Is this the new Neal Stephenson?
At the time this manifesto was written, Stephenson was just publishing his first serious novel, Zodiac. He wasn't yet a well-known writer.
The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
81–90 of 140 posts
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#82I clicked thinking "I bet that's Tim May." I was not disappointed.
Some of his posts in the '90s were tough to read, but they were interesting without fail. Anyone know if/where he posts nowadays?
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#83I don't understand the barbed wire metaphor. Couldn't crypto have the effect of putting content that would otherwise be freely available in the current internet behind monetary barriers? Couldn't cryptocurrencies enable further control by monopolizing media industries? The technology is powerful, whether or not it will be liberating is to be determined. Edit: didn't realize this was from 1993! Amazing to read that pe…
As the saying goes: information wants to be free. In a world where everyone can interact with each other completely anonymously that becomes even more true, since governments cannot effectively penalize people for distributing said information. For example, imagine a version of The Pirate Bay hosted as a Tor hidden service, combined with a completely anonymous torrent-like P2P file sharing system.
Information "wants" to be gratis only in the sense that water "wants" to flow downhill. It turns out that devices that impede that flow (like a cup) are useful.
The corollary then to your particular analogy is that since anonymity on the internet was the default, it turned out that much of the commercial value eventually accrued to companies that correlated online activities with each other (searches, clicks, posts, likes, etc.) and tied the bundle to an identity.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain to me how this works, please? If it's just selecting a random person, this seems as though it would be liable to all sorts of problems such as the person not even having to demonstrate to anyone that he is capable of holding such a position. If it's selecting a random person from a smaller group of people, how is it decided who gets to be in the group? You're pushing the problem of professional politi…
The standard is I think the same as the standard for voting; if you're enfranchised, you would be eligible for selection by sortition. If you're arguing that this may lead to the selection of unqualified representatives, yes, that's certainly a risk. But the very same people are already voting in the current system. They may not become representatives themselves, but they're certainly choosing them. If your society c…
There is a profound amount of stuff in our political system which is necessary to the everyday running of the country, and yet is profoundly boring. There are a huge number of people for which having to participate in reading and debating law is untenable for one or more reasons. Hell, the politicians PAID to do this don't read all the things they are supposed to.
Hell, half of Americans can't be bothered to vote. How are they going to contribute to the political process in any meaningful way when harboring that much apathy?
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's quite funny to see people promoting such conspiracy theories, considering they've already been proven wrong by reality. Apart from some banana republics, governments around the world have been incredibly relaxed with regards to Bitcoin. The rules that have been established are as favourable as anyone could imagine (i. e. trading being exempt from VAT etc.). Yes, they have insisted on existing rules, mostly of th…
"What exactly is that killer app of bitcoin that so frightens the establishment?" Right now in order to spend ones bitcoins (with a few exceptions) one has to change them into fiat currency and that's where the establishment can monitor and control the money flow. What will happen when a critical mass of service providers and product sellers will gladly accept crypto coins? That's when one can hide his cash reserves…
Yes, probably. It's just slightly insane to think you can opt-out of paying taxes via technology, or that taxes are somehow for the benefit of some nebulous "establishment".
That's empirically true, for only a tiny sliver of very strange people still fantasise about some Randian utopia of every-man-for-himself. And it's logically inescapable, since there's no way to sustain today's societies without the cooperation established by taxes.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. How the ledger is computed and verified is distributed however the product is a single central source of truth. There is nothing centralized about having a single objective "reality". Decentralized systems do not have a single source of truth and by their very nature are inconsistent. In other words, whether the blockchain was comput…
>bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. Immediately not following you here. The singular ledger you refer to is in fact stored (and modified) by many different actors and agreed to on a majority basis. There are absolutely different versions of the ledger in existence, but the majority chooses to move forward temporally on the basis of majority consensus. That version of…
Yes,the last one was a typo. Phone input. My argument is bitcoin relies on a consistent ledger to function. It relies on a distributed system to compute the ledger, but it depends on consistency to function. This makes it ACT like a centralized system and therefore it functionally IS one. A real decentalized system functions with inconsistency.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#87The comments here mention crypto currencies. However, currency is anathema to anarchist societies and isn't mentioned in the manifesto. Anarchists recognize that currencies and markets are products of the state and using this tool in a stateless society makes no sense. A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision? Who does it serve? Bitcoin m…
> A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. Not at all. "State" is a political constructions while currencies are a value transport mechanism and markets are a network of those, both of which, as "pure" concepts, arises pretty quickly when one starts to ponder how to model "actors in need to exchange and use scarce resources which have alternative uses". In that sense, saying that "currencies…
You are wrong, they are inventions used for a political purpose. Try making your own currency and markets if you want proof. Bitcoin is a perfect example. Required millions of dollars to get off the ground, provisioned early adopters like a ponzi scheme. Likely has state backing though I have no proof it's a honey pot. Just gut feeling.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. Immediately not following you here. The singular ledger you refer to is in fact stored (and modified) by many different actors and agreed to on a majority basis. There are absolutely different versions of the ledger in existence, but the majority chooses to move forward temporally on the basis of majority consensus. That version of…
Yes,the last one was a typo. Phone input. My argument is bitcoin relies on a consistent ledger to function. It relies on a distributed system to compute the ledger, but it depends on consistency to function. This makes it ACT like a centralized system and therefore it functionally IS one. A real decentalized system functions with inconsistency.
So then to track that argument down to an absurdity - The objections you raise could equally be applied to language, or mathematics.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the saying goes: information wants to be free. In a world where everyone can interact with each other completely anonymously that becomes even more true, since governments cannot effectively penalize people for distributing said information. For example, imagine a version of The Pirate Bay hosted as a Tor hidden service, combined with a completely anonymous torrent-like P2P file sharing system.
> As the saying goes: information wants to be free. Don't anthropomorphize abstractions; they hate that.
Sure. He should have said "tends to be" or "gets driven toward being" or whatever. But the key point is the tension, not his languaging.
Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the saying goes: information wants to be free. In a world where everyone can interact with each other completely anonymously that becomes even more true, since governments cannot effectively penalize people for distributing said information. For example, imagine a version of The Pirate Bay hosted as a Tor hidden service, combined with a completely anonymous torrent-like P2P file sharing system.
Information "wants" to be gratis only in the sense that water "wants" to flow downhill. It turns out that devices that impede that flow (like a cup) are useful. The corollary then to your particular analogy is that since anonymity on the internet was the default, it turned out that much of the commercial value eventually accrued to companies that correlated online activities with each other (searches, clicks, posts,…
The Internet was never anonymous. Especially not at the start, when every computer had its own IP address.