[zen at freedbms.net: Re: [WAR] ...]

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Fri, Nov 01, 2019 at 03:50:25AM +0000, jim bell wrote:
>  On Thursday, October 31, 2019, 06:21:01 PM PDT, Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:

> > What I am equating is as follows: AP, with a very great potential
> > for chaos, and if not chaos per se, for a significant increase in
> > fear in the average dissident.
>
> YIKES!
>
> I suppose it doesn't occur to you.   Why do we NEED "dissidents"? 

I think you misundestand my words.


> And by "dissidents", I mean a person to openly and publicly
> opposes some existing system.  TODAY'S society needs "dissidents",
> because policies adopted by GOVERNMENTS need (with the existing
> system) to be publicly opposed, in order to force change.    And
> that means public protests, including on the streets,  What other
> tools do most people recognize?

So we agree on definition, that's good.


> In an AP world, "protesting", in the classical sense, isn't
> necessary.  If the government has a policy you don't like, donate
> to a fund to see your un-favorite politician DEAD DEAD DEAD.   And
> you will be able to do so ANONYMOUSLY!!!   Did you simply forget
> that straightforward concept?  Will that necessarily result in a
> dead politician?  No, but it will most likely be a politician who
> has resigned, or who changes the hated policies he previously had
> supported.

What you seem to be missing about what I'm trying to say, is that
this same principle applies in inverse - if you're a wealthy oligarch
in a post-AP world, and you have a slush fund of billions sloshing
around to sure up the edges of your plutocratic, established by
individual contracts (in the billions), neo-novo-corporatocracy,
you're going to make sure you get in first against folks who stick
their head up to high suggesting that you, the oligarch, need to be
dead dead dead - you're going to do your damndest to make sure
everyone who so much as suggests your corporate contracts "offered
generously to the poor" are actually persisting the poor class, is
the first to targetted (courtesy the ultra efficient, and therefore
economically optimal, AP market) and dead dead dead.

That is, dissidents will be dead dead dead.

Which means that dissidents may not exist.

You seem to presume a certain outcome of the AP arms race.

I don't make that same presumption - sure, I allow for it in my
thinking, but I also allow for other possible outcomes, like a worse
plutocracy than we have today, sured up with an ultra-efficient AP
"market"!

  "It could go either way: more freedom, or more despotism."

I don't see why you are having difficulty in seeing the flip side of
your own coin!

I do not presume to see the future.

I do not presume to know which of the two outcomes are more likely.
To presume so would be hubris of the first order...



> WHY DID I BOTHER to write AP, when people misunderstand it so?  I
> thought it was all quite clear!    You are apparently stuck in the
> 1994 world pre-AP.  You assume that AP changes NOTHING.  In
> contrast, I claim it changes just about EVERYTHING.  

Any concept is clear, when the outcome appears so certain to you.

Is it possible there are alternative outcomes that are not so clear
to you, notwithstanding that you happened to be the first to write
this concept down in a methodical way?

Is it possible that there are elements to a fundamental change to the
dynamics of our social hierarchies (such as AP is), could have
nuances unforeseen which ultimately result in far reaching negative
consequences?



> As I said in AP Part 2:        "Just how would this change politics
> in America? It would take far less time to answer, "What would
> remain the same?" No longer would we be electing people who will
> turn around and tax us to death, regulate us to death, or for that
> matter sent hired thugs to kill us when we oppose their wishes." 
>
> Do you REALLY not understand this?

I certainly don't fail to see -your- particular conclusions.

It seems to me though that there are systems more complex that you
seem to suggest with the words you choose, and answers far less
certain than you seem to imply, and quite possibly answers which lie
on the opposite end of the vectors you seem to suggest they lie on.


> >And I further note, that dissidents are the exact folks actual
> anarchists ought be supporting - at least it should not be
> objectionable to support dissidents who diss:
> The work that used to be done by "dissidents" will be done by AP.  Nobody will need to stand up, raise their fist, march in the street, or protest.  
> 
>  > - peacefully
> >  - who protest peacefully
> And oftentimes, "peacefully" doesn't work.  
> 
>  > - who peacefully conscientiously object to some arbitrary rights
>     suppressing statute law and therefore choose to not obey that law
>     when "failing to obey that law" harms no one
> 
> Why do you keep forgetting what AP is DESIGNED to do?


Let me unpack your unspoken fallacy (I'll attempt to do so gently):

Just because you intend for your design to have a certain outcome,
does not give any certainty to that particular outcome, and even less
so when we deign to play with fundamental dynamics of human
hierarchies.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying you may well be wrong in your
conclusion regarding the outcome which you (with such apparent
certainty) presume.

