[liberationtech] Heads up... Controversy seems up ahead

[Peter Lindener]

Hi
    Yosem, and LibTech list..

   I've been following some of discussion on the reasons not to (start) use
PGP...

   Sensing between the lines, I speculate that the discussion is/may be
about to blow up, between,
 the camp that will ultimately take the position that anonymous secure mail
is in no way actually needed or Socio-economically desirable, and the
anonymous camp that takes the opposite point of view...

   My own position comes from a very different perspective. one that see's
both angles on this as having limits to there vantage point upon the
underlying issues at hand...

   1. the socio-economic contract and democratic scripts that form the very
foundation for our democracy would seem, in essence in a serious state of
dysfunction. Until we fix these underlying issues that would continue to
induce discontent...   are we not in some way arranging for the union of
(marginally) advanced society to at some point begin to disintegrate?...
 If so, maybe the debate mentioned above, that seems about to explode....
 is in some ways, just about the way in which we might want to fall apart /
and then re-sublimate our concept(s) of Society in new (perhaps/hopefully
more evolved) forms...

   While this rather organic process of social-evolution may be quite
interesting to watch,  As I chime in with this note, I confess that I have
some personal interest in selecting some of the more constructive possible
outcomes.   I.e I would like it if society were in some ways able to
continue to advance, as opposed to in a less fortunate world collapse into
a complete disrepair for the future of the human species..

   For the sake of a lively discussion...  I will thus take the following
position:

   Once we have remedied the tragically defective / dysfunctional script of
how democracy is supposed to work, perhaps by way of more advanced Social
Decision systems based upon fundamental foundations in formality's of
information flow.   I conjecture, Perhaps the only ultimate guarantee of
privacy a society may want to extend to it's participants... would be there
input to this fine grained, issue by issue truly democratic group
governance decision system..  all other rights to privacy would then be
arbitrated by this truly democratic (information theoretic) social decision
system..

   That is:  Until we fix the blatant flaws in our current ""democratic""
governance paradigm,
perhaps the best we can hope for is the that the systems acute dysfunction
will give mother nature the upper hand in bring about a better way of doing
things...
    But on the day we collectively come around to understanding how to
build better governance systems <http://liquidfeedback.org/>.... it will
become the day that the dream many of us share, a Government for the
People, By the People<http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm>....will
start to become a reality.

   A reminder:  While I expect the debate to be lively,  I also post
wishing for it to be civil..
That is: We are blessed that Stanford's LebTech program provides a form for
enlightened, insightful discussion.  Let's return the favor by way of
thoughtful, mutually respecting discussion,  such that Stanford can take
pride in having played such an enabling, perhaps even world changing role
in our community..

    Sincerely your's
         -Peter Lindener
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/attachments/20131124/0c7ceabd/attachment.html>