Topic: Did the cryptography revolution begin too late? (Read 11437 times)

In the United Kingdom, members of the Upper House (the "Lords") are still not elected by the people.

That would be because the US Constitution didn't create a democracy.  Not even a democratic republic.  The US was intended to be  federated republic.  The parlimentary republics of Europe are far more democratic in nature.  Senators were not elected by the people until 1913, and our head of state (president) is neither directly elected by the people, nor indirectly through parlimentary procedure.  It's done through an entirely independent body called the 'electoral college'.  I'm pretty sure that no other nation functions in like manner.  As a side note, Abe Lincoln was fourth in the popular vote, and wasn't even considered a contender before the electoral college met.

I was referring to studies done before co2 was considered a pollutant, so I'm pretty sure that refers to spills, dumping, runoff, fumes etc.  I might have to review those studies.

I doubt such an arrangement could persist based on coercion alone.  States seem to be unstable without pretty broad ideological support.  I suppose a disciplined population is useful for preventing the balance of power from moving too far in any direction, though.

I don't do anything.  But maybe they'll agree to respect the outcome of a vote, or maybe they'll just go their separate ways.  Perhaps it'll be pistols at dawn. 

What kind of disagreement are you talking about?  One within the hypothetical law-recommending organization?

Violence is ugly, especially to pampered westerners, so I think the bar would be set pretty high in western societies for the violent enforcement of laws by voluntarily patronized legal agencies.  Much higher than it is today for states.  This would put pressure on them to develop alternative nonviolent means of gaining compliance.

Also it's interesting to note that, historically, the more repressive regimes have ruled over more polluted countries. After the Soviet Union fell, it became clear that its industries were more polluting than those in the West. During the partition of Germany, East German pollution was much higher than West German pollution. State power certainly doesn't solve pollution.

Yes it does, but the interesting question is whether the Internet (peer-to-peer communication and transactions) will make a different outcome possible "the next time around".

The state can probably not be defeated, but it can perhaps be made irrelevant.

Good question. Although, for the sake of argument, I take pollution to mean oil spills, chemical runoff, and dangerous fumes. I wasn't considering carbon dioxide, not because I don't consider it a pollutant, but because I don't believe we have any good solutions for curbing its production.

Regarding the discipline of a population, what would stop a stateless society from developing one? Suppose the largest, most powerful militia teams up with the largest, most powerful court, and the largest, most powerful food producers. Such a conglomerate could easily coerce the population into cooperation, because they wouldn't have the discipline to choose liberty over security and food. Does this example explain why states rarely go away?

Don't get so caught up with that one sentence I wrote. I wasn't defending democracy or a republic as we see them today, I was defending voting in general and was trying to point out that it's good to set standards (or at least a certain "time-delay") so that the law doesn't keep flip-flopping with the majority on every issue. (That's what I meant by arranging laws by priority.)


That's not how it has played out, historically. The authors of the constitution come up with the standards, saying "you can't ever change this". So if a group of white anglo-saxon males declares that all white anglo-saxon males are born equal, that's not a tyranny of the majority.

But who sets up those "standards" in a democracy? The majority. So, in a democracy of 51 men and 49 women, if the 51 men vote that it's OK for men to rape women, then there's no "tyranny by the majority"? I don't think so.


Precisely. Democracy is only "tyranny by the majority" when it's backed by the initiation of violence by a democratic state. But anarchism accommodates voluntary democratic processes whenever they meet the needs of those who are voluntarily participating.

The question of enforceability is crucial. You can have recommendations (backed by consensus), contracts (backed by reputation) or laws (backed by force).

Of course, consensus building should be a top priority. But the question is: What do you do precisely when people cannot (or don't want to) agree?

I think we should move away from laws backed by force towards contracts backed by reputation. So, I am really advocating anarcho-capitalism. However, most people (including myself) have difficulties imagining it in practice, so I suggested a system of creating "laws". How and if these are actually enforced (beyond loss/gain in reputation) would be up to each organization. The market would decide which system works best overall, including which uses the best system of enforcement.

No, I said a democracy like you recommend have very poor incentive structures. Voting is fine when it is aligned with proper incentives.

Of course, for a libertarian, it have to be voluntary as well.

I like the idea of people forming open organizations that create and recommend laws, but if it has to resort to voting all the time about everything, and dragging around those that lose the votes, then I think it's doing it wrong.  The focus should be on consensus building.  Here's some inspiration from the IETF on this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/25-years-of-ietf-setting-standards-without-kings-or-votes.ars.

