From: hal@finney.org
Date: Fri Dec 01 2000 - 15:36:58 MST
Michael M. Butler, <butler@comp-lib.org>, writes:
> Not to fan any acrimony flames, but given that information wants to be
> free, how do you plan to achieve privacy in 2005? In 2010? In 2020?
A fair question. I believe technologies are coming which will allow us to
maintain considerable amounts of privacy even in an increasingly networked
world. Freenet, for example, is designed to be a publishing medium
where authors and readers can share data anonymously. This is exactly
the kind of system which David Brin describes as a threat, providing a
"blinding fog" (his words) to hide the data which is being shared.
> The evolution of cooperation stuff indicates that rough parity among all
> players is essential for cooperation to be a good strategy. Pure
> individualism in its rawest form is hard to distinguish from
> pyschopathology unless the observer has confidence in the shared values
> of the observed. Think Mickey and Mallory in _Natural Born Killers_.
Ultimately we are all individuals and people's greatest motivations are to
benefit themselves. Yet that motivational framework has led to trade and
exchange and the fantastically interwoven global economy we have today,
even in the face of individual differences in power and wealth.
Individualism is not the same as hatred of society, but rather, it is
a philosophical position which puts the individual first. Society is
judged on the basis of the benefits it provides to individuals, rather
than vice versa. "Ask not what you can do for your country, but what
your country can do for you."
> The mantra you mention is far from valueless to me. Please don't make me
> your enemy just yet.
The problem with "I am a member of a civilization" is that it doesn't say
whether the civilization is good or bad. Just to get the Hitler reference
out of the way, if the Third Reich had won some of us might have been
members of that civilization. Would that make it good? Would that
mean we should support it? No, a civilization must be judged on the
basis of its values and its works. Whether I am or am not a member of
any particular civilization tells me nothing about whether it is worth
my support.
> Principles *are* important. One principle that's important is not to
> burn the barn down while the horse is still inside.
I don't follow what that means in this context.
Hal
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