16.30.1. governments may try to ban the use of encryption in any
broadcast system, no matter how low the power, because of a
realization that all of them can be used for crypto anarchy
and espionage
- a losing battle, of course, what with wireless LANs of
several flavors, cellular modems, the ability to hide
information, and just the huge increase in bandwidth
16.30.2. "tontines"
- Eric Hughes wrote up some stuff on this in 1992 [try to get
it]
- Italian pseudo-insurance arrangements
- "digital tontines"?
16.30.3. Even in market anarchies, there are times when a top-down,
enforced set of behaviors is desirable. However, instead of
being enforced by threat of violence, the market itself
enforces a standard.
- For example, the Macintosh OS, with standardized commands
that program developers are "encouraged" to use. Deviations
are obviously allowed, but the market tends to punish such
deviations. (This has been useful in avoiding modal
software, where the same keystroke sequence might save a
file in one program and erase it in another. Sadly, the
complexity of modern software has outpaced the Mac OS
system, so that Command-Option Y often does different
things in different programs.)
- Market standards are a noncoercive counter to total chaos.
16.30.4. Of course, nothing stops people from hiring financial
advisors, lawyers, and even "Protectors" to shield them from
the predations of others. Widows and orphans could choose
conservative conservators, while young turks could choose to
go it alone.
16.30.5. on who can tolerate crypto anarchy
- Not much different here from how things have been in the
past. Caveat emptor. Look out for Number One. Beware of
snake oil.
16.30.6. Local enforcement of rules rather than global rules
+ e.g., flooding of Usenet with advertising and chain letters
+ two main approaches
- ban such things, or set quotas, global acceptable use
policies, etc. (or use tort law to prosecute & collect
damages)
- local carrriers decide what they will and will not
carry, and how much they'll charge
- it's the old rationing vs. market pricing argument
16.30.7. Locality is a powerful concept
- self-responsibility
- who better to make decisions than those affected?
- tighter feedback loops
- avoids large-scale governments
+ Nonlocally-arranged systems often result in calls to stop
"hogging" of resources, and general rancor and envy
+ water consumption is the best example: anybody seen
"wasting" water, regardless of their conservations
elsewhere or there priorities, is chastised and rebuked.
Sometimes the water police are called.
- the costs involved (perhaps a few pennies worth of
water, to wash a car or water some roses) are often
trivial...meanwhile, billions of acre-feet of water are
sold far below cost to farmers who grow monsoon crops
like rice in the California desert
- this hypocrisy is high on my list of reasons why free
markets are morally preferable to rationing-based
systems
By Tim May, see README
HTML by Jonathan Rochkind