[extropy-chat] Reccommendations for a mailing list

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:

> 
> On Feb 10, 2005, at 6:31 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

> > Snow Crash had come out in 1992, and we were all expecting
> > cryptography and ecash to cause the demise of government as the
> > economy shifted and the IRS wouldn't be able to keep up, figure
> > out who paid what to who. Between crypto and Y2K, we were half
> > expecting, half hoping Snow Crash would happen for real. Anarchy,
> > no, not that left-wing socialist flavor, but true blue David
> > Friedman anarcho-capitalism, was going to save the world and
> > outcompete the states.
> >
> >
> 
> Now there is a bit of history I would be very interested in and that
> is directly applicable to extropy. How was e-cash and crypto-anarchy 
> stopped?  Is it a dead issue or is there still reason for hope along 
> these lines?

a) Between the CRA of 1998 pooching the bandwidth growth curve by
erecting barriers to ubiquitous fiber optic (and the resulting
bankruptcy of Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing), 
b) Federal banking activism, using 'terrorism' and 'drug war'
legislation to curb banking privacy, 
c) Federal pressure internationally in the form of MLAT treaties, as
well as inept implementations like PayPal, which has established a
reputation for fraud amid loose security, 
d) as well as geek overthinking of ecash in the form of eGold,
GoldMoney, etc with a strict insistence upon purist libertarian banking
(i.e. fungibility with precious metals), rather than implementing a
land/debt backed electronic currency that people could actually use.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism

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