Force is not physical

[hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)]

   One question [...] is whether it
   makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered
   to be punishable by force.  

I, personally, will steer clear of making any such broad normative
prescriptions.  We have barely yet begun the task of determining
whether violence-free systems can be stable in the long term.  It's
not yet fully clear to me that this is even true about a payments
system, even though I've argued that it may well be so.  And the
payments systems are the only ones for which I've seen anything
approaching a specification.

Normative statements are, generally speaking, ones which contain the
words "you ought to" or "you should" or "it would be wrong to".  They
imply some sort of obligation, but the recipient of that obligation is
rarely explicitly stated.  Normative statements create and bolster the
"policeman inside"; they are intended to create in the hearer some sort
of mental restriction--"I won't do that because I shouldn't".

Why do normative statements ever even work?  The simplest statement of
the situation seems absurd--one person says "you ought" and then
another person says "I will".

"Those who do not will are willed."  A wise man indeed.

Normative statement work because of the implicit threats contained
therein, threats of either violence or shunning.  Years of
conditioning, and not only by parents, are required to make these
threats effective, and their effects persist long after.

I want my threats to be overt.  I would much rather say "If you steal
from me I will hunt you and kill you" than say "People shouldn't steal
from each other".

One of the whole points of anonymity and pseudonymity is to create
immunity from these threats, which are all based upon the human body
and its physical surroundings.  What is the point of a system of
anonymity which can be pierced when something "bad" happens?  These
systems do not reject the regime of violence; rather, they merely
mitigate it slightly further and make their morality a bit more
explicit.

(And now the flip side, where instead of saying "this is good" I will
rather say "this is what I want".)

I desire systems which do not require violence for their existence and
stability.  I desire anonymity as an ally to break the hold of morality
over culture.

Cyberspace is a substrate for identity whose locus is not a physical
body.  Not all of cyberspace will have these characteristics.  There
will be segments of the electronic world which are fully mapped
one-to-one with individual bodies, and the actions taken here will
be subject to the same morality of the physical world.

Anonymous systems are neither necessary nor inevitable nor, because of
the prevailing culture, obvious.  The will of many individuals will be
necessary into order to bring about their creation.  Anonymous systems
will start from a position of relative weakness, without the resources
and familiarity that identified systems will have.

I desire the anonymous spaces and the hidden places.  I rejoice in the
discussion of their creation on this mailing list.  

I want to win rather than to feel good about losing.

Eric