugs me the most about the Net and why I post very
little. People are too goddamn sensitive. Too many people sit around with
a massive chip on their shoulder. I really have no idea why. I can't
imagine that *all* of these people have never really experienced
the hothouse atmosphere of hard-core problem-solving or brain-storming
where one is often curt, harsh, hostile, obscene, etc during the exchange
of ideas with no ill-effects later. Maybe people need to play rugby or
soccer more. You know, kill one another for an hour and have a beer to
laugh about it after. Maybe that brewski after is what is missing on the
Net.

The reason I am rambling on this here is that I also see a relation to
cypherpunk technology. Is the relatively anonymous technology of the
Net (faceless at least) causing people to forget the "polite  society"
which greases the skids of human contact? Will it be worse with even
more anonymity? (To be fair to the anonymous posters here, I have seen
no decrease of politeness from their quarter. When I have posted under
my pseud, I have not been impolite either.)

It would seem that we are still ape-like enough to need to see real teeth
in that smile and not ASCII ones. I know we mostly like to talk tech
on this list, but most of us see cypher-tech as a road to specific social
goals. (see Tim's .sig) This tech does and will have social impact even if
we are not sucessful in this agenda Part of the cypherpunks "job" needs to
be to anticipate and help guide the social changes. Step one needs to be
adapting homo sapiens to this new means of communication.

A.

BTW- I will stand by D. Denning's book as a crypto primer. It is a little
outdated but, IMHO, is still the best starting point.


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