On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Ken Brown wrote:
>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>> The only real difference is that the functions of government are
>> distributed instead of being vested in particular people.
>
>Which is pretty near a definition of anarchy according to my anarchist
>friends.
Alright. Then, perhaps, I should clarify that I wasn't talking
necessarily about a society in which all interactions are voluntary,
which seems to be the goal of many anarchists.
>You want maybe a recipe? An instruction book for helping the state
>wither away? Try the Communist Manifesto, it's good.
I've read it already.
And no, I don't want a recipe for helping the state wither away
or change form. That's a several-centuries process, and I haven't
the attention span for it.
What I wanted, when I showed up here looking, was evaluation of
specific protocols for doing specific things. For example, how
does an election protocol with cryptographic ballots work? How
do Alice and Bob exchange keys? What are the ways in which
different types of digital cash protect the identity of the
buyer or seller, and how does each work? Are there ways to
distribute "shares" of identity so that groups of people can
participate in another protocol as though they were one person,
and if so how does that work? What types of authentication can
happen without trusted servers and how does each work?
I've gotten maybe three scraps of help on such questions
from this list, and they were minimal -- pointers to offlist
and off-net resources. In order to get that, I've put up with
a lot of sneers, condescencion, posing, and political rants
with no underpinning of reality, which I personally find
distasteful.
>> What I've been able to do since is find that there are ways
>> to solve a bunch of technical problems
>
>So tell us the ways.
I have, a couple of times. A few months ago, when the
american presidential election debacle was at its peak, I
posted an election protocol to the list. I was disappointed
that no substantive discussion of its technical merits or
problems ensued. A few people even chided me for posting
something substantive, or tried to pose as omniscient by
saying it was too simple to merit their attention. I frankly
don't give a flying damn about such chest-beating, but the
absence of anyone willing or able to discuss it was a
disappointment.
An Election Protocol is not a path through history to
crypto anarchy. It is a method of building one thing using
cryptography. It is one solution of thousands possible,
for one problem out of thousands or millions.
My search is a search for useful stuff, not a search for
ways to get rid of government employees. But even if you
choose crypto anarchy as the object of your work, are you
so obsessed with what you think it might look like that
you disdain to consider the protocols which are the
individual building blocks you'd have to use to build it?
It is true that I despise governments, for inefficiencies
and oppression; however, I've no reason to suspect that
I would despise the Crypto State any less, on either score.
Both involve coercion by effective monopolies on violence.
It would have the same power to spend public money inefficiently
and corruptly, and I see no reason to believe that it would
do so any less. Also, it could have the same power to
transgress against individuals, and I don't see a reason
to believe that it would exercise it any less.
>What "proof" can there be that implementation is possible?
Implementation of particular protocols is what I intended to
ask about. Hard Science - functioning protocols for particular
tasks. Without the support of thousands of protocols, the
political fantasies of which you accuse me are so much wishful
thinking and hot air, less relevant than a fart.
The question is not whether you can 'justify' crypto anarchy,
or whether there's a way to get there, or even whether that's
a worthwhile goal - the question is whether there's even
anything to justify or get TO. Until I had seen several
hundred individual protocols, there was nothing for me to
discuss.
>We can't even
>prove that a non-trivial computer program is correct, never mind a
>political program.
Sodomize all political programs. They disgust me. I am
interested in solving problems and building useful things.
I am interested in government only insofar as it is useful
or solves problems. Solving problems sometimes has political
consequences, and I accept that.
Governments, like the lemur-like creatures of the cretacious
which are the ancestors of modern human, will adapt until
they are no longer recognizable to us as governments. Perhaps
one day they will have adapted sufficiently far that there are
no government employees and no one left to blame but ourselves
for the injustices we do one another. Perhaps not.
Ultimately, it doesn't matter how large or how distributed
the group abusing public power is. What matters is that
public power, for the forseeable future, WILL continue to
be abused, whether by a conventional state or a crypto state.
Bear
