Re: Disinformation in L.A.

[Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>]

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At 01:57 PM 5/10/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:

>I would expect a "cypherpunk riot" to be a little more aimed at 
>cyberspace than real-world suburban neighborhoods.  Wouldn't you?

Several points come to mind:

Tim hasn't suggested that a riot would be useful or likely. He's mentioned
various forms of political violence (e.g., assassination and terrorism) but
he hasn't mentioned riots. They're not the same thing.

Riots aren't necessarily violent, nor are they necessarily or often useful to
their participants .. in fact, they may be counterproductive to the aim(s) of
their participants, except where they give the participants an opportunity to
take symbolic or emotionally satisfying action .. which usually provides very
little long-term change. But they may be useful to the riots' "opponents",
who may also be their instigators. 

I think you've been sucked into conflating "cypherpunk" with "cyberpunk",
e.g., people who define themselves socially by their (positive) relationship
to technology. A cyberpunk riot would probably take place in "cyberspace",
and would probably include messages from corporate sponsors, clean and
orderly virtual streets, and attractively drawn avatars. A cypherpunk is
defined socially/politically by a (negative) relationship to existing
political structures. The Internet *is* a cypherpunk riot.


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