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> The cycle of building, burning, and rebuilding the Great Digital Libraries of Alexandria (e.g., Napster, Pirate Bay, Demonoid, what.cd, redacted, etc.) has g

> The cycle of building, burning, and rebuilding the Great Digital Libraries of Alexandria (e.g., Napster, Pirate Bay, Demonoid, what.cd, redacted, etc.) has gotten old. That is the very cycle of Nature and the rise and fall of Civilizations upon which Human progress hinges on; I think its more apt to say that YOU got old, and keeping up got hard (it has for me too) because this is how it's always been in Nature. I question if you are even familiar with the very core values of the Manifesto, let alone the works of all other Cypherpunks as this is at the crux of it's existence: > We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money. Just so it's clear these are the people who ushered in the exciting tech era in Silicon Valley in the 90s--especially for those of us who grew up here and saw it emerge and consider it part of our very culture rather than merely an interesting/lucrative career path--that eventually decayed into what it is now; the sense of enjoying and relishing these values were the norm when I first got into tech as a kid, now it's the exception and fringe for and it's cause is very the reasons that most have come to hate tech: it's become a dystopic land of Corpo barons (VC) tech lords (FAANG) who rely on IP and a crooked legal system to maintain it's supremacy. Gene Kahn (RIP) said it best at the Senate meeting [0] and people would be wise to adapt and have Humanity flourish from the advance in Human knowlege and culture, instead brilliant men like him and Arron Schwartz killed themselves because of a few business moguls rather than being on the cover of Wired Magazine or on Forbes 30 under 30 for their efforts. 0: http://www.xcflabs.com/ http://www.xcflabs.com/

selfhoster11 4y ago
> I think its more apt to say that YOU got old, and keeping up got hard (it has for me too) because this is how it's always been in Nature. Modern digital libraries of Alexandria have only ever been burned because of the imposition of artificial scarcity. In contrast, in nature DNA is being copied all over the place. Imperfectly, but at least the parts that matter are being shared widely. > Just so it's clear these are the people who ushered in the exciting tech era in Silicon Valley in the 90s Bullshit. Cypherpunks don’t just exist in SV. Any cypherpunk who still cares about their principles would recoil in horror at SV that was there since circa 2015 ( and that’s being generous), let alone now.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > Bullshit. Cypherpunks don’t just exist in SV. Any cypherpunk who still cares about their principles would recoil in horror at SV that was there since circa 2015 ( and that’s being generous), let alone now. I never said they did and I agree: what I did say is that is where it began and it's origins was in SV in the 90s [0] which is when I was a kid in CA and feel it's part of my culture as I grew up on the internet back then (hence my interest in tech). I'd say at the end of the first crypto war things started to get dire so by the dotcom era in the 2000s the Corpo take over of the internet was in full swing--which is when Neal Stepenson released the seminal piece Cryptonomicon and outlined the vital nature of having a currency free from the control of nation-states, which is at the crux of the cypherpunk movement and one can argue really goes back to Alan Turing himself. I'd argue it happened not in 2015, but by the time 'web2' was created that SV became the cesspool it is now, domain squatting made useless people into overnight millionaires rather that then invested in ever-more intrusive business models; though room 614A at ATT's facility in SF was a thing so... If you want a real history lesson check this out [1]. > Gene Kan: Correct, stupid auto insert... I still remember how crazy that was back then, especially during the whole Napster v Metallica feud. Aside from his interest in open source tech he was also an avid auto-crosser, too; I think he was super into Miatas. The internet was/felt much smaller back then. 0: https://youtu.be/9vM0oIEhMag?t=99 https://youtu.be/9vM0oIEhMag?t=99 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdmpAy1hI8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdmpAy1hI8g
q-big 4y ago
> Gene Kahn (RIP) said it best at the Senate meeting Gene Kan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan

selfhoster11 4y ago

> I think its more apt to say that YOU got old, and keeping up got hard (it has for me too) because this is how it's always been in Nature. Modern digital libraries of Alexandria have only ever been burned because of the imposition of artificial scarcity. In contrast, in nature DNA is being copied all over the place. Imperfectly, but at least the parts that matter are being shared widely. > Just so it's clear these are the people who ushered in the exciting tech era in Silicon Valley in the 90s Bullshit. Cypherpunks don’t just exist in SV. Any cypherpunk who still cares about their principles would recoil in horror at SV that was there since circa 2015 ( and that’s being generous), let alone now.

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> Bullshit. Cypherpunks don’t just exist in SV. Any cypherpunk who still cares about their principles would recoil in horror at SV that was there since circa 2015 ( and that’s being generous), let alone now. I never said they did and I agree: what I did say is that is where it began and it's origins was in SV in the 90s [0] which is when I was a kid in CA and feel it's part of my culture as I grew up on the internet back then (hence my interest in tech). I'd say at the end of the first crypto war things started to get dire so by the dotcom era in the 2000s the Corpo take over of the internet was in full swing--which is when Neal Stepenson released the seminal piece Cryptonomicon and outlined the vital nature of having a currency free from the control of nation-states, which is at the crux of the cypherpunk movement and one can argue really goes back to Alan Turing himself. I'd argue it happened not in 2015, but by the time 'web2' was created that SV became the cesspool it is now, domain squatting made useless people into overnight millionaires rather that then invested in ever-more intrusive business models; though room 614A at ATT's facility in SF was a thing so... If you want a real history lesson check this out [1]. > Gene Kan: Correct, stupid auto insert... I still remember how crazy that was back then, especially during the whole Napster v Metallica feud. Aside from his interest in open source tech he was also an avid auto-crosser, too; I think he was super into Miatas. The internet was/felt much smaller back then. 0: https://youtu.be/9vM0oIEhMag?t=99 https://youtu.be/9vM0oIEhMag?t=99 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdmpAy1hI8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdmpAy1hI8g

q-big 4y ago

> Gene Kahn (RIP) said it best at the Senate meeting Gene Kan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kan