From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 11:58:01 MST
Zero Powers wrote:
> >From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
>
> >'What is your name?' 'Zero Powers.' 'Do you deny having written the
> >following?':
>
> Wrong, wrong!! I deny it, it wasn't me!! It was...it was...it was, um...
> Oh! It was Mike Lorrey, yeah that's it!
Typical fascist, blaming someone else for your problems.
> > > Not really. In fact this sort of power-proportional transparency is
> >already
> > > in effect in some ways. Right now we can know much more about President
> > > Clinton than he could ever know about you. I know where and when he
> >travels
> > > abroad. I know why he has gone there and whom he talked to and what
> >they
> > > talked about. If I wanted to I could, in a matter of minutes, find out
> >what
> > > his agenda is for next week, where he'll be and what he'll be doing. In
> > > fact its probably fair to say that Clinton is the *most* surveilled
> >person
> > > on the planet, as it should be. And he has been kept alive by his
> >security
> > > detail for a little more than 5 minutes.
> >
> >Yes, but there's a hell of a lot you DON'T know about Clinton, especially
> >wrt his top military generals, the FBI, and the CIA. For comparison, I
> >bet you don't know a damn thing about what the men at the head of these
> >organizations are talking about on a day-to-day basis.
> >
> >This is certainly as it should be, as it's hard to imagine these
> >organizations doing their jobs effectively without this sort of secrecy.
>
> Believe it or not I'm not stupid enough to believe that power proportional
> transparency is now in place to any significant extent. I was merely
> replying to Mike Lorrey who suggested that a system which allowed the little
> guy to know more about the leaders than the leaders knew about the little
> guy would lead to the leaders being assasinated forthwith. I was just
> pointing out that that is not necessarily the case.
Without offering an evidence that it would not be. There are very few countries
today where a national leader can go about his business like an average person.
The rate of assassination of national leaders is somewhere around 60%,
worldwide. Those that stay in power longest are those who don't expose
themselves.
> > > >Once, and if, national sovereignty ends or wanes, there will still be
> > > >other forms of corporate organizations (a government is actually
> >nothing
> > > >but a corporation with a monopoly on setting the rules of the market
> >and
> > > >use of overwhelming force) that will gain pre-eminence. Private
> > > >corporate structures, which owe no allegiance to national governments,
> > > >bills of human rights, or philosophical principles other than making
> > > >money and the golden rule (he who has the gold makes the rules). If you
> > > >are going to end government corporations, you must also end the
> > > >formation of other corporate structures as well...
> > >
> > > Again, not really. Microsoft would be a likely candidate for your big
> >scary
> > > corporation scenario. But what can Microsoft do to abridge my human
> >rights?
> > > It cannot legally amass an army. The worst it could do is obtain an
> > > insurmountable monopoly in the marketplace such that my choice as a
> >consumer
> > > would be restrained. And as we see in the news everyday, even that
> >ability
> > > is significanly curtailed by antitrust legislation.
> >
> >You seem to have missed the antecedent "if national sovreignity ends or
> >wanes..." Nobody would claim that this is the case today. National
> >sovreignity is alive and well, for better or worse.
>
> Perhaps you came in late in the thread, but Mike Lorrey was replying to my
> proposal that once a democratic "Global" government was in place there would
> be no need for such things as "national" security. I never proposed that
> *all* government disappear. I don't want to (nor expect that I ever will)
> live in a global anarchy. I presume that there will *always* be rules and a
> means by which to ensure that they are complied with. A global government
> would be no less a government than a national government. And as long as
> there is government, and as long as antitrust rules are deemed beneficial to
> society, there will be antitrust rules and the means by which to enforce
> them.
How about anti-trust action against government. After all, its a monopoly, and
for one monopoly to go around destroying other monopolies is not justice, its
merely showing the hypocracy of the idea of government.
> > > >Gun control like you advocate has always led to total confiscation,
> > > >sooner or later, in every country, state, and city in which it has been
> > > >allowed to become law.
> > >
> > > Examples, please. Even if that is the case, that is not what *I*
> >advocate
> > > (at least not yet).
> >
> >This is a problem of entailment of consequences. You find it in policy
> >debate more than anywhere else, IMO.
> >
> >Alice: We should not abide by your proposal that X, because Y will follow
> >from it. (where Y is something nasty)
> >Bob: But I'm not proposing that Y. I'm proposing that X.
> >
> >Clearly, Bob's making a kind of mistake here. Assuming that X does
> >*indeed* lead to Y, you CAN'T just propose X without proposing that X & Y.
>
> Well here's how it would really go:
> Michael: We should not abide by your proposal for reasonable gun control,
> because universal disarmament will follow from it.
> Zero: But I'm not proposing universal disarmament. I'm proposing
> reasonable gun control. Because (a) I don't believe that one necessarily
> follows the other and (b) although universal disarmament may be a bad thing
> now, that doesn't necessarily mean it will be bad in the future.
As long as one person wants what another person has, or hates another person for
no good reason, there will always be a need for people to defend themselves
against violence.
> Again, you must have come into the thread late. You seem to completely
> misunderstand (a) what I am proposing and (b) why I think it would be a good
> idea. I am not necessarily proposing omniscience for the masses. I
> advocate "transparency." There is a difference. In particular I advocate
> power proportional transparency which means that the more power you have to
> effect the lives of others the more exposed you must be. Such that if you
> are the designated leader of the free world, you will live under a virtual
> microscope with nearly everything about you being recorded and available for
> perusal by those whose lives you have the power to effect.
>
> I also propose that the transparency be mutual and two-way, such that
> anytime I access any information about you, you can automatically be
> notified of (a) what information I got about you, (b) when I got it, (c) how
> I got it, (d) who I am, and (e) whatever information I got about you, you
> could be given about me. For instance say I looked up Dan Fabulich's home
> address and telephone number. You would be notified that I did that and you
> would, if you wanted, be notified of my home address and telephone number.
> You could also be notified of where, when and how I make use of your
> information.
In your world, the average person would be deluged every day by notifications
that they were monitored by 200 national intelligence and law enforcement
agencies, 3,465,783 corporations, and 54,567,892 individuals. If you think your
inbox is big now, wait till your xanadu is reached....
> None of this would necessitate you searching a huge database, or having a
> very powerful computer. It would be the equivolent of receiving an e-mail
> or an automated telephone call. Now if for whatever reason you were the
> sort that got his jollies by compiling huge amounts of data on a large
> portion of the population and conducting all sorts of analysis on it, then
> perhaps you would need a fairly fast computer. However, given the fact that
> the technology needed to fully implement my proposals is probably *decades*
> down the road, by the time you needed to do that sort of research I'm fairly
> certain you'll be able to afford all the computing power you need to do it.
>
> Although keeping in mind that for everytime you *get* information about
> someone else you also have to *give* that same information about yourself, I
> don't know how anxious you would be to be doing research on 90% of the
> population. That could very well make you a *very* popular guy :)
So what if I tell 6 billion people what my sexual preference is? I tell that one
fact, and I can get 6 billion facts on the same question about each and every
one of those people. Its not equivalent. I may have pissed off a small small
minority, but I now KNOW a huge amount of data about a lot of people, and that
gives me power.
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