"You folks here pay lip service to aspect of free markets and anarcho-capitalism,but many of you consistently fail to see the follow-through, the applicability to the world around you. You need to have faith that greed is good, that free markets optimize a lot better than planners in Washington or Tokyo or Moscow do. And while no planning job is ever perfect, no optimization makes everybody happy, at least with free markets there is not the coercion and graft which feeds the state."
Let's take a look at this for a second.
Why do I need to "have faith that greed is good"? Even IF this statement is true, so what? Is this another way of saying, "If only everyone in the world thought like Tim May the world would be a better place?"
Sorry. As a trained physicist-cum-engineer, I know that the physical world has never been well described by any one theory. Depending on context, E&M, QM, Mechanics, Hamiltonian Dynamics, QED, Classical or Neo-classic optics are all still quite useful and necessary. And I don't expect the world of people and their ideas to be any simpler.
So why the insistence on not only anarcho-capitalist, but YOUR version of it? You seem to respond strongly to very surface-level issues in not only my posts (which you frankly do not comprehend most of the time) but others as well, often bringing any real discourse to a halt. In other words, there seems to be a need for some kind of May-ian Orthodoxy.
Me? I grew up here in NYC in the 70s, where/when Punk began (please, no one out in the sticks there try to tell me about the Brits inventing Punk, and I'll spare us the history lesson). In a sense, this term has packed in it the very essence of anti-Orthodoxy. We (yes we) spoke with our axes and sheer, raw energy. (This was later interpreted as some kind of "rebellion" against Prog, but that's only true for the Brits.) When I first became acquainted with the term "Cypherpunk", I thought the notion would be similar: "Who gives a crap what your philosophy is as long as your putting out some 'fuck-you-powered' Cryto Apps, or at least emanating SOMETHING from that spirit."
This list, at least in the Fraunhoffer region, does on some level emanate a Punk attitude, and tolerating the presence of a crypto-fascist or two is something of a consequence. But I'm sick of seeing the Tim May cops come out every time someone suggests a different political notion.
In the end, if Tim May truly wants to see "Crypto Anarchy" come about, then he should shut up more often and allow any political stripe (whether they are 'right' or 'wrong') find their own need for heavy crypto. This can only further his stated goals. Being the list's Narc only drives away those that might have some very powerful ideas, but who don't necessarily agree with the universe May paints.
-TD
Oh, and this isn't meant to be a pure slam. I actually agree with a solid percentage of what May writes. And there are issues he does seem to understand fairly well (others he THINKS he understands well, too). SO this isn't about who is right or wrong on any set of issues. It's about ALLOWING TO BE WRONG, or right, or fucking whatever, and allowing for a free exchange of ideas amongst a very diverse group of people.
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
