Grumpy Old Cypherpunks

[TruthMangler <tmg@dev.null>]

Kent Crispin wrote: 
> 
> Toto, thanks for your thoughtful comments.  Your touching defense of
> Tim is interesting.

  I don't think it's so much a case of defending Tim as it is that
Toto is an old mangy dog who is losing his eyesight and biting
at everything that comes into his limited range of vision.
 
> Contrary to what you might think,

  Assuming what others are assuming gets to be a nasty little cyle
that leads you to sitting alone with two beers in front of you,
arguing with yourself and finally getting mad enough at the *other*
guy to drink *his* beer, too.

> I really don't have anything against
> Tim May, and I do go read things he (or others) have written in the
> past. 

  Apology accepted.

> As to his legacy, and the legacy of cypherpunks in general, that
> remains to be seen.

  The "legacy" already exists, whether it is recognized in the future,
or not. Even a fruit fly has a legacy which is important to certain
scientists.
 
>  None of the cypherpunks are in a position to be
> able to judge very well, because they are so close to their favorite
> issues that of course they look very large.

  Group discounts should be used for saving airfare, and not for 
lumping people (especially anarchists) into one mass and discounting
their thoughts and opinions.
  I get tired of hearing how an individual's ability to 'judge' an 
issue increases with his lessening knowledge of it, or interest in
it. Perhaps we need more retarded legislators and world-rulers in 
order to properly test this theory.

>  But it isn't a certainty
> that any of the predictions of crypto-anarchy, for example, will come
> to pass.  It is possible that the surveillance state will win. 

  Spank yourself, throw some cold water on your face, and take a look
around you. The average person is not allowed to move an inch without
taking a number and/or waiting for it to be called.
  "What were once vices, are now habits."
  The medium *is* the message, and today's mental medium is DoubleSpeak.
The age-old "number's racket" is no longer a "criminal enterprise," but
is, rather, a "government sponsered charitable institution" (or was; I
have no idea what the current DoubleSpeak for it is).
   My personal view is that the war on DoubleSpeak was lost when we 
allowed Ronnie Rayguns & Co. to name a weapon of mass destruction "The
Peacekeeper." If we had risen up and slaughtered a few hundred 
politicians at that time, then mental freedom would have had a slim
chance of survival.
  Anyone who claims that 1984 hasn't arrived and thrived because we
do not yet have loudspeakers on the streetcorners blaring, "You are
not getting fucked by the government...You are not getting fucked by
the government..."

  The surveillance state has already won, the only question is whether
or not there will be a revolution.
  For God's sake, man, take a look around you. The surveillance state
has ruled for years in the places it counts most--in the medium and
in the message. The government is only solidifying ground already held
with their further intrusions into areas of freedom and privacy, as well
as extending their reach into the latest medium, the Net/WWW.

  Media content is ruled by the few and the powerful, and the masses
are ruled by the media.
  You are permitted to speak out against government policy only if 
you have Freedom of Speech Permit #900873.7b and post a $50,000 
Non-Incitement to Terrorism bond.

  The battle for freedom and privacy is mostly about governments and
corporations fighting over each other having access to *their* secrets,
not the common man and woman's secrets. Their fight over the common
people is only whether they will be controlled via key escrow or
cookies.
  Name any issue and you will find it surrounded by a plethora of
laws regulating when, where, and how it can be spoken about.

  The only thing that makes Jim Bell (the lunatic, speed-freak, drug
addicted tax-dodger whose convictions seem to have mostly only taken 
place within the confines of media-reality) special is that he spoke
loud enough to get some government and media attention.
  Most people are like dogs with their tails between their legs, who
take vain pride in the decent, law-abiding "character" they display
in whimpering, somehow managing to forget that the reason they no
longer bark is because they were beaten every time they did so.
 

> More
> likely, of course, the world will go in a direction that will surprise
> all of us (except that Tim will tell us he considered the possibility
> in a paper he wrote back in the 1970s).  What will look portentious and
> what will look pretentious 10 years from now is hard to judge...
> 
> Personally, I am in favor of absolute personal privacy, but I don't
> define that to include economic dealings -- as far as I am concerned,
> business or economic privacy is at a lower level of concern than
> personal privacy.

  And having a small burning rod shoved up your ass is "at a lower level
of concern" than having a large one shoved up there?
  Are you being held hostage in a tower of intellect?

>  This puts me at odds with the prevailing
> libertarian bent of cypherpunks, of course.  However, I was thrown off
> my stride by the high level of downright hostility so common on this
> list.  Like most people, I tend to respond in kind.

  This list is one of the few places where the dogs still bark (and
bite, as well). Smarmy "gumming" of the logic and opinions of others
on this list will not get you many doggie bones.
  My personal pet peeve is the fucking happy faces that abound in
posts everywhere. If you can't figure out whether a comment is an
insult or humor, then take it as an insult, because any professed
difference between the two is only an illusion.
  I suppose that it is only a matter of time before I walk into a
happy-face factory and start blowing people away at random. A barking
gun is only the final result of years of govement and societal 
suppression of our natural instinct to bark loud and long when
intruders invade our personal space.
  Or perhaps I will walk into a happy-face factory and just bark
at them. If they fail to recognize the humor in my actions, then
I suppose that I will have to grab a mask and "put on a happy face."
  After all, the medium is the message.

TruthMangler