"Bigotry" and related topics...a brief comment

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

At 11:26 AM -0400 12/11/96, E. Allen Smith wrote:
>From:	IN%"mjmiski@execpc.com"  "Matthew J. Miszewski" 11-DEC-1996 03:35:52.25
>
>>My question was a real one.  The basis of it comes from my work with the
>>homeless in which they have a difficult time getting a job because they
>>have no "home address" to put on the forms, some do not have or remember
>>their SSNs, etc.  This causes a cyclic problem for the homeless.  My
>>question to Tim was, in the real world, how is the protection of this data
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>feasible.

I confess to have missed the original "question to Tim."

While Matthew M. has been energetic in his posts on this topic, I've been
skipping most of this particular debate for a couple of reasons:

1. The _general_ subjects of "bigotry" and "redlining" are not closely
related to themes of this list, though the implications of strong privacy
for these issues is certainly on topic. (And my views on these implications
are well known...I've seen no point to step in to the debate to repeat
them, and don't plan to argue with Matt M. about the "evils of bigotry.")

2. Many of the posts by Matt M. and "Red Rackham" and others have been so
massive, containing paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttals of political and
ethical points, that I've just given up on trying to follow the points.

If anyone has well-formed questions about how redlining and "bigotry" is
affected by strong cryptography and crypto anarchy, fire away. Just don't
bury them deep in a long diatribe about the evils of "prejudice" and
"discrimination."

(Personally, and off-topic for the list (so I'll be brief), the ills of our
society seem to me to have _very little_ to do with "prejudice." In fact,
most people are not "discriminating" enough, in the sense that
discrimination implies value judgements and assessments of probable success
based on data available. As someone noted, the Asian communities in the
U.S. are doing well and are quite "discriminatory" in lending policies. Get
used to it, as crypto anarchy will make coerced transactions even more
difficult. The racial and ethnic groups which are most into "victimology"
are the least successful--which is _cause_ and which is _effect_ may be
debatable to many of you, but the correlation is very clear....maybe it's
time they try something different, like getting their culture to embrace
learning, reading, science, math, and business success, instead of
glorifying victimization, crack cocaine, basketball stars, and pimps.)

--Tim May



Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
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: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."