From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 19:31:43 MST
'What is your name?' 'Zero Powers.' 'Do you deny having written the
following?':
> I addressed this earlier too. You know, (1) it doesn't matter who's running
> the system as long as its sufficiently and verifiably transparent
This is false. Transparency is not enough. You need transparency, the
capacity to recognize wrongdoing, and the capacity to do something about
it.
> (2) the web analogy ("tons of data, hardly any data crunching")
LOTS of data-crunching, you just forget it's going on. Can you imagine a
system like this if it depended on human agents to type in what the
cameras were seeing?
> (3) government-civilian oversight committees, etc., etc.
Which become decreasingly likely as it gets easier and easier to be a
despot.
> Sure I might be worried about that if I lived someplace other than the US or
> sometime other than 2000 a.d. But the fact of the matter is that if you
> plan to take over the US and overturn our democratic republic you will have
> to (1) control the military and (2) somehow convince the military to (a)
> attack their friends and families and (b) do away with the civil liberties
> that we as a society have fought and died to preserve for over 200 years,
> all for the privilege of being able to call you King.
>
> How would you *possibly* do that? How could you possibly form the military,
> economic and strategic alliances necessary to accomplish that ludicrous goal
> in a transparent society without somebody getting wind of what you're up to
> and ruining your party?
You start small and work outwards. Despotism is a tiring, thankless job,
but at the end of the day, you've got a personal realm of terror that you
can call your own.
For the curious, you do it like this: You seize control of a small area,
and lie, claiming that you intend to seize no more. (Whoops! Those
cameras aren't lie detectors, are they?) You seize control of some more
territory, and lie, claiming that you intend to seize no more. Repeat.
Granted, I left out the hard part, which is actually seizing the
territory, but the principle is tried and true. And unfortunately, your
cameras can't detect intentions any better than the modern press.
> >Despotism doesn't, at any step of the picture, rely on secrecy in any way
> >whatsoever. On the contrary, perfect transparency is in the despot's best
> >interests.
>
> What?!? Are you kidding?? How long do you think Saddam Hussein would stay
> in power in a transparent society? I'll tell you, approximately 2 minutes.
This is an empirical point of which I may not be able to convince you.
However, suffice it to say that I'm confident enough that right thinking
people will see that you're wrong that I may not want to devote much more
time to arguing the point.
> The despot keeps the populace in constant fear because they never know who
> to trust because your neighbor might be one of the despot's secret police
> henchmen.
No need to fear THAT, per se: any action whatsoever which the despotic
government finds unacceptable can and will be punished accordingly.
> Why do you think every oppressive, despotic government *always*
> *ALWAYS* has a secret police. Why do you think that establishing the secret
> police is one of the *first* things a totalitarian government does? Why do
> you think they call secret police "secret?" How would you set up a "secret"
> police force in a *transparent* society?
Golly. I have no idea. What DO they keep a secret? What good does that
do them, exactly? What would they lose by having an openly well-armed
thug police? Oh, right. It's the difference b/w totalitarianism, the
moral theory, and despotism, the fact of the matter. Well, the point is
subtle. The fact that the government can no longer plausibly claim that
they are acting in the best interests of the citizens isn't much of a loss
so long as the ruler remains threatening.
> >That way you can be quite confident that when the despot
> >claims that he'll squash you like a bug, he *really will* squash you like
> >a bug. Knowing that someone is a despot does not help you get rid of the
> >despot in any way whatsoever.
>
> Sure, but knowing who his sympathizers are and who the opposition is, and
> the fact that the opposition outnumbers the despot and his henchmen will
> give you a hint as to what to do to regain your freedom, don't ya think?
As if all you needed were numbers. You need weapons, too. And you need
to organize. But if you try to get a weapon, the henchmen will know
instantly, and shoot you. And if you try to organize, before you get the
chance, the government will know instantly, and shoot you. THAT'S how the
picture looks when transparency goes both ways but only one side has the
physical force and the computing power on its side.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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