Re: CDR: Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Wed, 21 Nov 2001, Petro wrote: > On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 07:36 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > (in my perfectly humble hate-group inspired opinion :-). It's also > > great > > fun watching Jeff and company pretend to be even dumber than your > > average > > @home luser. > > What makes you think they're pretending? *Never*, _ever_, underestimate the Enemy. JeffCo are an awful lot of [mostly bad] things, but truly stupid is not one of them. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson [EMAIL PROTECTED] If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the first place...
Re: CDR: Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 07:36 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > (in my perfectly humble hate-group inspired opinion :-). It's also > great > fun watching Jeff and company pretend to be even dumber than your > average > @home luser. What makes you think they're pretending? -- "Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are half-wits."--Chris Klein
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
At 10:51 AM 11/17/01 -0800, Tim May wrote: > >One of my long-term programming heroes is Dan Ingalls, the guy who >invented BitBlt (for windowing systems) and did most of the actual >development of Smalltalk. He's still in the thick of things and is >contributing mightily. Walker of Autodesk/CERN (?) is grey and active AFAIK.
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Saturday, November 17, 2001, at 12:48 PM, John Young wrote:
> If you're over 30-35 all your best stuff was done in the old
> days. After that age you may think you're capable of good
> work but that's just the voice of experience taking the place
This depends on whether one is entering a new field, amongst other
things. And it depends on the field.
Richard Feynman, for example, was innovating in many areas well into his
60s.
> Newbies scare the shit of of oldies, seeing in them
> certain disrespect, ridicule, erasure. Even when
> newbies try their damnest to learn from the oldies
> the venerable farts can't bear to be used as
> stepping stones -- as if they never did that, and
> are not now robbing the newbies under guise of
> disdaining them.
There's a difference between newbies when a field is new and newbies
when a field is old. When the Cypherpunks list started, many of us/them
were newbies, regardless of our clock ages. (I was 40 in 1992, thus
either disputing or reinforcing your "30-35" point, depending on your
outlook.)
Some newbies to our list have contributed important ideas. I remember
when Lucky Green first started appearing, circa 1994-5. He went from
having little background to being one of our most important essayists
and actual crypto company contributors. And there's David Molnar, a
student at Princeton when he arrived.
It's true that I've seen nothing but "Look at me, I'm such a smart grad
student!" comments from some of our recent newbies. And comments from
lawyer newbies and law student newbies.
> Meanwhile the Net geezers are agoing sclerotic
> heading boards and advisory panels, doing nothing
> challenging, burnishing each others' reputations,
> fencing what they thieve from students and prowling
> the Net for easy pickings.
True for some, not for others. I mentioned Feynman. John von Neumann was
another. Many examples of people contributing more or less continuously
into late life. The "move into management" is common in all industries,
all institutions, so many of them end up sitting on panels and boards,
attending special events, and genearlly being distracted from the
singlemindedness they could have in their 20s.
One of my long-term programming heroes is Dan Ingalls, the guy who
invented BitBlt (for windowing systems) and did most of the actual
development of Smalltalk. He's still in the thick of things and is
contributing mightily. I recently had a chance to spend a few days with
him and with other pioneers (Don Knuth, Gordon Bell, John McCarthy,
etc.) and they are still doing creative things. Admittedly, for
fundamental ontological reasons, the things that made their careers when
they were young ("history gets written by the winners") were more
earth-shaking than the things they are now doing. I say "ontological"
because this is wired-into the structure of how we perceive the
world--most people never make any substantial discoveries, a few make
one discovery, and far fewer make more than one. For those who haven't
made a significant contribution by age 30 or 35, they probably get
shuffled off into jobs where future contributions are even less likely.
So we tend to see precisely those people who contributed early on,
sometimes more than once.