My personal concern level starts going through the roof when you
appear to fail to have considered various (perhaps only obvious in
hindsight) issues:

  - the marginal dissident, and the possible effects of AP thereupon

    - and relatively straightforward statistical math which could be
      applied to this type of problem

  - the actual financial power inherent in each of the classes you
    infer will be at war with one another (say the oligarch and the
    "not oligarch" classes)

    - and again, the relevant mathematical analysis of this next part
      of the problem

  - the nature of humans to gravitate to, to create, to crave,
    hierarchy

  - replacement of the existing societal hiearchy with another
    somewhat similar, but premised on the broad existence of AP

    - the gaming nature, intention and actions of the typical
      sociopathic hierarchy climber, and how his first motive will be
      to harness AP, to maximise his profit and power

      - how this may effect the marginal dissident, the speed of
        wealth accumulation throughout the pyramid, etc

  - will day to day contracts remain less, or become more, paper and
    signature based?

  - how may such contracts change with the existence of AP?

  - how might such contracts further disempower, rather than empower,
    the poor class - i.e. those who inevitably end up at the bottom
    of the pyramid?


Dismissing each of the above considerations, does not make those
considerations, and the interactions between each subset of
considerations, go away.

To presume we can safely predict the future in the face of such
complexity, is hubris, and nothing but!


> > The issue I am raising here is the threshold issue - the marginal
> > dissident is the dissident who is on the border line being:
> > 
> >   - actually acting (doing something) in pursuance of his dissidence
> >     (opposition to systemic problems/ corruption etc), vs
> > 
> >   - not doing anything in pursuance of his dissidence, due to fear
> 
> How much "fear" will he have, to donate a few dollars to see
> crooked politicians dead?  

Probably no more nor less fear than the oligarch to whom his life,
and his children's lives are indebted to for 3 generations, who "just
wants just recompense in respect of his post-AP world contracts".

When this "contract for 3 full generations employee" is identified by
FaceTwattGoogleAI as "possibly developing dissident tendencies, with
73% certainty", dead dead dead dissident.

It's that simple.

The flip side of your AP coin.

Why is this so hard to see - that there are two sides?

Your vehemence in support of one side of that coin is one thing, but
when flip side (sides) to a concept are habitually not seen (or
worse, denied), this gives rise to great concern in some...

Juan at least honestly admits that he wants chaos (impliedly "at any
cost") due to how bad things have become with our current hierarchy.

I am not ready to stand with Juan on his position.


> > And the inescapable question which presents itself is, will AP move
> > the line of marginal dissidents, way back to an extreme position,
> > where only extremely dissident and extremely courageous dissidents
> > DARE TO ACT in pursuance of their contrary positions and views in
> > relation to the dominant structures present in society at that point
> > in time?
> 
> I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about.  But


I'm saying I don't pretend to be able to predict the future.



> unfortunately, if you really don't understand how AP will work,
> none of your hypotheticals will likely be relevant.  


Just because you presume AP will work only, and strictly, in the way
you -hope- it will work, does not stop the nefarious from harnessing
AP to their own successful financial ends - that's naievety.


> > Again, we cannot escape the natural human desire, or at least
> > tendency, to immediately establish hierarchies of authority,
> > capacity, authority, will and any other vector we analyse, where
> > none presently exists.
>
> I realize that you may think this is true, but that is clearly
> because you DON'T UNDERSTAND AP!   NOT AT ALL!!!


Your above sentend is not an answer to what I just said. I realise
you think it is, but it's actually not.

We are talking tangential vectors:

  - whether or not, or to what extent, I understand AP "as Jim Bell
    hypothesizes it"

  - whether or not, or to what extent, humans will recreate similar
    or dissimilar, hierarchies in the face of the possible collapse
    of the existing hierarchy if AP were to be manifested

  - whether or not, or to what extent, there may be considerations as
    yet unthought of and/or not considered and/or not fully analyzed
    by Jim Bell in respect of "his" AP concept

  - whether such considerations may drastically alter the possible
    outcomes of manifesting AP

  - to what extent we, or sufficiently capable mathematicians and /
    or social etc analysts, are able to predict actual outcomes of
    fundamental systemic changes (as AP would be)


It appears to me, that you have not yet considered in your writings
the above considerations, in sufficient depth, to give sufficient
certainty to the reader that AP "is unlikely to result in literal
chaos which fails to stabilize and/ or results in far fewer
dissidents in the post-AP future".

Just saying "of course it'll be fine, trust me", unfortunately don't
make it so.


