Force is not physical

elton@sybase.com:
> "Rule", or "political ... control" are only ever exercised through force.
> People keep using that word, "enforce", without looking carefully at it.

"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the
monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in
cyberspace. In cyberspace, if you loose your net connection, right to post,
read whatever, you're dead. You could be 'killed' by a coalition of system
providers, or a 'government monopoly'. You _will_ follow the rules, won't you?

The point of this discussion was a model government for cyberspace (and here
the sense of 'governance' is administration), and its possible extension to
brickspace. It is not true that cyberspace is invincible, that the Net can't
be tamed and all that rot. The Internet cannot be censored as long as a part
of it exists. The money, power and intention could destroy it completely, 
which would of course be foolish in the extreme. Assuming that it survives,
'untamed', how is it to be run, and how will it affect the way the rest of our
lives are run?


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh             "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind!
rishab@dxm.ernet.in                   take stone from stone and wash them..."
Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410  
Voicemail +91 11 3760335                 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

rishab@dxm.ernet.in writes:

>"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the
>monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in
>cyberspace.

One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions
with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it
makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered
to be punishable by force.  This leads to the position that double
spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so
you can't get away with it).  It also suggests that contracts as such
cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words
and people can repudiate them freely.  Nobody puts a gun to your head
and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work
you do and deliver.  If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then
there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more
careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).

I think this position is consistent and interesting, but it does seem
like it may be inefficient compared to a system in which people can
authorize the use of physical force applied against themselves under
agreed-upon circumstances.  It also seems like historically people have
not used non-binding contracts as much as binding ones, and I wonder
whether this suggests that non-binding contracts are less useful.

Hal

Hal sez:
> rishab@dxm.ernet.in writes:
> 
> >"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the
> >monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in
> >cyberspace.
> 
> One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions
> with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it
> makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered
> to be punishable by force.  This leads to the position that double
> spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so
> you can't get away with it).

Force is something that happens in the physical realm and the government
reigns supreme there. Do you want the Government getting involved in
cyberspace? They surely will try, but we needn't encourage them.

Perhaps, however, a more important consideration is the fact that our
systems are highly flawed if we can NOT rely on them to protect us without
government intervention. Its a good sound design criterion. Besides, what
is the probability of a physical realm Government [Duncan's convention for
the great evil :) ] catching an anonymous thief who went through a well
designed remailer system. Not bloody likely...

> It also suggests that contracts as such
> cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words
> and people can repudiate them freely.  Nobody puts a gun to your head
> and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work
> you do and deliver.  If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then
> there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more
> careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).

A contract should ALWAYS contain enforceable breach provisions. The amount
of misery that is caused in the physical realm each year due to people not
following this rule is enormous. In cyberspace there is even less excuse
for not following this rule because transaction costs are so low. [In the
physical realm there are numerous situations in which high transaction costs
render the negotiation of breach provisions for low probability events
inefficient.]

If you can't enforce a contract or the enforcement is not explicitly
spelled out you've done something wrong and you are inviting both
misery and inefficient litigation.


Cheers,

Jason W. Solinsky

Hal Finney writes:

> One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions
> with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it
> makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered
> to be punishable by force.  This leads to the position that double
> spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so
> you can't get away with it).  It also suggests that contracts as such
> cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words
> and people can repudiate them freely.  Nobody puts a gun to your head
> and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work
> you do and deliver.  If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then
> there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more
> careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).

I don't strongly argue for the position: "anything is OK if you can
get away with it." In fact, I can think of many actions that, if
"performed in cyberspace" would warrant physical retaliation up to and
including deadly response. An example would be theft of "my" personal
secrets, my digitial money, etc.

The hard part, of course, is catching the person. And I see no point
in making a big deal about "outlawing" such thefts, given that
enforcement is so problematic.

I don't know if this makes my personal morality clearer, or if my
personal morality matters. I just wanted to make this clear, to
prevent misunderstandings.

Let me state a set of points in the context of locking doors, laws
about entering a house even when the doors are unlocked, the role of
the law, etc. (This has actually come up a couple of times as a
parallel to crypto, to leaving files around for decryption, etc.)

* Wise people don't just trust to laws about breaking-and-entering,
they put locks on their doors. (And they use strong crypto when
necessary, etc.)

* An unlocked door is not a legal excuse for entering a house. Basic
idea of property rights, a Schelling point for rights. (The issue of
"unauthorized access" to computers via modems is a more problematic
one in property rights; I have no firm conclusions yet, and hence I
support using cryptographic access protocols to make the issue
technologically moot.)