--Tim May
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant." --John Stuart Mill
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
If you're over 30-35 all your best stuff was done in the old days. After that age you may think you're capable of good work but that's just the voice of experience taking the place of genuine challenge when you have to solve problems to survive rather than steal from youngsters and call it your own or worse, claim it was stolen from you. The older you get the more you succumb to the narcotic of experience, and you really think you a smart son of a bitch rather than a nodding dopehead dreaming of the glory days. But nothing narcotizes like success except having no need to deal with the unexpected. That's why loners and hermits have it right, hate the world, shut out all attempts to socialize, concoct deeply satisfying explanations for why the solitary lifestyle is a winner rather than a loser. Attack anybody who disturbs your fantasy. Avoid mirrors, families, any reminder of what you used to be before climbing up into your dark hole of self-satisfaction. This is a voice of experience screaming at you the truth you dumb motherfucker, you, you, newbie. Newbies scare the shit of of oldies, seeing in them certain disrespect, ridicule, erasure. Even when newbies try their damnest to learn from the oldies the venerable farts can't bear to be used as stepping stones -- as if they never did that, and are not now robbing the newbies under guise of disdaining them. Best thing about cpunks is nobody is over 30-35. Most way healthier than that or wisely pretend to be. Meanwhile the Net geezers are agoing sclerotic heading boards and advisory panels, doing nothing challenging, burnishing each others' reputations, fencing what they thieve from students and prowling the Net for easy pickings. Mostly, though, checking on the times their names are cited. Boosting that with neat tools purpose-built for backdating and touching up wild-age rants into golden-age nuggets.
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Fri, Nov 16, 2001 at 10:31:24PM -0800, Petro wrote: > Part of the energy in those days was people pushing in to vastly > new territories, figuring out how to solve the hard problems--and there > were a whole bunch back then. There are still lots of hard problems, but > they come in dribs and drabs, and often one of these new problems can be > reduced to one or two old problems--which isn't nearly as interesting. I may have started reading the list in 1994. To add something to the above: Also in the early days, folks were still thinking through the implications of the technologies, the future was a bit sunnier than it is nowadays, and there weren't quite as many (this may be just wishful thinking) loserflamers around. In addition, the FBI and Secret Service and TIGTA and whatnot hadn't been interrogating and arresting list members. Things have changed. -Declan
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Friday, November 16, 2001, at 08:29 PM, Faustine wrote: > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA1 > Tim wrote: >> The list has only 5% of the content it had in its glory years, 1992-95. >> And perhaps only 10% of its content in its declining years, 1996-98. >> It's now at about half the level of its senile years, 1999-2000. This >> past year has been the worst. >> There are many reasons for this decline, discussed as early as 1994. >> Any newbies who think this list is now interesting or exciting has my >> sympathy. > Bah. One can regret having missed the glory days while still feeling > like > there's a good handful of people worth coming back for. Maybe the > upcoming > legislation will have the same effect as Clipper and cause the list to > reach > critical mass again. I started reading this list back at the tail end of what Mr. May describes as "the glory days", and it won't ever happen again--not in this area. Part of the energy in those days was people pushing in to vastly new territories, figuring out how to solve the hard problems--and there were a whole bunch back then. There are still lots of hard problems, but they come in dribs and drabs, and often one of these new problems can be reduced to one or two old problems--which isn't nearly as interesting. It's also the nature of the problems that has changed. Then it was easy to get money to try out a new idea. Now that is the problem--how do I take one of these ideas out of this big ass barrel and make *money* off it. Which really isn't nearly so interesting to a lot of the people who were hear before--they either had their money (Mr. May, Gilmore) or cared more about playing with ideas, philosophies and technology than getting rich. Which isn't exactly accurate. There really hasn't ever been any one thing that was true about every poster here, other than in some fashion or other they could use an email client (maybe not well, but they could). Today getting money is a bitch, and just about anything to do with crypto is going to be a huge risk--product liability, government regulation, etc. makes many of the really interesting projects a bitch and a half to even get off the ground, and the one thing that would make it all come together, the one thing that has generated more traffic than any other on this list is still virtually non-existent. Which is, I guess, why some of us still wander back through here every so often. It's kinda like going back to your childhood home. Look, there Mrs. Rice, she taught American Civics, And there's that crochety old man May, I bet he *still* has my baseball in his house somewere. Bastard chased me out of his yard with a FNFAL. You wander back looking for news of the people you knew (What ever happened to Sameer P? Perry? Is Karl Johnson still in the Big House?) or looking to see if things are any better, but it's a small town, and it's not on the main highway any more.
