3 ms·

I'm confused, are you claiming it's OK that my x86 Intel platform (and whatever data passes through it) exists in a "monarchy" of sorts (along with other phone-

by K0SM0S 7y ago

I'm confused, are you claiming it's OK that my x86 Intel platform (and whatever data passes through it) exists in a "monarchy" of sorts (along with other phone-home drones), and that I should find it acceptable? ("I" being a business, or individual, any proxy for society at large) The fact that a tiny few human beings had the power of a "tornado" over others' lives ended fairly abruptly in some circumstances, with apparently good enough reason that it stayed that way. Note: you're referring to absolutism, which is a mode of monarchy (also found in totalitarianism, dictatorship). By contrast, most monarchies still 'alive' today operate more in "symbolism" mode, in the constitution of their country.

derefr 7y ago
I mean, monarchy wasn't really a key element of what I was saying. You don't have "root" on your own body in a rule-of-law democracy, either. You can't just decide to not go to jail, if a court says you must. This is kind of a recapitulation of the argument that forked Ethereum into Ethereum Classic: • There was a system, partially founded on a guiding principle of its participants having final say in what happens in their in-system interactions, through contracts they enter into the system. Those contracts were each supposed to "have root" over all state-changes made to their own private storage. • Something went wrong with a contract, in a way that corrupted its private storage and made things worse for pretty much everybody, since it was a very popular contract. The maintainers of the system decided to violate the guiding principle in the name of making things better for everybody, by just reaching in and overriding the rules of the popular contract, so that it would retroactively have done the "right" thing, and not gotten corrupted. • Some people thought that there shouldn't be any entity (consortium or otherwise) with power to override the rules of their contracts, even if those changes are "to the good", so they left and started their own alternative system, mostly the same other than the guarantee that they'd never violate the guiding principle. • The market decided that the alternative system has about 1/10th the economic value of the original system. Most developer effort, userbase, etc. sided with the original system, and with the concept of there being a political entity with the power to overrule individual contracts. The contract creators themselves seem to want the "safety net" implied by this entity having the power to overrule them. Interesting, no?
- jancsika 7y ago
  > You don't have "root" on your own body in a rule-of-law democracy. Maybe if you live on that Face/Off prison where everyone wears metal boots on a magnetic grid. But in the real world rule-of-law is quite fragile because everyone has "root" over their own bodies. The obvious benefit is an ability of the public to revolt against a corrupt regime. Regardless, it's a fatuous metaphor because nobody is advocating for mandatory metal boots nor the little Harkonnen heart plug thingies from Dune. Some people are, however, quite vehemently demanding that all software/hardware be designed by law to give root to a trusted third party. That's fatuous and dangerous and therefore requires different metaphors.
  - derefr 7y ago
    > Some people are, however, quite vehemently demanding that all software/hardware be designed by law to give root to a trusted third party. My point with my analogy was that, in the real world, hardware/software already do give root "by law" to the state. Not explicitly, but rather implicit in the fact that the government can tell you what to do, and so, if they want to control your computer, they can make you do it. (What else do you call a National Security Letter?) That's kind of what "by law" means—the law doesn't need to say that the law supercedes X; the law can supercede X in any specific case, any time it likes. If a court rules you need to open up your computer, there doesn't need to be a law making that request legal. A court said it; it's legal by definition. And even then, a government only needs (the public conception of the machinery of) the law on their side if they aren't all that motivated to deal with you. If they really care—think "motivated enough to go though the trouble of putting someone into a witness-protection program, but... the opposite of that"—then there are plenty of private places they can disappear you to, and paint over your life with fabrications of criminal behavior they caught you in, including several months of evidence from a parallel running manufactured narrative of your life. If you think there's a difference between dying by having your heart unplugged, and dying by having a SWAT team show up at your door with munitions you can never hope to have parity with, I don't know what to tell you. Either way, you're going to end up doing what they say, or dying trying to get away. (And if they really really care, you won't even be able to do that. You'll just wake up in a straightjacket in a padded room with all your teeth pulled out, so that you can't even bite your tongue.)

by K0SM0S 7y ago

derefr 7y ago

I mean, monarchy wasn't really a key element of what I was saying. You don't have "root" on your own body in a rule-of-law democracy, either. You can't just decide to not go to jail, if a court says you must. This is kind of a recapitulation of the argument that forked Ethereum into Ethereum Classic: • There was a system, partially founded on a guiding principle of its participants having final say in what happens in their in-system interactions, through contracts they enter into the system. Those contracts were each supposed to "have root" over all state-changes made to their own private storage. • Something went wrong with a contract, in a way that corrupted its private storage and made things worse for pretty much everybody, since it was a very popular contract. The maintainers of the system decided to violate the guiding principle in the name of making things better for everybody, by just reaching in and overriding the rules of the popular contract, so that it would retroactively have done the "right" thing, and not gotten corrupted. • Some people thought that there shouldn't be any entity (consortium or otherwise) with power to override the rules of their contracts, even if those changes are "to the good", so they left and started their own alternative system, mostly the same other than the guarantee that they'd never violate the guiding principle. • The market decided that the alternative system has about 1/10th the economic value of the original system. Most developer effort, userbase, etc. sided with the original system, and with the concept of there being a political entity with the power to overrule individual contracts. The contract creators themselves seem to want the "safety net" implied by this entity having the power to overrule them. Interesting, no?

jancsika 7y ago
> You don't have "root" on your own body in a rule-of-law democracy. Maybe if you live on that Face/Off prison where everyone wears metal boots on a magnetic grid. But in the real world rule-of-law is quite fragile because everyone has "root" over their own bodies. The obvious benefit is an ability of the public to revolt against a corrupt regime. Regardless, it's a fatuous metaphor because nobody is advocating for mandatory metal boots nor the little Harkonnen heart plug thingies from Dune. Some people are, however, quite vehemently demanding that all software/hardware be designed by law to give root to a trusted third party. That's fatuous and dangerous and therefore requires different metaphors.
- derefr 7y ago
  > Some people are, however, quite vehemently demanding that all software/hardware be designed by law to give root to a trusted third party. My point with my analogy was that, in the real world, hardware/software already do give root "by law" to the state. Not explicitly, but rather implicit in the fact that the government can tell you what to do, and so, if they want to control your computer, they can make you do it. (What else do you call a National Security Letter?) That's kind of what "by law" means—the law doesn't need to say that the law supercedes X; the law can supercede X in any specific case, any time it likes. If a court rules you need to open up your computer, there doesn't need to be a law making that request legal. A court said it; it's legal by definition. And even then, a government only needs (the public conception of the machinery of) the law on their side if they aren't all that motivated to deal with you. If they really care—think "motivated enough to go though the trouble of putting someone into a witness-protection program, but... the opposite of that"—then there are plenty of private places they can disappear you to, and paint over your life with fabrications of criminal behavior they caught you in, including several months of evidence from a parallel running manufactured narrative of your life. If you think there's a difference between dying by having your heart unplugged, and dying by having a SWAT team show up at your door with munitions you can never hope to have parity with, I don't know what to tell you. Either way, you're going to end up doing what they say, or dying trying to get away. (And if they really really care, you won't even be able to do that. You'll just wake up in a straightjacket in a padded room with all your teeth pulled out, so that you can't even bite your tongue.)