Politics on the List?

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

Arthur Chandler writes:

>   As someone who has gotten some pretty crusty mail for posting 
> issues related to the social and cultural aspects of encryption  -- "stay 
> on the subject! this place is about encryption, not politics!" -- may I 
> ask -- very politely, of course  -- what these plugs for netcom are 
> doing here? I'm using a different provider, and am very happy with them. 
> But should I be plugging them (or dinging them) on this list? 

As you all may have noticed, I discuss political issues here on the
List when I think the topic is appropriate. I notice others do as
well.

Yes, some folks complain when non-technical stuff comes up, when the
discussion moves away from Mersenne primes and thermite bombs. Yes,
the mantra of "Cypherpunks write code" is oft-repeated.

Of course, I notice that very few of us are writing any code these
days. Some of the remailer wizards are still revising their code, and
a few C-punks are trying to implement DC-Nets in code. But the vast
majority of the 500+ folks on this List are either not writing crypto
code, or are keeping silent about it.

The intent of the "Cypherpunks write code" line, if I can venture a
motivation (it was of course Eric's line), is that we are more
interested in seeing the Brave New Crypto World happen than in just
jawboning about export laws, the Zimmmermann case, and whether
libertarians are right and socialists are wrong.

Some of us are socialists, some are anarcho-capitalists, some of us
are Trotskyites, and so on. So what else is new?

The kind of political rancor we have largely been successful in
avoiding is the traditional libertarian vs. everyone else debate that
afflicts so many other groups. I am pleasantly surprised by this.

Crypto has massive implications, for so many areas: privacy, taxation,
national borders, data havens, export laws, redistribution of income,
and on and on.

Cypherpunks should write code, if they can, but in any case they ought
to have some idea of where they're going.

--Tim May


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Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
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