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Fri, Nov 16, 2001 at 06:42:47PM -0500, Faustine wrote: > Actually Congress is chock full of lightweights. And all their ratty > little undereducated staffers who soak up whatever lobbyists and > their shoddy two-bit partisan "guess tanks" happen to be shilling > for this week. I know plenty of quality analysts who loathe > testifing before Congress--quite unlike the faceless horde of guess > tank media whores scrambling for the spotlight. I confess I know many congressional staffers. Alas, what you say is not quite right. Most are over-educated: law degress from decent universities and (this is quite popular) master's and PhDs in "public policy." What they're under-educated about, often, is an understanding of how the world outside of Washington works. It's possible to do an internship in college and move here immediately after graduation and always work in the nonprofit or government sector. Hardly an honest living. > I'll say this much: getting pro-freedom policy analysts in > positions where they don't have to scramble to be heard will be the > real accomplishment. Not just knocking their heads against a brick > wall as per usual. So what's your plan? -Declan
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tim wrote: >The list has only 5% of the content it had in its glory years, 1992-95. >And perhaps only 10% of its content in its declining years, 1996-98. >It's now at about half the level of its senile years, 1999-2000. This >past year has been the worst. >There are many reasons for this decline, discussed as early as 1994. >Any newbies who think this list is now interesting or exciting has my >sympathy. Bah. One can regret having missed the glory days while still feeling like there's a good handful of people worth coming back for. Maybe the upcoming legislation will have the same effect as Clipper and cause the list to reach critical mass again. ~F. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/Xnpfg5Tuca7bfvEQIKUgCghn+7NxKfYPSU2i1JgcZ9Tn9UNWAAn1pO BrBAuzKp7XptKWc/c/8PybT/ =dHzw -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
On Friday, November 16, 2001, at 03:42 PM, Faustine wrote: > > Good question. I guess it's just that I love to argue, and you could > hardly > ask for a better assortment of intelligent and colorful characters to > mix it up > with. I enjoy the back-and-forth; putting out documents people here > might find > useful and interesting--and most importantly, being able to give my > unvarnished > opinion without, well, worrying too much about being rigorous and > objective. > > For instance, if anyone wants to tell someone here to go fuck > themselves, > they just come right out and tell them to go fuck themselves. How > refreshing, > positively theraputic! Expressing a little heartfelt hostility isn't > always a > bad thing...LOL The list has only 5% of the content it had in its glory years, 1992-95. And perhaps only 10% of its content in its declining years, 1996-98. It's now at about half the level of its senile years, 1999-2000. This past year has been the worst. There are many reasons for this decline, discussed as early as 1994. Any newbies who think this list is now interesting or exciting has my sympathy. --Tim May "If I'm going to reach out to the the Democrats then I need a third hand.There's no way I'm letting go of my wallet or my gun while they're around." --attribution uncertain, possibly Gunner, on Usenet
Re: "Rigorous and objective" (if at first...)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Gil wrote: Faustine writes: >Tim wrote: > > >Besides the above points, a "rigorous and objective analysis" is work > >for bean counters...and is only interesting to other bean counters. >So von Neumann, Kahn, Schelling and Nash are boring, huh. >I'd rather follow their examples than spend year after year chitchatting >on Usenet. Such an intelligent and creative man, what a waste. >>Then what the hell are you doing here, chitchatting on the list many >>critics have characterized as Tim's private cesspool? Good question. I guess it's just that I love to argue, and you could hardly ask for a better assortment of intelligent and colorful characters to mix it up with. I enjoy the back-and-forth; putting out documents people here might find useful and interesting--and most importantly, being able to give my unvarnished opinion without, well, worrying too much about being rigorous and objective. For instance, if anyone wants to tell someone here to