Re: Tim May's offensive racism (was: about RC4)

Monty Cantsin wrote:

> Anonymous <anon@anon.efga.org>
> >This illustrates what a liability the poster has become to the
> >cypherpunks.  The group is becoming just another militia front,
> >identified with racism and white supremacy, applauding violent murder
> >of government agents, one step from applauding the Oklahoma killings.
> >Its original purpose all but forgotten, the list has died, poisoned
> >by the hatred flowing from its leader.
> 
> What would be the most effective way of managing the problem you
> perceive?
> 
> Probably by writing the kinds of articles you would like to see on the
> list.

If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are
implicitly condoning it.  Silence gives consent.  How many people have
objected to Tim May's racist comments?  Only one or two.  How many objected
when William Geiger suggested that more nuclear bombs should have been
dropped on Japan?  None.  How many have objected to the notion that
residents of Washington, D.C. should be killed?  Hardly any.

At one time the cypherpunks stood for freedom of speech and protection of
privacy.  Today they stand for guns, violence, threats of terrorism and
murder, racism, homophobia, jingoism.

It's ironic to see that the kind of off-topic, flaming, irrelevant
posts which have caused such consternation in the past are now the norm.
Reasonable people have been largely driven off the list, leaving it to
supporters of violence and hate.

The sad thing is, this is all unnecessary.  The original conception was
that cryptography would allow people to protect the privacy of voluntary
interactions.  Laws forbidding voluntary transactions will be difficult
or impossible to enforce.  We will move into a world where there is far
more liberty and freedom for everyone.

There is no need to blast government agents' heads open.  There is no
need to nuke D.C., or Japan.  There is no need to disparage people of other
races and cultures.

Step back from this immersion in a culture of violence.  Draw the cloak
of privacy about your actions.  That is the true cypherpunk way.

At 10:55 AM -0700 11/14/97, Anonymous wrote:

>If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are
>implicitly condoning it.  Silence gives consent.  How many people have
>objected to Tim May's racist comments?  Only one or two.  How many objected
>when William Geiger suggested that more nuclear bombs should have been
>dropped on Japan?  None.  How many have objected to the notion that
>residents of Washington, D.C. should be killed?  Hardly any.

Whomever you are, you don't sound as though you've been reading the list
for as many years as many of us have. People say all sorts of things, some
provocative, some politically incorrect, some even outrageous. Get used to
it.

I have never said "residents of Washington, D.C. should be killed." As I
recall my first comment along these lines, it was, paraphrasing (as I don't
feel like spending 15 minutes sifting through my archived mail), along the
lines of: "I fully expect to wake up some morning and hear that some
terrorist nuke has destroyed Washington, D.C. I can't say I'll be crying."

Big deal. Nothing Tom Clancy hasn't talked about in his novels. (And recall
Clancy's delicious description of a Japanese 747 loaded with jet fuel being
crashed into the main hall of Congress during a joint session, with the
President and cabinet in attendance. It was clear that Clancy was vicarious
relishing this vermin removal effort. Gonna suggest that Clancy has
committed a crime? No doubt Hettinga would.)

>At one time the cypherpunks stood for freedom of speech and protection of
>privacy.  Today they stand for guns, violence, threats of terrorism and
>murder, racism, homophobia, jingoism.

I've been here since the beginning...since before the beginning, actually.
And I can tell you that the "political incorrectness" was the same in
1992-4 as now. Perhaps you recall a little thing called Waco that happened
around that time? Go back and read the traffic.

As for "standing" for guns, violence, racism, homophobia, etc., there is no
Official Cypherpunks Position on _anything_. Individual list members make
individual comments. Some humorous, some angry, some stupid, some
offensive, whatever.

Many of us don't "stand" for freedom of speech if it really means
suppression of racist, homophobic, whatever speech, as it seems to me in
many countries today. The Orwellian "freedom of speech does not mean
freedom to say wrong or offensive things" is a meme that seems to be
spreading.

Ultimately, freedom of speech and of assembly, and privacy itself, is not
something the state can ensure. Technology may.


>It's ironic to see that the kind of off-topic, flaming, irrelevant
>posts which have caused such consternation in the past are now the norm.
>Reasonable people have been largely driven off the list, leaving it to
>supporters of violence and hate.

