Well, there's some truth to Tim May's east/west coast characterization, at least as
far as technology is concerned. East coasters tend to think in terms of fitting into
pre-existing organizations and structures, west-coasters are far more able to conceive
of creating a new structure. (The arts are a completely different matter, however!)
But what I don't fully get is why stance matters, per se. For instance, take p2p. We
can actually argue all we want about what government should/not do about the
problem, but in the end file sharing is just about unstoppable.
If I write or release an app, then, that will facilitate seamless (ie, within the
Kazaa browser, for instance) transmision and storage of shared files in an encrypted
format, it kinda doesn't matter what my personal philosophy is, does it? I can claim
to be a libertarian or say that Ayn Rand is a big pooh-pooh head, but in the end its
pretty clear that file sharing is here to stay. Governing authorities can attempt to
make all kinds of useless laws against it, or perhaps (and I don't think this is
impossible), accept it as a reality and thereby strengthen its relevance to our every
day existence (ie, I don't consider it impossible that some legislation could come
along that might make things better for most people). Look, traffic lights work pretty
good, and the hypothetical existence of hidden cops make us take them seriously.
In other words, I'm not particularly pro- or anti-government per se. Frankly, I don't
care a ton what the government does on this issue (for instance). By writing and
releasing apps (or simply conceiving of and discussing new apps which are one day
coded by others), I enable the safe-er transfer of files by those who choose to do so.
I don't really know or care if they are transferring intellectual property...that's
for individuals to decide.
But by supporting (through actions and creating stuff) P2P, I am in effect taking a
protocol nuetral stance...I am enabling individuals to generate and broadcast their
own content, and make their own morality and even rules (eventually we'll see various
trading cultures come into being on top of P2P). If that strengthens some government
eventually, so beit. If that tumbles some governments (I admit more likely), so beit.
(In a way, the protocol neutrality of cryto and other technologies also acts as a
bellwether...if we weren't sure a government was repressive before, we'll get an idea
very quickly after releasing a killer crypto app.) But in the end, the fact is that
the cat is out of the bag and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks should/could/would
happen.
Technology is the main thing altering policy in directions we favor.
The VCR changed policy through technological means...the Court in
Disney v. Sony (the Betamax case) only provided a fig leaf (fair
use, time-shifting) for the horse already being irreversibly out of
the barn. The wide use of networks, SSH, crypto in general, made any
crackdown on crypto in the U.S. a hopeless case, hence the retreat
on Clipper, export laws.
The invention of the printing press gave the pirates of that age
the ability to subvert state-granted ownership of information. This
long pass altered the ground truth in ways that law spent the next
several hundred years dealing with.
Actually there's some truth here. The Catholic church, arguably, was not upset with
Galileo so much for saying the earth moves around the sun (Church big-shots at the
time agreed with him and saw no contradiction with religious teachings). The real
threat was that Galileo was claiming that knowing this could be achieved by direct
observation of nature, bypassing the church. Likewise with the Protestant reformation,
the printing press, the compass, and the appearence of fixed-hour clocks in town
centers (as opposed to the monastary). And you know what? The Catholic church still
ain't exactly the center of enlightened thinking on most issues (the pope silenced the
big So American liberation theologians, remember), but you know what? It still exists,
and it's a hell of a lot less repressive than it was during Galileo's time. So
heliocentrism proved that the church was both repressive, but also had enough
something or other to deal with it and change.
Yes, I am unabashedly a technological determinist. I was talking in
terms of knowledgequakes changing the environment long before Lessig
neatly summarized the ideas (independent of me, by the way) in his
tripod of custom vs. tools vs. law. (he has since expanded this to
four legs, IIRC, but I favor the simpler version, the version which
matches my own analysis from the early 90s.)
This is why Cypherpunks have no use for Washington.
Again, what I don't understand is the (apparently) necessary linking between the
creation of enabling technologies and the existence (or eventual nonexistence) of
ruling bodies as a whole. My point is not so much that any view on such
