Re: Transparent Society

Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@pigdog.org)
Thu, 06 Nov 1997 11:53:06 -0800


Lee Daniel Crocker writes:
> Perhaps Brin's and my discomfort with cypherpunks is only that,
> but I think it is more: as I said, in my experience, those who
> attach great value to preventing the spread of information about
> themselves I find strange. It is not a reasoned judgment, only
> an emotional reaction, but it is a prejudice that serves me.

Thank you for explaining this to me, because until now I found
Brin's stance on these issues to be incomprehensibly extreme.
The cypherpunk stance is not one of being eager to prevent the
spread of information about oneself; the cypherpunk stance is
one of being eager to control the spread of information about
oneself. As Eric Hughes put it, privacy is the power to
selectively reveal oneself to the world. I don't know what sort
of boddhisattva Brin imagines himself to be, but I myself am too
much the animal to wish to be put on display in the zoo.

--
arkuat