Perry was saying the same thing several years ago, even arguing that the
very name "Cypherpunks" would send the wrong message to the suits and other
responsible persons. Fine. He eventually went off and formed his own list,
with Perry's Rules of Order. Sounds fair to me.

But this list ain't that list. It doesn't run by _anybody's_ Rules of
Order. Get used to it.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

> If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are
> implicitly condoning it.  Silence gives consent.

I'm not implicitly condoning the ASCII art insultbot just because I
ignore it.  Nor am I implicitly condoning William Geiger's posts when
I don't read them.

Ulf Möller wrote:
> 
> > If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are
> > implicitly condoning it.  Silence gives consent.
> 
> I'm not implicitly condoning the ASCII art insultbot just because I
> ignore it.  Nor am I implicitly condoning William Geiger's posts when
> I don't read them.

  I would like everyone to know that I am implicitly condoning
everything
said on this list, even the stuff James Dalton Bell said before I joined
the list. As a matter of fact I am even implicitly condoning the things
that I disagree with. So there...

A Lurker From Bienfait
"Here's the belt, daddy!"

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In <9711142104.AA49354@public.uni-hamburg.de>, on 11/14/97 
   at 10:04 PM, ulf@fitug.de (Ulf Möller) said:

>> If you don't speak up when someone says something objectionable, you are
>> implicitly condoning it.  Silence gives consent.

>I'm not implicitly condoning the ASCII art insultbot just because I
>ignore it.  Nor am I implicitly condoning William Geiger's posts when I
>don't read them.

Come on Ulf, your among friends you can admit it, late at night when no
one is looking you are reading my posts with joyfull glee. :)


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

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PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
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At 12:52 pm -0500 on 11/14/97, Tim May kept shovelling it out:

> Big deal. Nothing Tom Clancy hasn't talked about in his novels. (And recall
> Clancy's delicious description of a Japanese 747 loaded with jet fuel being
> crashed into the main hall of Congress during a joint session, with the
> President and cabinet in attendance. It was clear that Clancy was vicarious
> relishing this vermin removal effort. Gonna suggest that Clancy has
> committed a crime? No doubt Hettinga would.)

Nope. It was fiction. Jingoistic :-) fiction, but fiction nonetheless.
Helps if you've sold 100 million books or something before the fact.
Frankly I didn't get that far into the story, because the way Clancy
planned to take Wall Street out made me laugh out loud.
Blow-milk-out-your-nose funny, especially if you have even the most
rudimentary financial operations experience, which is all I have. Financial
science fiction written from the viewpoint of an insurance salesman is
always funny, I guess, as we'll learn in a product announcement around here
someday, I bet...

You, on the other hand, Tim, have not sold tens of millions of books, but
you did say that war was at hand, and, in the very next breath, you
threatened a very specific federal judge by saying he committed a "capital"
crime. Whatever "capital" means. Not that it matters, of course, after all,
it's just "vermin control", right?


And, no, Tim, not once have I suggested that what you did was a crime at
all. In fact, I have consistantly said it could just be *treated* as one by
anyone with sufficient motivation to do so, whether you were apprehended,
or jailed, or tried, or convicted -- or not. And "not" in this case, as Jim
Bell shows us, can be an interesting set of results...


Finally, and to the point, I don't say that what you said then is
immediately going to get you a stay in Club Fed somewhere, but that your
continued escalation of this kind of stuff makes that a probability, and
that it looked to me like you were doing it on purpose in order to provoke
a confrontation of some kind, God knows why. I still believe you'd still be
escalating that bizarre silliness, instead of backpedaling with all this
equivocation, if I hadn't called you on it at the time.


And, finally, I *don't* believe the world's going to end in some
state-sponsored cataclysm, for you, for me, or for your favorite official
vermin, just because the technology of strong cryptography over ubiquitous
networks makes vertically integrated hierarchical entities like
nation-states economically obsolete someday.

Even if it happens all at once, which it can't. Even if that day is maybe
sooner rather than later, which would be nice but probably not anytime
soon. Even if it's the Millenium, or even Thanksgiving: a day which, of
course, is ludicrously too soon for anyone's revolution anyway. :-).


Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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