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And then they'll ban those. Don't forget that in the end the state has a monopoly on violence.

kibwen 3y ago
In the case of US users and Tor, the situation is more complicated. The US military encourages Tor use because it helps to mask their own traffic (Tor was developed by the US Navy for this purpose, after all). It's unclear who would prevail in a political struggle between the copyright cartels and the military.
- vinceguidry 3y ago
  Yep, at the end of the day what prevents tyranny from taking over everywhere is the fact that the ruling class has to live in the same world and use the same economy as everyone else. You see this dynamic up and down the government. Big business needs to be able to access machines that don't have all this locked-down crap. I'm not super-worried about the copyright lobby's fervent wish to make it impossible to use a general purpose machine. They're going to eventually run right up against corporate America's full-throated embrace of open source. Sure, ordinary people already are heavily spied on and restricted. But the machines doing the spying and restricting have to run their own OSes as well. The inverse of the 'who watches the watchers' problem.
hattmall 3y ago
With 20,000+ non-statw homicides in the US last year it's hardly a monopoly.
- Kamq 3y ago
  Yeah, they misquoted the original phrase. It's supposed to be monopoly on _legitimate_ violence. Which is why organized crime and vigilantism are generally so much higher up on a government's priority list than single acts of violence. They represent legitimate threats to the government.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    They represent subgovernments. All governments are overgrown street gangs. Royalty in Europe are the descendants of Roman generals who divided up the land between them after Rome fell.
    - Kamq 3y ago
      I've always conceptualized them as competing governments personally (or, possibly, potential governments), not subgovernments myself.
zlg_codes 3y ago
Violence isn't a market, and continuing to parrot that nonsense gives a false credibility to forces which amount to efficient bullies that entrenched themselves by enslaving or genociding native populations. None of us signed actual social contracts, none of us signed forms agreeing to be governed. Violence is a choice that no government can take away. They can only threaten violence of their own. What validity does a government have when it claims it has the sole right to hurt others, including you? That is a fiction that led to the current state of things. What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people?
- guerrilla 3y ago
  > What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people? None, I'm just telling you what will happen. The argument was not that people consented, but that first they'll outlaw circumvention and then hunt you down for continuing to try. The point is that there is no technological solution to oppression. Some people here have a certain naïveté that everything can be solved with technology but that view ignores actual power in the actual world.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  This is a silly objection. The reason the state has a monopoly on violence is because it took a monopoly on violence, through the application of violence and threats of violence. > What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people? Rights are given by states. Without states, you don't have rights, only capabilities. Rights come into existence when an alliance with a lot of capacity for violence imposes rules on the people within its reach that it allows itself to be bound by. Governance is not a contest where you are awarded rule for being the best, or a trial where a wise man gives governance to those who deserve it. Governance doesn't care if you give it "credibility" or what "social contract" you have signed unless it decides itself that it cares about those things. The only credibility that a government needs is your belief that it will unleash violence upon you if you do not do what it says. You have rights under government. Governments themselves don't need rights, unless they are subgovernments of more powerful governments that have granted them. Don't retreat into abstractions and fantasy. You can't defeat fascism by proving it wrong; it's not a Star Trek computer.
almostnormal 3y ago
> Don't forget that in the end the state has a monopoly on violence. People have a monopoly on casting votes.

In the case of US users and Tor, the situation is more complicated. The US military encourages Tor use because it helps to mask their own traffic (Tor was developed by the US Navy for this purpose, after all). It's unclear who would prevail in a political struggle between the copyright cartels and the military.

vinceguidry 3y ago
Yep, at the end of the day what prevents tyranny from taking over everywhere is the fact that the ruling class has to live in the same world and use the same economy as everyone else. You see this dynamic up and down the government. Big business needs to be able to access machines that don't have all this locked-down crap. I'm not super-worried about the copyright lobby's fervent wish to make it impossible to use a general purpose machine. They're going to eventually run right up against corporate America's full-throated embrace of open source. Sure, ordinary people already are heavily spied on and restricted. But the machines doing the spying and restricting have to run their own OSes as well. The inverse of the 'who watches the watchers' problem.

hattmall 3y ago

With 20,000+ non-statw homicides in the US last year it's hardly a monopoly.

Kamq 3y ago
Yeah, they misquoted the original phrase. It's supposed to be monopoly on _legitimate_ violence. Which is why organized crime and vigilantism are generally so much higher up on a government's priority list than single acts of violence. They represent legitimate threats to the government.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pessimizer 3y ago
  They represent subgovernments. All governments are overgrown street gangs. Royalty in Europe are the descendants of Roman generals who divided up the land between them after Rome fell.
  - Kamq 3y ago
    I've always conceptualized them as competing governments personally (or, possibly, potential governments), not subgovernments myself.

zlg_codes 3y ago

Violence isn't a market, and continuing to parrot that nonsense gives a false credibility to forces which amount to efficient bullies that entrenched themselves by enslaving or genociding native populations. None of us signed actual social contracts, none of us signed forms agreeing to be governed. Violence is a choice that no government can take away. They can only threaten violence of their own. What validity does a government have when it claims it has the sole right to hurt others, including you? That is a fiction that led to the current state of things. What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people?

guerrilla 3y ago
> What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people? None, I'm just telling you what will happen. The argument was not that people consented, but that first they'll outlaw circumvention and then hunt you down for continuing to try. The point is that there is no technological solution to oppression. Some people here have a certain naïveté that everything can be solved with technology but that view ignores actual power in the actual world.
pessimizer 3y ago
This is a silly objection. The reason the state has a monopoly on violence is because it took a monopoly on violence, through the application of violence and threats of violence. > What right does sovereignty give a state to oppress its people? Rights are given by states. Without states, you don't have rights, only capabilities. Rights come into existence when an alliance with a lot of capacity for violence imposes rules on the people within its reach that it allows itself to be bound by. Governance is not a contest where you are awarded rule for being the best, or a trial where a wise man gives governance to those who deserve it. Governance doesn't care if you give it "credibility" or what "social contract" you have signed unless it decides itself that it cares about those things. The only credibility that a government needs is your belief that it will unleash violence upon you if you do not do what it says. You have rights under government. Governments themselves don't need rights, unless they are subgovernments of more powerful governments that have granted them. Don't retreat into abstractions and fantasy. You can't defeat fascism by proving it wrong; it's not a Star Trek computer.

almostnormal 3y ago

> Don't forget that in the end the state has a monopoly on violence. People have a monopoly on casting votes.