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> Blockchain is an append-only database. It does not create sovereign citizens. Telecommunications push bits over a wire or the ether. They do not create "cyb

> Blockchain is an append-only database. It does not create sovereign citizens. Telecommunications push bits over a wire or the ether. They do not create "cyber spaces". My point is: There are some interesting applications of these funny distributed systems that do lots of work to maintain an increasingly-consistent cryptographically-secured append-only shared state. Your statement is a bit too reductionist. Frankly I'm surprised to read this kind of thing on Hacker News. I suppose the days of zeal for revolutionary self-sovereignty are truly over: > Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. > This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud.

wpietri 6y ago
When I first read that, I too was inspired by it. But I don't think it aged well. Cyberspace ultimately isn't a space, any more than there was a "telephone-space" or a "telegraph-space" before that. Blind techno-utopianism is an understandable but erroneous reaction that keeps happening, and it generally ends up being ridiculous: https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth-line-ebook-dp-B07JW5WQSR/dp/B07JW5WQSR/ref=mt_kindle https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...
- kyboren 6y ago
  > Cyberspace ultimately isn't a space, any more than there was a "telephone-space" or a "telegraph-space" before that. Cyberspace is not a physical space, indeed, but that's missing the forest for the trees. The Internet has enabled a totally new social paradigm for which 'cyber space' is an apt term. Do you disagree that a person's experience and patterns of use on Facebook is fundamentally different from someone whose only electronic means of communication is the telegraph? > Blind techno-utopianism is an understandable but erroneous reaction that keeps happening [...] Techno-utopianism is related to but distinct from to the traditional hacker rejection of the state as a valid authority over the Internet. I don't consider either _The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace_ or _The Conscience of a Hacker_ "blind techno-utopianism". Idealistic, definitely. Heady with anticipation for the world-changing implications of the Internet and frustrated by political dinosaurs who don't get it, sure. Blind or techno-utopian, no, I don't think so. Your comments are dripping with disdain for the idea that cyberspace might be something fundamentally new and that people might imagine a new paradigm for governance that may be better suited to it. It is sad to see such cynical pessimism and lack of vision from someone who has the skills that might help to turn their vision into reality. You can use technology to make the world a better place. It's up to you to actually want to do it.

wpietri 6y ago

When I first read that, I too was inspired by it. But I don't think it aged well. Cyberspace ultimately isn't a space, any more than there was a "telephone-space" or a "telegraph-space" before that. Blind techno-utopianism is an understandable but erroneous reaction that keeps happening, and it generally ends up being ridiculous: https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Nineteenth-line-ebook-dp-B07JW5WQSR/dp/B07JW5WQSR/ref=mt_kindle https://www.amazon.com/Victorian-Internet-Remarkable-Ninetee...

kyboren 6y ago
> Cyberspace ultimately isn't a space, any more than there was a "telephone-space" or a "telegraph-space" before that. Cyberspace is not a physical space, indeed, but that's missing the forest for the trees. The Internet has enabled a totally new social paradigm for which 'cyber space' is an apt term. Do you disagree that a person's experience and patterns of use on Facebook is fundamentally different from someone whose only electronic means of communication is the telegraph? > Blind techno-utopianism is an understandable but erroneous reaction that keeps happening [...] Techno-utopianism is related to but distinct from to the traditional hacker rejection of the state as a valid authority over the Internet. I don't consider either _The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace_ or _The Conscience of a Hacker_ "blind techno-utopianism". Idealistic, definitely. Heady with anticipation for the world-changing implications of the Internet and frustrated by political dinosaurs who don't get it, sure. Blind or techno-utopian, no, I don't think so. Your comments are dripping with disdain for the idea that cyberspace might be something fundamentally new and that people might imagine a new paradigm for governance that may be better suited to it. It is sad to see such cynical pessimism and lack of vision from someone who has the skills that might help to turn their vision into reality. You can use technology to make the world a better place. It's up to you to actually want to do it.