go fuck themselves, they just come right out and tell them to go fuck themselves. How refreshing, positively theraputic! Expressing a little heartfelt hostility isn't always a bad thing...LOL Anyway, Usenet is an entirely different animal. Why anyone so intelligent would waste five minutes on that pack of pumpkin-headded "God Bless Amerikuh" drooling imbeciles is beyond me. It literally makes me want to puke just thinking about it--no wonder Tim always seems so dyspeptic. >Yes, Tim. Come on. Faustine will be doing Important Rigorous and >Objective Policy Analysis. Her work will have Real Impact. Members of >Congress and the Administration will invite her to come give them >briefings (at least those with sufficient clearance). Think whatever you please, it certainly suits me fine. >She just doesn't want to "show her hand" yet. You know, all those >paparazzi can be so annoying. And it's hard to get important Policy >Analysis done when you're being pestered by all those lightweights >in Congress. Actually Congress is chock full of lightweights. And all their ratty little undereducated staffers who soak up whatever lobbyists and their shoddy two-bit partisan "guess tanks" happen to be shilling for this week. I know plenty of quality analysts who loathe testifing before Congress--quite unlike the faceless horde of guess tank media whores scrambling for the spotlight. I'll say this much: getting pro-freedom policy analysts in positions where they don't have to scramble to be heard will be the real accomplishment. Not just knocking their heads against a brick wall as per usual. >Besides: Gosh! Just think: we'll be able to say that we knew her when. No comment. LOL Infuriatingly yours, ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/Wkdvg5Tuca7bfvEQJwzACfdbfJz/Xlre/j5ddSBWBsx5ai7NcAnA99 MaOCrYYU4incdfh5jmVZOjXU =t3OS -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: "Rigorous and objective"
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Tim wrote: >Besides the above points, a "rigorous and objective analysis" is work >for bean counters...and is only interesting to other bean counters. So von Neumann, Kahn, Schelling and Nash are boring, huh. I'd rather follow their examples than spend year after year chitchatting on Usenet. Such an intelligent and creative man, what a waste. >What got the Cypherpunks rolling was not "rigorous and objective >analysis." Good point, but where did you ever hear me say analysis was enough? > Faustine has gradstudentitus. She or he will likely get his >or her Masters or maybe even Ph.D. and will then vanish into the bowels >of the Office of Implementational Policy Assessment, commuting to work >each morning on the Metro, hoping to advance to GS-13 level before age >40, and generally living a life of quiet desperation. But her or his >analysis papers will be suitably dry and rigorous...and ignorable. For someone who claims not to know whether I'm a woman or not, your overactive imagination certainly got busy on the details. Unlike you, I'm not so easily trolled into showing my hand. So if whipping up some dreary banalities for me makes you feel better, go right ahead. Though you're so far off, it really is amusing. Speaking of straw men and your overactive imagination, did you ever find anything in the archives to support your rant about my interpretation of the first and second amendments? Just wondering. ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/QgS/g5Tuca7bfvEQK2MwCePRanghjFPS4exLZq5GwNUW3bNa8AoJ/U C6HUw+/xF1O5fF5B7h9Z/1a0 =G0VA -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: "Rigorous and objective"
-- On 14 Nov 2001, at 0:52, Petro wrote: > So did you discuss what was going to be done *after* the > current government is destroyed? What sort of government > will follow? Preferably none whatsoever. > Or was this just an exercise in later day > bakuninism? Bakunin was a moderate, who sometimes advocated a conventional socialist government, though he changed his mind when he started to imagine a socialist government run by Marx or his fellow Marxists. > You can't just strike off a slaves chains and say "You're > Free", that slave has to understand how to deal with > freedom, he has to have the skills and thought processes to > live without his "master" taking care of him. The vast > majority of the people in this country lack one or more of > skills and thought processes to live w/out an effective > government. When the slaves were freed in the civil war, their death rate went up to extremely high levels, and the death rate among their descendants still has not fallen to normal levels. Despite that we did not see any of them call for a return to the old system. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 9kwrQutH0kRTaB8Rj+zkWHeDBKQktQ2gA4Xj21kl 4evNogxciSix8raejhW3yU6SKuHfoLpiySVDX9sdc
