Re: Pardon my vanity, but...

[Stanton McCandlish <mech@eff.org>]

> Ah you are still around!  Postings from you have been so scarce in
> recent days that I thought you might have left for the holidays.

Nope, I'm still here!

> Is it possible that you missed my reply to you last week, repeated
> below

Yep, I missed it.  I read so much mail/news, some times I scan too quickly.

> In-Reply-To: Stanton McCandlish's message of Tue, 16 Nov 1993 18:23:59 -0500 (EST) <199311162324.AA29258@eff.org>
> Subject: Should we oppose the Data Superhighway/NII?
> 
> > Part of the effort that must be made is to knock some sense into the
> > rapidly merging entertainment/information/telecom conglomerates, and try
> > to at very least keep a large section of the "data highway" (or whatever
> > one chooses to call it) an Internet-like many-to-many communications
> > medium, if not fused with Internet itself.  Convincing the govt. of this
> > is will also take some doing.  One certainly can't IGNORE the govt.  No
> > matter how much we may wish it'd just go away, it won't, and has to be
> > dealt with.
> 
> The beauty of cypherpunk technology is that it provides means to _avoid_
> the tyranny of government, rather than trying to redirect that tyranny
> on behalf of one's own ends.

This is a commendable goal, but one can't rely on a trickle to do the job
of a river.  I'm all for cp tech, and I'm all for reducing the power of
the govt. as much as possible and as soon as possible.   I'm _not_ all for
expecting to accomplish this immediately.

> Government gets its power from its hundred million clients. 

Hmm I tend to think govt. gets its power from the adequately backed-up
threat that it can rob (fine), enslave (imprison) or kill (execute or
shoot while resisting arrest) you if you don't do what it says.  If someone
holds me hostage, I tend to think of them as a coercive kidnapper, not a
business that I am patronizing.  This is not to say that everything the
govt does is nefarious.  Most of what it does is inefficient handwaving
and ignorant blundering.  In these cases, I see it as a something akin to
a large automobile with an incompetent driver behind the wheel.  I might
criticize, even yell and fly them the bird, but I'll get the hell out of the
way.

> To join
> that clientele is not consistent with wanting government power to
> whither away.

Recognizing that in the very rapidly unfolding "data highway" plan (if
anything this chaotic and free-for-all can be called a "plan"), the
govt WILL play one role or another, like it or not, is not joining the
govt's clientele.  Much as I'd like to see no govt. involvement, it is
inevitable in the current socio-political climate. 5 EFFs could pop up,
with twice our funding each, and all scream bloody murder about govt
involvement in the "national information infrastructure", and all 5 of
them would be utterly ignored.  Working more carefully, rather that
pursuing an all out barrage, can be more effective in some cases, and we
think this to be one of them.

I think it's wise to look at the realities of the situation, whatever
one's outlook whether libertarian or otherwise, and recognize that
sometimes unpleasant things like an unwieldy state simply have to be dealt
with.  Whether govt involvement is wrong or not is really irrelevant,
until cp tech, and cp/libertarian attitudes are in a position to DO
something about it.  It's like being confronted by a mugger: you can point
out that they have no right to rob you and are using coercive force to
violate your civil liberties, but it's not going to make them go away if
you don't have the physical power to defend yourself.

The time's just not right for a cypherpunk "War on Govt".  Cypherpunks will
lose. As the NII is coming on fast, the govt has to be dealt with NOW, to
reduce their impact and involvement, rather than hope that, w/o DigiCash,
w/o a large base of support in the culture at large, w/o our own
infrastructure, CPs will convince the govt to just give up and go away. 
They'll trample that idea into the dirt, because they have the money and
power to do so, right or wrong, and you'd end up with a net.fcc and 5000
channels of crud, metered out byte by byte, requirements for a net.license
to be a provider rather than consumer, and taxed into oblivion.  I'd like
to point out also that it's much easier to prevent large scale govt
involvement and reduce small scale involvement later, that fight against
ANY govt involvement, lose, and a be faced with trying to get rid of it
later after it's become law and granted the govt all sorts of powers.  Try
to eliminate the FCC.  Good luck!  This stance does of course presume
vigilance to prevent the govt from expanding their small base of power
into a bigger one.

I look forward to seeing the power of the govt wane in coming years, and I
am certain that it will happen, but I don't think it's going to happen
this month, or next year.  When we've got a DigiCash-based banking system,
when the majority of the population are computer-literate, when
cryptography is fully legal and unstigmatized, when CP tech is easy to use
for the non-techie and built in to applications and hardware, when
anti-authoritarianism returns as the focus of the country's political
thought, and when the govt begins to collapse under the weight of it's own
failures, then we'll see the changes come.  But, I tend to expect that
things will get worse before they get better, in the big picture. People
aren't mad enough yet to get up off their commercial-brainwashed,
apathetic couch potato butts and DO much of anything yet, but would rather
go to the mall or play with their Game Boys.  "Give Me Convenience or Give
Me Death" as Jello Biafra mocked.

Have a look at the stuff EFF's doing - to reduce/eliminate ITAR restrictions,
to combat unjust laws, to defend people who's civil liberties have been
violated by "law enforcement" that doesn't even seem to know what the law
is, to educate about privacy and encryption, to make using the internet
easy for "Big Dummies", to encourage grassroots real-world networking on
the local level, and to ensure that whatever the "superhighway" will be,
it provides for full-bandwidth, open platform, and openly accessible
many-to-many participation - before tossing us on the garbage heap as govt
lubbers. :)  I don't think anyone here LIKES the idea that we have to
haggle and play the game w/the govt, but that's just the way it stands,
and any step that reduces govt interference in any way even if it doesn't
bring on the glorious anarcho-capitalist revolution, is still a step in
the right direction.

-- 
Stanton  McCandlish  mech@eff.org  1:109/1103   EFF  Online  Activist & SysOp
O P E N  P L A T F O R M   C R Y P T O P O L I C Y   O N L I N E  R I G H T S
N  E  T  W  O  R  K  I  N  G      V  I  R  T  U  A  L     C  U  L  T  U  R  E
I   N   F  O :  M   E   M   B   E   R   S   H   I   P  @  E  F  F  .  O  R  G