Re: Cypherpunks State of Emergency

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:58 AM +0000 11/20/96, Matthew J. Miszewski wrote:

>I have to agree.  One of the most impressive things I have seen as a
>modern "movement" (yes I realize cpunks are not an organized
>movement, relax) was the massive public relations job done by several
>core cpunks around the 1993 Clipper proposal.  People with largely
>divergent opinions found public ground in their opposition to
>Clipper.  Lets do that again.

Thanks, but I think the opposition to Clipper was very widespread, and
didn't nucleate around our group. (It is true that the "Wired" cover story
hit at the right time, and that 1993 was when a lot of journalists
"discovered" crypto, but it is also likely that this discovery would have
happened anyway, for lots of reasons.)

>[BTW, Tim, thanks for being willing to withstand the crap you go
>through.  You, and others on this list, have consistantly challenged
>and changed my assumptions about society, law and privacy.  I dont
>always agree with you.  But I am glad you are here.]

The messages denouncing me--or Gillmore, or Hughes, or whomever--are easy
to delete and/or filter. It is really the _list_ that is being affected,
not so much _me_. And I long ago gave up on any conceit that I could
control what others did to disrupt the list or did to cheapen the debate.
All I can influence is what I write in my essays, and I have tried to start
new threads on topics of interest to me.

Some call it being phlegmatic (look it up---unlike the word, "gullible,"
this one is actually in the dictionary). Nietzsche called it "amor
fati"--love of one's fate. Muslims and Buddhists put it in slightly
different ways. Whatever, the key is to transcend monkey troop anguish and
resentment over bad things said by others.

For the list's sake, I dislike the childlike rants of Vulis, Aga (Grubor),
Stathis, and others, just as I dislike the list-undermining megabytes of
rants a few years ago by Larry Dettweiler and his various pseudonyms. But I
can't stop them. So, I just filter them as best I can and get on with life.
If some newbies are "taken in" by their rantings, that's life. It ain't
always fair, and I can't worry too much that some newbie or some twit is
convinced by such rants. Nor can I worry that some people think I must be
guilty because I don't rant back at Vulis, Aga, Stathis, etc. (well, I try
not to rant back...sometimes I make some comments, as I'm doing here).

Not speaking for John Gillmore, but if someone is taken in by Aga's rants
about Gillmore being a "BAD FAGGOT, worthy of death," then I think of it as
evolution in action. Plonk.

--Tim May

"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."