From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Wed Nov 11 1998 - 19:24:48 MST
planetp@aci.net (Paul Hughes) writes:
>mark@unicorn.com wrote:
>
>> Is this the same "ban cryptography, total surveillance, anarchists are evil"
>> David Brin who's posted here in the past, or is this another David Brin
>> I've never previously heard of? If it's the former I don't know how anyone
>> could call him a libertarian.
>
>Thanks for saying it. I started to doubt myself here, because the David Brin I
>know is anything but a libertarian. As far as I know he advocates equality,
>equal tyranny and surveillance for everyone.
Brin advocates surveillance in most conditions, but doesn't advocate
complete abolition of privacy or a ban on cryptography (at least he clearly
avoided those positions in his book The Transparent Society; it's easy to
imagine him changing his mind). The only steps he advocates for creating
more equality involve empowering the average person to break up existing
concentrations of power by surveillance. As long as he doesn't advocate
that the government forceably help this along (he seems to waffle on that
question), I approve of his efforts towards equality.
As for believing anarchists are evil: "these cypherpunks were among the
most brilliant, articulate, knowledgeable, and boisterous T-cells our
society could brag about producing so far;" - page 186-187 of The Transparent
Society. He does believe cypherpunks are mistaken about the effects of
widespread use of cryptography.
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | Critmail (http://crit.org/critmail.html): http://www.rahul.net/pcm | Accept nothing less to archive your mailing list
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