Re: FCC-type Regulation of Cyberspace

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:10 AM 3/15/96, Bill Frantz wrote:

>Mark Miller and I had a discussion about the restrictions on commercial
>speech a few months ago.  I contended that these restrictions (generally
>that you can prove your claims) are good for markets because they provide
>startup companies (and other newcomers to the market) with a small amount
>of positive reputation capital that they would otherwise have to invest to
>obtain.

Mr. Frantz, unless you can prove your claims here, forthwith, I must inform
you that they are in violation of the Truth in Speech Act of 1996. Please
retract them, now.

(Yoy can of course find the complete description of how citizen-units
ascertain the veracity of their claims at their local Ministry of Truth
office. Minitru is always to help citizen-units on their quest for truth.)


Do you see the problem?

Personally, I don't care if you choose to have some bunch of people called
the "Food and Drug Administration" telling you which substances you may
buy, and in which quantities, but I care greatly that you (the general you)
wish to stop me from making my own decisions, or listening to those I
choose to trust, over the FDA.

This is what it all boils down to. Think about it.

Be careful of the utilitarian point of view that the "FDA saves lives." (It
has also cost a lot of lives, by denying effective treatments for needless
years of extra butt-covering tests just so no bureacrat will ever have even
a single Flipper-kid on his watch.)

Mexico has no FDA. A trip to the pharmacies of Tijuana is instructive. A
friend of mine was just here. On a business trip to SF and LA, he drove all
the way down to TJ to buy a "personal supply" of a nootropic drug for his
mildly-retarded son, a drug the FDA has not approved but which Mexicans and
Europeans have been buying for years. U.S. Customs, aware of such
tragedies, waves people through who are carrying "personal supplies" of
(non-narcotic) drugs.

We should learn from this kind of "anarchy" the Mexicans enjoy.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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: 2^756839 - 1  | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."