Why does philosophy--thinking about important issues, not necessarily
Philosophy 101 at Arizona State--matter to us?
We've heard technical guru "Aaron" tell us, "Dude, you should spend less
time on "philosophy" and more time on productive stuff."
Without philosophical groundings, there would be no Cypherpunks list.
Without a compass in the noosphere, no direction is preferred over another
direction. Without the philosophical musings several of us had in the late
80s and early 90s, there would have been no motivation to call the first
meeting and start the mailing list. Without some philosophy, Chaum would
likely not have worked on the set of interrelated ideas he chose.
Without philosophy, life is just plodding.
Aaron exhorts us to stop all this philosophizing and just start plodding.
Cranking out code, presumably on orders from others, as without philosophy
there is no internal direction.
Ironically, Aaron is not alone. Newcomers to the list frequently criticize
discussions of what tools _should_ be developed, what goals are _important_
as "off topic." They presumably prefer that topics be about C code (of
which very little is discussed here anyway) or about corporate offerings of
the Digital Backdoor Bassomatic Encyptor. They prefer being deep inside the
forest, unable to see larger goals.
Without philosophy this list would not exist.
--Tim May
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