I think kiba's objection is when the "recommendations" are mandatory.

So, voting = tyranny with no alternative? Then, what isn't tyranny in your book? Contracts? What if you set up contractual systems that include voting, is that tyranny?

Nonsense, the republic is just slower at killing itself than a pure democracy. Standard by itself does nothing without proper incentives to enforce the rule of law.

What do you guys think about a P2P voting system? We could have "open source law" that anybody can edit, with a "blockchain" determining the majority vote in real time. If real time is too cumbersome to keep track of (for the user I mean), we could have periodic "update elections", where changes are bundled together and you vote by downloading and using the version you prefer.

This could be implemented in a context of "Panarchy" (proposed by Paul Emile de Puydt in 1860) where everybody is free to join any organization (or none) that each keeps track of their own "law" using such a system. In other words, only the law of that organization applies to you that you have joined voluntarily. If you don't like their law you could propose changes or join a different one that is closer to your ideal. This could accommodate pretty much anybody: Anarcho-capitalists would not join any organization (or one that only affirms property rights and the non-initiation of violence) and base the rest on contracts, while "communists" (or collectivists) could set up their communities and handle the distribution of property through voting.

I don't believe that democracy (i.e. voting) is a "tyranny by the majority" if you set up standards (like human rights) that apply always and are not decided on a case by case basis (which is what people mean when they talk about a republic). I don't think you would need a "constitution" in a P2P open source system though; you could simply keep organizing laws by priority. It seems unlikely that the majority will suddenly decide that traffic laws are more important that human rights. (And even if, which minority should have the right to force their ideas of human rights on the majority?)

Another advantage of such a system is that it could provide a very smooth transition from where we are now to a state of affairs where the state no longer has the monopoly. Its monopoly would be undermined gradually and peacefully through the emergence of a variety of better alternatives. In fact, we wouldn't even need to found new organizations; existing ones could simply start using appropriate technology once it emerges.

I'm unconvinced as well, but I'm willing to keep an open mind.  What I am concerned about are those who are not willing.

The 'old West' territories before statehood were functionally stateless and seemed to do fine.  Either discipline isn't a requirement, or self-governance leads to self-discipline, or both.  I'm leaning towards both.


The largest polluters in the United States, by any metric, are government agencies.  And they are largely insulated from civil actions.  How do you deal with that?

FatherMcGruder, It should also be noted that the hypothetical scenario you described is perfectly applicable to the situation today with multiple nation states living side by side, yet they still manage to resolve disputes without violence.

I'd call today's situation the worst case scenario for a functioning stateless society, since states can more easily keep their members separated - integration builds economic dependencies, and thus increases the cost of wars borne by those that end up paying for them - and can more easily go to war than voluntarily patronized legal agencies.

Yeah, but the idea is that competition, voluntary patronage, and open management will provide adequate accountability.

FatherMcGruder, I don't think statelessness requires an especially disciplined populace, just one with enough common values.  Presuming the legal agencies would accurately reflect the values of their members, then it is these common values that allow for common legal standards to form, and so reduce the possibility of violent clashes between different legal agencies.

Also, wars are ugly and expensive, and patrons of legal agencies that attempt to engage in them would probably just stop patronizing them in order to save money sleep better.  That's not to say that wars are impossible; they're just strongly disincentivized if those funding them actually have a choice.

The alternative, people of dissimilar values all tolerating one monopoly legal agency, has the unfortunate side effects of law being produced and enforced that has no market demand, and can be easily purchased, and the characteristic that it is authoritarian at least to the degree that the values of its citizens differ.

Think here about the necessity of somebody like Saddam to keep the Sunnis and Shiites from killing the shit out of each other.  Presumably such an unstable situation wouldn't have emerged in the first place in a stateless society.

Courts, like factories, are corruptible institutions.

Yeah, when people don't agree about something, at some point ther can be blood.

But at least no one pretends to be more legitimate than the other.  Nor will they use ressources from unconcerned people to fight.  Nor will they force people to fight for them.  And so on...

Anarchy doesn't prevent war.  But democracy doesn't either.   Democracy actually instutitionnalize war : you have to pay taxes to send soldiers to some wars you are absolutely not concerned about, or wars that you even disapprove.   How is that better ?

At least those guys from downstream and upstream decided to fight from their own free will.