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The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

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Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#131

Post by microwavecamera »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #10
blurbleblurble wrote: post #3

I 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…

It was very interesting! They nailed a number of points there in terms of the prominence of certain techs. They missed a big one, though. Today it was announced in the New York Times that Goldman Sachs is backing a payment fintech startup that operates on a public blockchain. JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse, ING, are all involved in the EEA. Big money is making its way into cryptocurrencies presently. Groups lik…

No crypto-currency back then and openly available strong cryptography was a new thing. It was a different time.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#132

Post by Bakary »

19eightyfour wrote: post #80
DonCarlitos wrote: post #75

And still, the rich get richer, the powerful even more so... cutting barbed wire hasn't changed anything. Casts some serious shade on the power of crypto-anarchy to change anything. Anarchy, like libertarianism, are lovely notions with no direct roots in reality. Here's hoping blockchain democratizes and makes more transparent at least part of the puzzle.

It's not that there's anything wrong with the technology. It's just that people can be exploited. And they get exploited. So the hierarchical power structures remain in place. Seriously, what better dream to plant in the slaves' minds but the idea that "a simple little computer program" can set you free? And what better way to control them and stifle their rising-up than by the constant deception that they have more…

Living in a dream world is what being human is about. Objective reality doesn't exist for us, and even if we could somehow perceive it, it would have no use to us. We assign value to things but that value only exists in our own minds. It's impossible to not be a slave. If not some organization, it will be to your own biology.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#133

Post by BenjiWiebe »

imrehg wrote: post #102
mirimir wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

whoosh...

Ok, an xkcd fan. Apparently a bunch of these commenters don't get it.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#134

Post by mirimir »

dragonwriter wrote: post #129
mirimir wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem with both the original form and yours is it obscures the active agent and real interests driving the real effect, which is important because not obscuring that makes the generality limitations of the statement a lot easier to see.

I agree. It gets used in contradictory ways. But he was going for a soundbite. So two sentences was probably the maximum. And most of the time, only one gets quoted.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#135

Post by duncan_bayne »

_jal wrote: post #77
duncan_bayne wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an anarchist myself. But what exactly do you think we have now, in many Western countries? There is more than one way to end up with a Rumsfeld or Cheney in power.

I'm actually sympathetic to your viewpoint, but there is a very real difference between hereditary despots-for-life and imperfectly-constitutionally constrained, term-limited assholes-in-chief.

Indeed. I fear though that one is a stepping stone to the other.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#136

Post by 52-6F-62 »

microwavecamera wrote: post #131
52-6F-62 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was very interesting! They nailed a number of points there in terms of the prominence of certain techs. They missed a big one, though. Today it was announced in the New York Times that Goldman Sachs is backing a payment fintech startup that operates on a public blockchain. JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse, ING, are all involved in the EEA. Big money is making its way into cryptocurrencies presently. Groups lik…

No crypto-currency back then and openly available strong cryptography was a new thing. It was a different time.

Oh no doubt. It was just a comment, not a criticism.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#137

Post by Jabanga »

mempko wrote: post #63

The 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…

Regardless of how you define anarchy, it isn't how the author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto defined it.

Taxation of private income is anathema to privacy. You can only eliminate, prohibit or tax income if you eliminate privacy.

That's why in the manifesto it says:

>The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration.

All of the major figures in the cryptocurrency field, like Nick Szabo and Wei Dai, were part of the cypherpunks mailing list. The author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, Timothy May, wrote about uncensorable digital currency in Cyphernomicon, in 1994.

>A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision?

Markets and currency provision people.. Trade is a basic form of human interaction that benefits participants.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#138

Post by duncan_bayne »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #98
kortex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 . H…

I think it would be fine to just replace the elected stuff with sortition. I mean, all the administrative staff doing the actual work, the necessary and boring work, are unelected staff anyway.

Yes, that's the intent.

Also worth noting is just how much power the unelected bureaucracy has in a democracy. It's yet another reason to keep the scope of Government strongly constrained.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#139

Post by FooHentai »

mempko wrote: post #93
FooHentai wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then to track that argument down to an absurdity - The objections you raise could equally be applied to language, or mathematics.

Language does not have to be consistent and mathematics are a game we play. Bitcoin is a single global public ledger created in a distributed system. To call it decentralized is strange since all transactions must go into the central ledger to be valid. In other words, decentralized systems function perfectly fine with inconsistency. Bitcoin does not pass that test.

>Language does not have to be consistent

Parties have to agree on terms for language to be of any use.

>mathematics are a game we play

Ok? So is money.

Rest of your comment is a nonsense since it follows a declaration that 'maths is just a game', then gets incredibly specific on a bunch of stuff which, if we're being consistent, is just maths.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#140

Post by grkvlt »

skynode wrote: post #113
igk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this seems like a reasonably sane bill. IANAL but it does not seem to make cryptocurrencies illegal, more the opposite: it recognizes them as cash and places the same requirements that other financial instruments have on them...with a review period of 18 months. That seems good for crypto more than anything else. If anyone knows more about this and wants to explain why I'm misunderstanding this I'd be thank…

Don't know what the HN abbreviation, IANAL, means but in my ignorance it just looks quite distasteful. :\

It isn't really specific to HN, It's been in use since the days of Usenet, as I recall.
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