Subject: Verticalist vs Horizontalist

From: Tony Hollick (anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk)
Date: Thu Jun 26 1997 - 04:37:35 MDT


The Internet and its users treat attempted censorship as damage, and
promptly route around it.

             ------------------- * * * * * ---------------

Date: Wed, 25 Jun 97 18:15 BST-1
From: anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk (Tony Hollick)
Subject: Blocked posting to Hayek-L from 'C4ISR'. Repost requested.
To: chris@rand.demon.co.uk,
 billg@microsoft.com,
 postmaster@microsoft.com
Cc: anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk,
 gregransom@aol.com,
 hayek-l@maelstrom.stjohns.edu
Reply-To: anduril@cix.compulink.co.uk
Message-Id: <memo.858100@cix.compulink.co.uk>

From: 'C4ISR@agora.demon.co.uk' ('Noel R. Gayler')
Organization: C4ISR
Subject: Spontaneous Orders are Horizontalist
X-Mailer: Blackbird

This post will interest intelligent subscribers to HAYEK-L.

[A]:

Coping with volunes of mail with threadings is a bit of a bind, eh?

Here are some simple ways to save on connect time, on disk space, on
unnecessary effort, and on 'information overload' >:-}

First, access this Universal Resource Locator: (URL):

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             http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/hayek-l

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using your World Wide Web Browser:

Look around first, and see how easy it all is!

If you reckon you can handle it (and if you've managed to get thus far
on HAYEK-L, you certainly can!):

then save the URL to your 'Hotlist.'

If you're a penniles student or scholar, and have a low-spec PC, and you
have no Web browser, and you have some software configuration skills,
there are other browsers than all the cumbersome, unreliable Windoze
nonsense!

One of them is at:

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                http://www.naf.cz/arachne/english.htm

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It's a fairly unsophisticated browser, but it will run on an Intel 8086
(and upwards) system with 540k of RAM and floppy disks!.

             ------------------- * * * * * ---------------

Here's an interesting and relevant problem-situation for HAYEK-L
subscribers to discuss; it raises profound issues of fundamental
importance to Hayek's programme of spontaneous orders, probably the most
valuable part of his oeuvre.

If you think this next part a digression, you're wrong! Serious Hayek
scholars will spot this instantly!

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The Microsoft Empire was founded on a deliberately crippled platform
(the IBM-PC, which was designed not to impact on IBM's mini- and
mainframe sales)).

Microsoft took over a crippled Operating System which had been clumsily
ripped off from CP/M by people with nothing like the skills of Gary
Kildall and his team at Digital Research.

IBM couldn't do a deal with Digital Reasearch, for reasons which bear
looking into, and because Kildall didn't want to downgrade his fine
product, which was the foundation of Personal Computing.

So here we are, with Wintel foisting an absurd and costly system which
locks up and falls over from time to time, on the entire world. There are
few misguided but influential people in parts of the US Government who
cooperate with Microsoft, because (according to James Adams, writing in
the Sunday Times), there are 'back doors' and latent viruses embedded in
the software.

These can be remotely activated while you're online, and data packets
inserted into the data stream to activate subroutines which scan your hard
disk, and send the whole directories strucure to somewhere else by means
of interleave data packets with _different address destination headers_.

On your next logon, they can pick selected files straight off your hard
drive. Think about it: they may have done this already, if you're
'interesting' enough.

Any half-way competent foreign signals intelligent outfit knowing how to
do this (a totalitarian dictatership elsewhere in the world, ferinstance)
can ransack the hard drives of any American who browses the Web via
Windows95.

This, according to intelligence expert James Adams (writing recently in
the 'Sunday Times'). Many other people are discussing it, too. The Windoze
'bloatware' makes them a bit difficult to spot, but they're there all
right.

This cannot possibly be in accordannce with the very explicit Mission
Statement of the National Security Agency, which is charged with
protecting the interests of _all_ American citizens, not just Bill Gates.

All NSA staffers are sworn to uphold the American Constitution, and all
the rights it guarantees to all Americans.

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                        http://www.nsa.gov:8080
                         
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There are much better, cheaper alternatives to Wndoze around right now,
and even better combined Web TV (and SVGA) home PCs with built-in
'softmodem' and voice command and text input at 100+ wpm. impending.

Much beter than the (appropriately-naemd) slave terminals -- Network
Computers, with no real local computational power.

'Blackbird' MacroComputers (Copyright).

And other goodies too.

They will be so cheap that an ISP or telco will _give_ you a basic
Blackbird. They're based on the Motorola micocessor range, and Bill Gates
(or any half-witted deputy) won't know what hit him if they try to screw
Motorola around. They're a fully-fledged major defense contractor, with a
global data-radio going up soon -- 'Iridium.'

Better yet, the 'Blackbird' DSP technology means you can _download_ the
latest SofmMdem software -- including spread-spectrum datastreams wich
are far faster and more error-resistant than what most of you use at the
moment. The telcos will be more than willing to let you 'blink' on and off
the Web during your seesions -- it reduces the load on their systems.

The present value of a new ISP client to an ISP provider in America is
around $1200. They can afford to _give_ customers a basic Blackbird,
which wil 'retail' at arounf $500. Not much Bill Gates can do about that,
unless he wants to start killing everyone... >:-}

Don't complain about 'advertizing': -- to the customers, Blackbirds can be
_free_. Some people will complain about anything, of course.

The more _UNaffordable_ these lightning-fast personal computers were, the
more we would see a 'verticalist' hierarchical society of priviledge,
where only the better-off can participate in the Information Revolution
and the 'Warp-Speed' transformation of the world's econmy. Oh, and the
world's societies, too.

Spontaneous Orders are horizontalist and equalitarian.

The choice has to be obvious to any genuine Hayekian who is not using
Hayek's ideas as ' ... a cover for unconfessable intersts ... ' in scholar
Robert G. Wesson's apt turn of phrase.

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 Next, here's your email template:

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MAIL TO listserv@maelstrom.stjohns.edu

SET HAYEK-L NOMAIL

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Thusly, you get no mail at all from HAYEK-L, but you can read all the
postings, instantly and automatically indexed into the onsite Hypertext
Archives at St. Johns. Of course, Hayek-L could be anywhere in the world
right now, given the nature of 'CyberSpace' and the Domain Net Address
servers. Ditto ourselves! >:-}

All the URLs are automatically highlighted in the Archives, and are
fully 'clickable'. Useful for scholars and writers and publishers who
want to provide embedded HotLinks to various papers and sites.

And you can still post direct to HAYEK-L, at your pleasure.

This is a service message made available to Hayek buffs by 'C4ISR.'

Check out:

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                           http://www.psycom.net

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Enjoy!

         / /\ \
      --*--<Noel>--*--

http://www.agora.demon.co.uk
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/la-agora

             ------------------- * * * * * ---------------

Greg Ransom, Controller of Hayek-L, has two links on his Web page:

One is to 'Slate'

The other is to Microsoft Corporation.

There are (at least)two interesting 'lurkers' on Hayek-L:

One is Mark Brady -- jbrad4@gmu.edu

Another is M.L. Rantala -- rants@interaccess.com

BTW:
agora.demon.co.uk was registered on Demon Internet Services from the
very beginning to the Rainbow Bridge Foundation.



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