Underestimating long-term consequences of cryptoanarchy
Tyler Durden
camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Mon May 5 07:36:27 PDT 2003
>In the case of printing, the result over the following century or two was a
>rise in literacy rates (in the common languages, and this is when German,
>French, and English, for example, largely solidified into their current
>forms, viz. the Luther Bible, the King James Version, etc.). And the
>Protestant Reformation was built on printed words and on the people's
>ability to directly read the religious texts.
>
>A technology undermined the state and the church.
This is why I still bother reading Tim May's posts. Every now and then he
comes up with a good one. Hell, I'd recommend he stick with technology and
stop worrying about blacks and other "social problems".
In response to the main post I'd point out that it would have been easy (and
wrong) to say that, "The Printing Press, The telescope, town clocks and
Protestantism will reduce the power of the church to the point where it will
collapse." (Actually, many educated catholics probably thought this at the
time.) And although the Catholic church did lose power on many fronts, it by
no means dissappeared. (You could almost say it prospered, but probably by
virtue of the fact that it might be the single largest real estate dealer in
the world.) The church morphed, changed, fought itself and the rest of the
world and found a nice cozy niche for itself.
ANd part of this is due to mere social inertia... but also, the church
probably still serves a function that people need (or at least want), and so
they continue to feed it $$$ and whatnot. But the Catholic church has become
one possible option, and arguably they've learned to "compete" for donations
and members.
Likewise with governments. I still need my trash taken out, and for potholes
to be fixed. And although these services can be provided privately (maybe)
if strong crypto gives people opportunities, government might be forced to
learn how to do some things more efficiently so that people can "opt-in" if
they choose to. Hell, this has already happened to some extent with the US
mail service.
So while I don't believe heavy crypto will kill off governments, I DO
believe it will eventually force them to change into something we probably
can't imagine too well right now.
-TD
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