3 ms·

Secretions (1992)

23 points by homarp 3y ago

jdougan 3y ago
I had not realized just how much I missed the old-school cypherpunk jive. I wonder how they would have reacted then to what we know about DES now?
B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
"Swiss bank accounts for the millions." Reminds me of the "too good for them" line. And nowadays Swiss banks accounts aren't that much either.
dustfinger 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Milhon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Milhon
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
Seems to me that the costumes here are modeled after the burqa, which is seen here as providing freedom in anonymity, rather than as denying some right to self-expression. That the characters wear lifts and disguise their voices also seems -- I may be projecting/guessing here -- to be a direct metaphor for Jude's use of (sometimes male) pseudonyms. But while this does all implicitly, you could say, explore gender (as much simply as online pseudonymity), this seems to have been written before the standardized thought-patterns for doing that had been taught, so it's a little more interesting than what I'd expect to find in a 2023 essay. I also note the old 90s-era left-libertarian strains that are now all but dead, as Bitcoin has become more right-libertarian. An "edgier" time in style, but in substance more naive and more optimistic. Funny also how, first there was this (1992), and then there was Paypal (founded in 1998), Cryptonomicon (1999), the founding of Bitcoin (2009), and finally the crypto boom (2021?). It takes a while for these things to play out.
motohagiography 3y ago
There was a vibraant goth and industrial music circuit in '92 that was just meeting techno, and in an after hours scene that mixed everyone in. Most clubs were of a single genre and crowd for a given night, but after hours was where you got everyone left from everywhere. You had the attractiveness of nightclub staff getting off work with very multi-cultural drug dealers supplying everyone, the gay disco and drag scene, operated by the bikers, and frequented by money of all kinds looking for what money gets. As a kid in that era, it was easier to sneak into an after hours than a legit club, and with no licenses everything was all ages. Primordial shitshow would be the best way to describe it. I say this because what St. Jude is writing about in the article is probably more true than anyone might think.
mock-possum 3y ago
I’m not a huge fan of this “scrappy smarter-than-you protagonist owns pretentious thug” trope. > "So you're protecting your meat identity, right?" The Chador seemed to teeter a little. … "We're here for a... uh... party." The voice from the other Chador was a flanged saxophone, but I could swear it had a Texas accent. "Rubbish. You're having a cell meeting, right? " The near Chador, the one I had groped, seemed to teeter again. It’s so cartoonish, like it’s barely a step removed from “they clapped their hands to their foreheads and fell backwards, shoes flying from their feet in the process” -style slapstick, you know?

Secretions (1992)

23 points by homarp 3y ago

I had not realized just how much I missed the old-school cypherpunk jive. I wonder how they would have reacted then to what we know about DES now?

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago

"Swiss bank accounts for the millions." Reminds me of the "too good for them" line. And nowadays Swiss banks accounts aren't that much either.

dustfinger 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Milhon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Milhon

FooBarBizBazz 3y ago

Seems to me that the costumes here are modeled after the burqa, which is seen here as providing freedom in anonymity, rather than as denying some right to self-expression. That the characters wear lifts and disguise their voices also seems -- I may be projecting/guessing here -- to be a direct metaphor for Jude's use of (sometimes male) pseudonyms. But while this does all implicitly, you could say, explore gender (as much simply as online pseudonymity), this seems to have been written before the standardized thought-patterns for doing that had been taught, so it's a little more interesting than what I'd expect to find in a 2023 essay. I also note the old 90s-era left-libertarian strains that are now all but dead, as Bitcoin has become more right-libertarian. An "edgier" time in style, but in substance more naive and more optimistic. Funny also how, first there was this (1992), and then there was Paypal (founded in 1998), Cryptonomicon (1999), the founding of Bitcoin (2009), and finally the crypto boom (2021?). It takes a while for these things to play out.

motohagiography 3y ago

There was a vibraant goth and industrial music circuit in '92 that was just meeting techno, and in an after hours scene that mixed everyone in. Most clubs were of a single genre and crowd for a given night, but after hours was where you got everyone left from everywhere. You had the attractiveness of nightclub staff getting off work with very multi-cultural drug dealers supplying everyone, the gay disco and drag scene, operated by the bikers, and frequented by money of all kinds looking for what money gets. As a kid in that era, it was easier to sneak into an after hours than a legit club, and with no licenses everything was all ages. Primordial shitshow would be the best way to describe it. I say this because what St. Jude is writing about in the article is probably more true than anyone might think.

mock-possum 3y ago

I’m not a huge fan of this “scrappy smarter-than-you protagonist owns pretentious thug” trope. > "So you're protecting your meat identity, right?" The Chador seemed to teeter a little. … "We're here for a... uh... party." The voice from the other Chador was a flanged saxophone, but I could swear it had a Texas accent. "Rubbish. You're having a cell meeting, right? " The near Chador, the one I had groped, seemed to teeter again. It’s so cartoonish, like it’s barely a step removed from “they clapped their hands to their foreheads and fell backwards, shoes flying from their feet in the process” -style slapstick, you know?