Transparent Society
Robin Hanson (hanson@econ.Berkeley.EDU)
Wed, 05 Nov 1997 15:36:34 -0800
I also reviewed a draft of Brin's book. Brin has a lot of
interesting things to say, but I think the weakest part of
his analysis is the idea that everyone is as suspect as
governments. Brin argues that if you want government
officials to be open in what they do, then you should want
everyone to be open, because big business, big crime, and
everyone else can also do you harm in the dark. So Brin
is against crypto for you and me essentially because he is
for sunshine in government, and can't see a principled
difference between the two cases.
In my opinion, history provides much stronger reasons to
be worried about governments.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614