The WELL: inkwell.vue.133: Peter Ludlow: Crypto Anarchy, Cyberstates, and Pirate Utopias

#106: democracy being a left thing, anyway (ludlow) Tue 29 Jan 02 05:27

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 05:27:00 PST

wowzers. Thanks for posting that link! [Read entire topic]

#105: Brian Slesinsky (bslesins) Fri 25 Jan 02 15:25

Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:25:00 PST

(As you'd expect from the conclusion, the paper makes some pretty silly assumptions.) [Read entire topic]

#104: Kirsten Bayes (kirsten-bayes) Thu 24 Jan 02 11:46

Thu, 24 Jan 2002 11:46:00 PST

Although this thread may have wound to a close, I felt I really had to post this. It's a formalised economic analysis of Norrath, the on-line world of Everquest.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828

It turns out, in real world, dollar terms, it has a higher GDP per head than China or India. Disturbing and fun.

Thanks for a very thought-provoking discussion. [Read entire topic]

#103: democracy being a left thing, anyway (ludlow) Sun 6 Jan 02 11:37

Sun, 06 Jan 2002 11:37:00 PST

O.K,, so I guess that radio interview is supposed to play tomorrow morning on NPR. Lew Koch (who interviewed me) said that they tried to kill it and he had to kick and fight to get 10 minutes of it aired. It would have been the first time in 40 years that he had a story killed. I'm not sure if all this is because of the content (crypto anarchy and whatnot) or the fact that I'm not very good at soundbites. Or maybe the content was too subtle to allow soundbites. Or maybe I'm just really damn boring on the radio (the last interview I did was sampled by a trance group for a song called "yes, I'm listening". Anyway, it's supposed to be on Monday morning if they don't spike it again between now and then. [Read entire topic]

#102: democracy being a left thing, anyway (ludlow) Tue 1 Jan 02 19:57

Tue, 01 Jan 2002 19:57:00 PST

Yah, no question. But this is natural, given that every citizen of a cyberstate, no matter how underground, also has to be a denizen of a terresital nation state. But maybe the question is whether the cyberstate needs some sort of legit intellectual vanguard. I'm not sure whether they need it, but they obviously have it. [Read entire topic]

#101: Kirsten Bayes (kirsten-bayes) Sat 29 Dec 01 16:02

Sat, 29 Dec 2001 16:02:00 PST

I think the BBC and The Well are both tips of the same iceberg, the "media-sphere", hence same stuff, same time.

Which started me thinking about a comment that was once made about the IRA, which is that terrorist organisations are fishes in water. In other words to exist, a terrorist organisation has to be part of and supported by a broader, legitimate community.

Reflecting on al Qaeda, they too are part of a global, virtual community: the Islamist movement, many of whose members are scholars and thinkers.

I wonder whether rogue cyberstates have to have this broader base of legitimate supporters, at the very least to provide a population on which the hard core can safely draw for recruits? [Read entire topic]

#100: democracy being a left thing, anyway (ludlow) Wed 26 Dec 01 14:00

Wed, 26 Dec 2001 14:00:00 PST

Yah look at that. We're like a whole week ahead of the curve. Well, a week ahead of the BBC anyway... [Read entire topic]

#99: Kirsten Bayes (kirsten-bayes) Wed 26 Dec 01 07:55

Wed, 26 Dec 2001 07:55:00 PST

By the way, I thought you might like to know that the issue of the "dark net" has been picked up by the BBC today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1721000/1721006.stm and is the subject of a discussion (just getting started) on Slashot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/26/158209&mode=nested

We say it here, it comes out there, hehe. [Read entire topic]

#98: democracy being a left thing, anyway (ludlow) Wed 26 Dec 01 06:19

Wed, 26 Dec 2001 06:19:00 PST

Yah, most definitely, although individual users could retaliate in any case. I'm not sure if it buys you anything in the way of cyberwar to have a site up and running. [Read entire topic]

#97: virtual community or butter? (bumbaugh) Tue 25 Dec 01 10:29

Tue, 25 Dec 2001 10:29:00 PST

Besides back up, there's the matter of retialiation. Retaliation. [Read entire topic]