Re: near anything box security solution (Was RE: The Internet is forever)

From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Mar 13 2000 - 02:54:35 MST


On Sun, Mar 12, 2000 at 01:06:25AM -0800, James Swayze wrote:
>
> Someone once said, "Any people willing to give up a little freedom for more
> security, deserves neither".

And your point ...?

Clue: I didn't vote for the clowns, but I still have to live with the
consequences of their policies. The fundamental difference between
a democracy and a tyranny boils down to the difference between a
dictatorship of a majority and a dictatorship of one: both are
equally onerous if you're on the sharp end of their stick. More to the
point, I'm becoming more convinced these days that it is _impossible_
for human beings to achieve a 100% non-coercive government in any
group much larger than two or three individuals: people are perverse.

The way most of us learn to deal with this dilemma is to support the least
coercive, least interventionist governmental system on offer. However,
for most human beings, avoiding being on the receiving end of a mugging
comes higher up their list of priorities than abstracts like free speech
and freedom from intrusive surveillance. So they conflate physical
security (freedom from violent attack) with social security (freedom
from oppression) and vote for friendly fascists who promise to get tough
on crime.

I think to some extent we're living through a very interesting period,
politically -- in the sense of the Chinese curse. Since about 1960, TV has
played an increasingly central part in determining political popularity in
the democracies: so substantive arguments have been replaced by ten-second
sound bites and integrity has been replaced by the ability to look good
under a spotlight. The net hasn't yet made a huge impact on politics, Jesse
Ventura apart, although it will, in the next couple of years: at that
point, I expect the personal doings of politicians to become substantially
transparent (unless various paranoid pols manage to stamp out anonymity
on the net before this happens). With it, the _way_ politics is played in the
west will have to change, and the current generation of control freaks
hiding behind scripted facades will be replaced by something different. I
hope the something turns out to be better, but I'm not optimistic -- given
that almost everybody who seeks political power shouldn't be allowed within
spitting distance of it.

-- Charlie



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