> >Put another way, notwithstanding what most say:
> 
>  > "Humans absolutely crave hierarchy."
> 
> People used to say, "Nature abhors a vacuum"But it wasn't true.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(physics)

Yes, absolute "truisms" are always false when analyzed in specific
instances, and when a "human interaction meme" is put to the
generality of the physics of the entire universe, it may well turn
out to be "technically false", or even generally false, but we're in
the territory of memes and nicely decorated straw hats right now...


>   >"Humans desire the sense of stability that externalization of
>   authority provides to their feels."
> 
> One major problem with your idea is that, the reality is that most
> people grow up under such heirarchical power structures.  Raise
> people under such circumstances, and they LEARN to live with that
> system.  But that does not mean that this is a rule that cannot be
> changed.  


And raise people under an AP world, and see above for possible
outcomes and how much worse it could really get...

Just because there's no certainty we won't have a negative outcome,
does not in any way guarantee we'll have a positive outcome.


>  > "Humans, when they believe a hierarchy they exist within is under
>   attack, will often go out of their way to protect that hierarchy."
>
> So what's your point?


If AP turns out to be worse, the challenge of future dissidents
figuring out how to climb out of such a world may be much, much
harder than climbing out of our current failed hierarchy.



> > And this is why we use the word "revolution" (or even evolution) when
> > discussing any concept which might upturn the entire present systems
> > of hierarchy (power) - there is nothing but a revolving from one
> > system of hiearchy to some other system of hiearchy.
> 
> I think you don't understand David Friedman's "The Hard Problem"
> from his book, "The Machinery of Freedom".   Yes, in a pre-AP
> world, nobody (else) could figure out how to get rid of
> heirarchical power structures.   Even I didn't figure it out, until
> January 1995.  But then I did.  

Ahah! This is your fundamental misnomer - you might have notice me
going on about hierarchies and the certainty of the (re)creation by
tribal humans.

Well, when you say "But then I did [figure out how to get rid of
hierarchical power structures]", I say you have fallen to ego, and
that this (self) deception is a sexy seductive muffa!

  The final solution - the first and only one to solve this problem -
  the problem of the ages - solved, by me - I just happened to figure
  it out though many had come and tried before - there is no other
  problem to solve, now this fundamental problem is solved.


Alright, alright, I'll stop there!  Yes, you are right that if you
had solved the "problem" of "hierarchical power structures", then you
may as well be deemed to have solved all problems.

But try, please, to follow the following:

  1. Choose a value, such as peace, productivity, empathy, anything.

  2. Now that you have chosen a value (at 1. above), we presume this
     is a value worth upholding (at least personally), proclaiming to
     others, that they might also try to live this value, that we
     might create a better world together.

  3. Some folks try to live your chosen value, but they suffer one or
     another human failing. Pick pretty much any human failing, be it
     lazyness, impatience, lust, greed etc, and that will (at least
     for the person failing to live your proclaimed value) be
     entirely sufficient ground for their inability to "properly"
     "fully" "behold" "embrace" and "live" your proclaimed value.

So now we have some humans who are able (/willing /motivated) to live
your proclaimed value, and those who are "unable" for whatever
reason.

You now have an inherent hierarchy. Those able to live your
proclaimed value near the top of the hierarchy, those unable to do so
at the bottom of this hierarchy.

And now Juan, or John Young or someone else comes along and adds
a second value to yours and suggests that if one value is good, two
values great! We will make this world such a wonderful, wonderful
place by proclaiming, upholding personally, and living and sharing
our values!

And now the pyramid steepens, the hierarchy gets more noticeable, and
many folks "ooh" and "aah" at the amazing anarchist punks Jim, John
and Juan, who are better than most in the world because they can Live
Their Proclaimed Values so truthfully and authentically, and they are
orators par excellence, able to share their truths more succinctly
than the bulk, and much to the chagrin of Jim, John and Juan, the
Triple J's are pronounced "close to Jesus"!

Now even Greg Newby and the rest of us Cypherpunks get a look in with
more "ooh"s and "aah"s "my god, Greg administers that mailing list,
he sits on the right hand side of the tripple Js!" and the crowds
affirm and say yes.

Pretty soon the angry mob is donating sticks of gold and silver and
Vdemanding of the tripple Js that they institute their hallowed ("it
was proclaimed") digital, gold back, fiat destroying coin.

And on it goes...


Jim, sad as it is, you will never, ever, get rid of human
hierarchies!

You may disrupt one, and may cause an interesting transition if you
were really, really lucky, or you may, as Juan seems to assume, usher
in chaos and an unleashing of raw evil the likes of which the world
rarely sees (<COUGH!>Marxism<!>).