* Regardless of whether I've locked my doors, if I find an intruder
inside my house I'll shoot first and ask questions later. Though I
don't support the ex post facto imposition of a death penalty for this
entry, I support those who defend their property and themselves.

* The law should not distinguish between locked and unlocked doors,
period. While prudence dictates that doors should be locked, to cut
down on the issues above, the law should be blind on this. To the
extent there is any centralized law, that is.

* A better solution: private law. One contracts with a PPL agency.
They will likely charge for enforcement, as insurance and security
companies currently do. Having an unlocked door--deduced somehow--may
result in cancelled service, or higher premiums, etc. (There are too
many issues to debate here, so I won't. Hal and others are well
familiar with this...newcomers are urged to read up first. I've cited
the books several times.)

In summary, I can see some cyberspatial actions as triggering me into
taking physical actions. With strong crypto though, and
untraceability, the playing field changes dramatically and most
cyberspace actions are unpunishable in the "real world."

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Hal writes
> If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then
> there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more
> careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you).
> 
> I think this position is consistent and interesting, but it does seem
> like it may be inefficient compared to a system in which people can
> authorize the use of physical force applied against themselves under
> agreed-upon circumstances.  It also seems like historically people have
> not used non-binding contracts as much as binding ones,

Surely contracts binding by honor only are better than contracts
binding by force.

Honor has been predominantly used, rather than force.

For example I have about $60 000 in unsecured credit.  If
I blew all that and told the banks to piss off, there is
nothing they can do, other than burn my credit rating.

And the US government (unfairly and unjustly) prevents
them from burning my credit rating permanently.

The legal system in the US has effectively collapsed.  It is cheaper
to use honor, than force.  In cyberspace the cost advantage
of honor is even greater.

I expect that in the future, fifty to a hundred years, we
will see a freeman class, literate and numerate, whose
contracts are based entirely upon honor, and an illiterate
servile class whose contracts are based primarily upon
force: 

"If you do not pay back this loan with accumulated
compound interest we will break your arms and legs, as
you agreed."

"Duh, whats compound interest?"

"Or alternatively you could work for me for food
and board until the debt is, Heh, heh, (evil laugh)
paid off."

-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we              James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.                jamesd@netcom.com

One question [...] is whether it
   makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered
   to be punishable by force.  

I, personally, will steer clear of making any such broad normative
prescriptions.  We have barely yet begun the task of determining
whether violence-free systems can be stable in the long term.  It's
not yet fully clear to me that this is even true about a payments
system, even though I've argued that it may well be so.  And the
payments systems are the only ones for which I've seen anything
approaching a specification.

Normative statements are, generally speaking, ones which contain the
words "you ought to" or "you should" or "it would be wrong to".  They
imply some sort of obligation, but the recipient of that obligation is
rarely explicitly stated.  Normative statements create and bolster the
"policeman inside"; they are intended to create in the hearer some sort
of mental restriction--"I won't do that because I shouldn't".

Why do normative statements ever even work?  The simplest statement of
the situation seems absurd--one person says "you ought" and then
another person says "I will".

"Those who do not will are willed."  A wise man indeed.

Normative statement work because of the implicit threats contained
therein, threats of either violence or shunning.  Years of
conditioning, and not only by parents, are required to make these
threats effective, and their effects persist long after.

I want my threats to be overt.  I would much rather say "If you steal
from me I will hunt you and kill you" than say "People shouldn't steal
from each other".

One of the whole points of anonymity and pseudonymity is to create
immunity from these threats, which are all based upon the human body
and its physical surroundings.  What is the point of a system of
anonymity which can be pierced when something "bad" happens?  These
systems do not reject the regime of violence; rather, they merely
mitigate it slightly further and make their morality a bit more
explicit.

(And now the flip side, where instead of saying "this is good" I will
rather say "this is what I want".)

I desire systems which do not require violence for their existence and
stability.  I desire anonymity as an ally to break the hold of morality
over culture.

Cyberspace is a substrate for identity whose locus is not a physical
body.  Not all of cyberspace will have these characteristics.  There
will be segments of the electronic world which are fully mapped
one-to-one with individual bodies, and the actions taken here will
be subject to the same morality of the physical world.

Anonymous systems are neither necessary nor inevitable nor, because of
the prevailing culture, obvious.  The will of many individuals will be
necessary into order to bring about their creation.  Anonymous systems
will start from a position of relative weakness, without the resources
and familiarity that identified systems will have.

I desire the anonymous spaces and the hidden places.  I rejoice in the
discussion of their creation on this mailing list.  

I want to win rather than to feel good about losing.

Eric