From: mark@unicorn.com
Date: Wed Jul 01 1998 - 05:35:40 MDT
Scott Badger [wbadger@psyberlink.net] wrote:
>I saw Jim Halperin (The Truth Machine, The First Immortal) speak and he made
>this same point. He seemed to say in The Truth Machine that terrorists and
>criminals will have increasingly destructive weapons available to them and
>it won't be long before we will be practically forced to create some means
>of identifying the crazies (e.g. an infallible truth machine).
Of course the correct answer to this kind of statement is "So what?" Yes,
freedom fighters, free marketeers and criminals will have nukes and other
mass destruction weapons. So what? Things change, deal with it.
Sure, were I an authoritarian who wanted to boss people around in safety
I'd be scared stiff; bossing people around in secret is no fun, but you
can't boss them around publically without getting nuked by the freedom
fighters. So of course I would want to remove everyone else's privacy to
protect my power.
But for the rest of us, so what? Just move away from the people who are
likely to be nuked and hope you avoid the odd random crazies. It's no
big deal for those who don't want to boss others around. Unless Y2K takes
the government down then DC probably will be nuked in the next couple
of decades. So what?
Mark
(Brin is another big government supporter, so of course he feels the same
way as the big governors.).
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