> >Again, due to our biological (and emotional etc) nature, this
> tendency for bunches of humans towards hierarchy, is absolutely
> unavoidable.
> "Nature abhors a vacuum".
> Prior to January 1995, nobody else knew how to do that.   Not since then.  

See above.


> >No matter how utopian the socialist Marxist collective, no matter how
> anarchic and free of statutes, no matter how blank the slate we can
> achieve with our glorious resent due to $FUNKY_ANARCHY_SYSTEM_XYZ,
> humans will, absolutely, immediately go about creating new
> hierarchies!
> 
> Which is pretty much a perfect statement of David Friedman's "Hard
> Proble".   You haven't learned.  


Ok, I've downloaded Friedman, but he's 133 pages, so it won't be
overnight to read it.

I come biased with the presupposition that reading these 133 pages
will not cause me to doubt the challenging and interrelated
considerations I've attempted to lay out clearly, above.


> >I am emphasizing this point, because this point seems to be lost on a
> lot of actual (or at least self proclaimed) anarchists.
> 
> 
> >We anarchists most often fail to grapple with basic human nature.
> 
> Many "we anarchists" clearly  don't understand my AP essay.
> 
> >We tend almost ubiquitously to being technocrats, presuming our
> wonderful system
> 
>   >- social system
> 
>   >- non-system system
> 
>   >- computer crypto overlay funk
> 
>   >- digital next gen fiat 2 point 0
> 
>  >- AP or any other system etc
> 
> 
> >will somehow, if instituded widely and in short order, somehow
> magically cause existing present-day humans to live in freedom, free
> of fear, and allowing one another (our neighbours) to be in peace.
> 
> There's nothing "magic" about it, although it might seem that way to people who don't understand AP.


 "You don't know humans like I know humans" :)

That said, I'm sure you have you own experiences - perhaps you've
interpreted similar experiences differently to how I interpret
such ...



> >This is a fallacy of the first order no less!
> 
> I'm amazed you don't understand AP.   I'd tell you to "read the archives", but SOMEBODY FUCKING LOST IT!!
> 
> >Humans crave hiearchy and will FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH to claim their
> own version of utopian hierarchy!
> 
> <sigh>
> 
> 
> >The things we can hope for:
> 
> I hope you actually do the mental work to understand how AP is supposed to function.   I did.  And unlike you, I had nobody else around to help me, or explain it to me.  
> 
>  > - a peaceful revolution rather than bloody and destructive
>     revolution
> 
> I suppose you are assuming that there is some clear distinction
> between these alternatives, or which is which.  I've long argued
> that AP, once operating smoothly, will not shed a lot of blood. 
> The reason is that if 'the bad guys' know that it is virtually 100%
> certain they  will be targeted, they will realize that they will
> have no alternatives other than:1.  Die.2.  Resign.
>
> Can you explain what third alternative they have to choose?


Crimea, despite vociferous and nefarious international bugle-ing,
ceceded from Ukraine without a single bullet fired.

Pretty fucking impressive in the face of the murders, war and
despotism that was going on in the Ukraine back then. Really
inspiring, some o' these Russian, I tell ya (documentaries - at least
one on the Crimea events brought tears to my eyes, the courage and
camraderie was so poignant.

Secondly, Australia - unlike the USA, we did not have to have a
"civil" war against the incumbent empire, to gain our freedom -
admittedly our transition to federation was ~120 years after your
revolution in the USA, but still, another example of an actual
systemic transition without bloodshed.



> >  - a revolution to a new hiearchy which is a little more sane than
>     the present hierarchy
> 
> I think that many people who actually UNDERSTAND AP think of it as
> being a major improvement on any proposed alternative, and
> certainly over the status quo.  .

And some seem to think there absolutely no possibility, whatsoever,
that a post-AP hierarchy could be anything but better and brighter,
saner and utopianer, than today's hierarchy.

I get that.

I really do get that.


>  > - a new system which somehow achieves a greater level of
>     "inculcation with the average human" of a valueing of fundamental
>     human rights and a knowledge of what freedom actually means, to
>     live freedom on a day to day basis
> 
> Put people in a system which destroys heirarchical power
> structures, and I am quite confident people will adjust and adapt. 
> Why do you think they won't?

"a system which destroys hierarchical power structures" - only, at
best, very temporarily.

AP is a system.

All systems are harnessed into service of the (possibly new)
hierarchy.

It seems we can't get past this fundamental...



> >Such peaceful revolution may be not possible, I really have no idea.
> 
> I do "have an idea".  And I wrote it into my AP essay 1995-96.   https://cryptome.org/ap.htm  
> 
> Have more respect for people who actually take major risks to bring you freedom.  