Re: "Rigorous and objective"
On Wednesday, November 14, 2001, at 12:12 AM, Tim May wrote: > Meanwhile, grey burrowcrats are burrowing into their burrows in D.C., > busily writing "rigorous and objective" reports on the benefits of > welfare and why gun control is cost-effective. Feh. I hope to see the > day when millions of them are gassed. So did you discuss what was going to be done *after* the current government is destroyed? What sort of government will follow? Or was this just an exercise in later day bakuninism? I'm not (just) being a smart ass. If the necessary stuff was in place (fully anonymous digital currencies, blacknets, Bell's AP system etc.) the state would be gradually rendered ineffective, then die on the vine over a great enough time that people could adapt, institutions and attitudes could adjust. You can't just strike off a slaves chains and say "You're Free", that slave has to understand how to deal with freedom, he has to have the skills and thought processes to live without his "master" taking care of him. The vast majority of the people in this country lack one or more of skills and thought processes to live w/out an effective government. What are you going to do about that? Or is your purpose, like those Russian Nihilists, just to smash the state? -- "Remember, half-measures can be very effective if all you deal with are half-wits."--Chris Klein
"Rigorous and objective"
On Tuesday, November 13, 2001, at 11:00 PM, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > Faustine says: >> There's no reason you can't keep your hardcore beliefs to yourself >> while >> doing the most rigorous and objective analysis you can. > > This is an attractive, but, alas, naive plan. > > So your closeted-libertarian-analyst presents a "rigorous and objective > analysis" saying raising the minimum wage will put people out of work? > Your opponents will present someone who argues otherwise. Your analyst > says that gun control saves lives? Opponents will ring up Handgun > Control. > Your analyst says that his interpretation of the Commerce Clause > is the correct one? Someone else will cite chapter and verse otherwise. Besides the above points, a "rigorous and objective analysis" is work for bean counters...and is only interesting to other bean counters. What got the Cypherpunks rolling was not "rigorous and objective analysis." Faustine has gradstudentitus. She or he will likely get his or her Masters or maybe even Ph.D. and will then vanish into the bowels of the Office of Implementational Policy Assessment, commuting to work each morning on the Metro, hoping to advance to GS-13 level before age 40, and generally living a life of quiet desperation. But her or his analysis papers will be suitably dry and rigorous...and ignorable. > >> Sadly enough, you're probably right. >> But isn't it about time somebody started trying? I think so. > > Again, you're naive. Cato, CEI, IHS, IJ, have tried. Victory is > not exactly expected anytime soon. > > Might as well write code, as someone once said. Two of our sessions at that Sierra retreat were vastly more useful than 99% of the CATO and related "dry and rigorous" b.s. papers. One was a session on mapping the security holes in Bay Area government installations...most gubment sites are trivially accessible from wireless connections: sit in the parking lot a few buildings away and take down the Evil Empire! Another interesting late night session was on ways to knock down airliners. The obvious approaches, but also a bunch of creative new ideas. Not for the faint of heart, of course, as a few pounds of Semtex up the butt is not exactly pleasant...but it's damned near undetectable by even their multimillion dollar scanners. The thermite attack on bridge suspension cables also got discussed. Sarin, ricin, and India-1967 were covered in another session. Meanwhile, grey burrowcrats are burrowing into their burrows in D.C., busily writing "rigorous and objective" reports on the benefits of welfare and why gun control is cost-effective. Feh. I hope to see the day when millions of them are gassed. --Tim May, Citizen-unit of of the once free United States " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
