> I *am* a left-wing anarchist!

Surely capitalism is much closer to anarchy than socialism since it
requires much less government intervention (in fact, I believe that
government intervention damages capitalism)?

> I object to the idea of using micropayments in Freenet both on
> ideological and practical grounds, while you object to it just on
> practical grounds.

Actually where questions of freedom of information are concerned, I
don't see much of a difference between the practical, and the
idealogical.  If it were practical to use purely* technological means
to prevent information from being duplicated without the author's
permission, then I wouldn't have a problem with it (the only
alternative would be to make that technology illegal - and making
technologies illegal is not my thing).

* By this I mean without relying on any form of legal sanction or
  government threat

The point is that it is *not* possible to prevent "piracy" through
purely technological means - and it is unlikely that methods will be
developed, up to now people have required the threat of government
sanction in the form of copyright law.  Now the issue is that as
communication technology improves even government sanctions are
becomming less and less effective, Freenet makes them rather impotent.

Ian.
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