From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Oct 03 2001 - 12:48:21 MDT
Michael M. Butler (what does the M. stand for?) posted a note about:
"ANCIENT SECRET SYSTEM MOVE MONEY GLOBALLY" by Dogulas Frantz
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/03/international/03LAUN.html
from the NY Times.
Now *that* article is really useful. It points out both the need for
trust between people in societies to effectively function as a collective
as well as the means by which such trust systems may operate
outside of the realm of normal legal and observational realms.
This calls into question "principle 5" of the Extropian principles:
> 5. Open Society -- Supporting social orders that foster freedom of speech,
> freedom of action, and experimentation. Opposing authoritarian social
> control and favoring the rule of law and decentralization of power.
> Preferring bargaining over battling, and exchange over compulsion.
> Openness to improvement rather than a static utopia.
The freedom to experiment with speech (as in covert, encrypted, secure
speech) and action (as in the liberty to setup trust networks independent
of external observation or monitoring) would seem to be an assault to
the rights of individuals to guarantee their own personal security
and autonomy. [I.e. if *you* or your designated security force
(presumably a government) *cannot* monitor *and* guarantee the
trustability of external agents (potentially requiring authoritarian
measures) then is the "rule of law" worth the paper it is printed
on and is the "decentralization of power" not fundamentally unextropic?
Robert
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