[92769] in Cypherpunks
Digital Societies, Guns, and AP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Blanc)
Thu Jan 8 04:34:46 1998
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 16:36:16 -0800
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
From: Blanc <blancw@cnw.com>
Reply-To: Blanc <blancw@cnw.com>
The conversations on guns, Wei Dai's statement "if we can defend
ourselves with guns, why would we need
crypto?", and this idea on Digital Societies, brings up a
consideration:
in the new digital age of anonymity, independent psyops ("psychological
operations"; never heard of "psychops"), potential AP arrangements, etc.,
when governments are made obsolete sometime Real Soon, and people have to
depend more and more upon their own resources, how will individuals
defend themselves from _<italic>immediate</italic>_ physical aggression,
if not by having their own personal stock pile of weapons and ammo, since
they can't call upon the Centralized Gun & Ammo Depot?
I remember an article in a book by Ayn Rand, on "Competing Governments",
where she said that having services provided by more than one such
defense service would create many problems, and provided arguments
against the feasability of such arrangements.
I know there have been references on the list in the past about some
civilization along time ago which existed in Iceland which dealt with
this, but I haven't got around to reading about it (can someone provide a
book reference?).
..
Blanc
