Re: We are ALL guests (except Eric)

[jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)]

Timothy C. May writes
> I rarely argue in terms of
> justice and fairness, so please don't imply that I have done so.

Look at the title of this thread.  If what you say is true,
you would not have responded to this thread.  The title
would be meaningless or irrelevant to you.

As Starr pointed out to you a long time ago, it is almost 
impossible to discuss human affairs without using moral 
categories either explicitly or implicitly.

You use such categories implicitly as much as I use them explicitly.

> The list could move, could become an unmoderated newsgroup, etc. I'm
> not advocating this, just rejecting the "Foobar owns the list--if
> Foobar tells us to wear funny hats when we post to the list, we'd damn
> well better do so." There are more nuances to the issues of
> "ownership" involved.)

In the highly unlikely event that Eric started acting like an
asshole we would move, as individuals and in different directions,
but the list would not move.  Existing 
newsgroups would change flavor as cypherpunks moved onto
them.  Somebody might create alt.cypherpunks, but it would
have a significantly different flavor with a significantly
different membership.  The list would only move as a whole
if Eric dropped dead or abruptly lost interest or handed
it over to someone else.

The question of who owns the list is indeed irrelevant to 
the question of whether the proposed change would further
crypto.

It is however relevant to to the question of whether we
should hold a vote or establish a consensus.  You
agree,  I assume, that holding a vote is absurd.  

Perhaps you think that Eric should establish a consensus
of "real" cypherpunks.  Yet if a vote is absurd, then
then surely a consensus is absurd.

And if you agree that neither vote or consensus is relevant,
except perhaps in the sense of a marketing survey for Eric,
then you agree that Eric owns the list.

This list has been a success largely because Eric has followed
anarchist, rather than fascist policies.   Now if some other
cypherpunk owned the list, the policy would have been different,
not necessarily worse, but not the same, and the list would
not be the same.  


-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@acm.org