Careful, it's perhaps unwise to conflate "strong counter view" with
disrespect.

I am taking a counter view, because, it appears to me you have failed
to do so, and to compare these (at least) two opposing views.


> >I am hopeful of the following basic premise being true though - that
> a system providing a useful level of privacy and anonymity for free
> speech will help to move the courage line for marginal dissidents, in
> the direction of "more folks experience more courage to speak their
> own truths".
> 
> Wake up!  WAKE UP!   "Dissidents" are not necessary!!!    (with
> apologies to late Portland Oregon retailer Tom Peterson. 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iUKjbUrxXE     "Wake up!  Wake
> up!" DONORS are necessary.   Dissidents are not.   


To say a donor is not a dissident, just a system participant, is to
infer that, in your AP world, dissidents can provide no substantive
value.


If there are no dissidents, this means everyone is conformant.
Or dead.


> > essay, I quoted somebody whose identity I never recalled:   In part
> > 5:
> > 
> > "Indeed, one common theme I've seen in criticisms of my idea is the fear that this system would lead to "anarchy." The funny thing about this objection is that, technically, this could easily be true. But "anarchy" in real life may not resemble anything like the "anarchy" these people claim to fear, which leads me to respond with a quote whose origin I don't quite remember:
> > "Anarchy is not lack of order. Anarchy is lack of ORDERS." "-------end of AP quote-------
> > Sadly, I never remembered who I was quoting, but the person is probably one who I met in person in libertarian circles in the Portland/Beaverton area in the 1990-1994 time frame.
> > The idea that society NEEDS government to properly function is well-described by the term "statism".    But we, the Cypherpunks, should understand more than any people that the 'traditional' mechanism to intermediate a society, a "government", can be replaced by computers, similar to the concept that "cash", or "currency", can be replaced by the various forms of 'digital cash'.   That fact wasn't so clear in 1996, and some people simply weren't able to (or willing to?) work through the implications of an AP-driven society.
> 
> 
> >"I continue to see that those with the power to print unlimited fiats,
> shall have the upper hand against all dissidents, anarchists, and
> peaceful protesters."
> 
> If you know who they are, target them.   If you don't know who they
> are, offer rewards anonymously to find out who they are and where
> they live and work.,   Then target them.  Then watch them run.  


They certainly can know who some of us are - some of us are at the
same time vocal and public on this here cp list, others are public
elsewhere, and those who say nothing publicly probably aren't worthy
of the title "dissident".

Since we dissidents are well identified, AP provides the most
efficient, immediate, and anonymous way, for the oligarchs of the
day, to cause you, I and the rest of us dissidents to be dead dead
dead.

AP is not a one way street, there are 2 sides to the coin, and the
fiat printers have more fiats (unlimited in fact) that us!

We can only do ourselves a great disservice by failing to consider
both or each of the many, sides/considerations, of an idea.



> >As a consequence of my own thinking on this,"
> 
> Which, sadly, cannot be very consequential.
> 
> > and this which I see, it
> appears to me inescapable that there is zero certainty, and great
> uncertainty, that AP shall usher in anything other than the
> unleashing of a great evil.?
> 
> Given your clear lack of understanding, I am not surprised you say that.
> 
> >When unleashed, the list of those who dedicate their lives to
> opposing powerful evil in a way which draws the interest of those who
> print the fiats, is the immediate list for those printing the fiats
> to target/ game/ dispense with in short order:
> 
> How will the "good guys" be identified if they don't need to stand up and protest?
> 
> 
>   Richard Stallman
> 
>   Julian Assange
> 
>   Jim Bell
> 
>   Jacob Applebaum
> 
>   Andrew Breitbart
> 
>   Dmitry Sklyarov
> 
>   Aaron Swartz
> 
>   John Young
> 
>   Zenaan Harkness
> 
>   Juan
> 
>   and an endless list more
> 
> 
> >Jim, were AP in play, and you invented some concept of similar
> notoriety which was designed to dish out justice to the elite fiat
> printers, why would those elite fiat printers not have, instead of
> subjected you to 13 years of jail and illegal appeal behind your back
> etc, instead just whopped a few fiat on one of the various AP
> markets, and had you, Jim Bell, dispensed with in short order?
> 
> Please learn what AP actually means, and call me back.  
> 
> >(And so the final question, why is unleashing such "freedom to pay
>  for killing other humans", wise?)
> 
> Call me when the existing alternative actually begins to work.  It hasn't yet.  
> 
>           Jim Bell
> 
> 
>