Case for the correlation between hacking, civil liberties & American prosperity

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Megan Holbrook <megan () kapow com>
Date: October 26, 2004 1:32:11 AM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: For IP: Case for the correlation between hacking, civil 
liberties & American prosperity

Good Bad Attitude by Paul Graham, from Hackers & Painters. Well worth a 
read:

http://paulgraham.com/gba.html

An excerpt:

"Smart-alecks have to develop a keen sense of how much they can get 
away with. And lately hackers have sensed a change in the atmosphere. 
Lately hackerliness seems rather frowned upon.

To hackers the recent contraction in civil liberties seems especially 
ominous. That must also mystify outsiders. Why should we care 
especially about civil liberties? Why programmers, more than dentists 
or salesmen or landscapers?

Let me put the case in terms a government official would appreciate. 
Civil liberties are not just an ornament, or a quaint American 
tradition. Civil liberties make countries rich. If you made a graph of 
GNP per capita vs. civil liberties, you'd notice a definite trend. 
Could civil liberties really be a cause, rather than just an effect? I 
think so. I think a society in which people can do and say what they 
want will also tend to be one in which the most efficient solutions 
win, rather than those sponsored by the most influential people. 
Authoritarian countries become corrupt; corrupt countries become poor; 
and poor countries are weak. It seems to me there is a Laffer curve for 
government power, just as for tax revenues. At least, it seems likely 
enough that it would be stupid to try the experiment and find out. 
Unlike high tax rates, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns out 
to be a mistake.

This is why hackers worry. The government spying on people doesn't 
literally make programmers write worse code. It just leads eventually 
to a world in which bad ideas will win. And because this is so 
important to hackers, they're especially sensitive to it. They can 
sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as animals can sense 
an approaching thunderstorm.

It would be ironic if, as hackers fear, recent measures intended to 
protect national security and intellectual property turned out to be a 
missile aimed right at what makes America successful. But it would not 
be the first time that measures taken in an atmosphere of panic had the 
opposite of the intended effect.

There is such a thing as American-ness. There's nothing like living 
abroad to teach you that. And if you want to know whether something 
will nurture or squash this quality, it would be hard to find a better 
focus group than hackers, because they come closest of any group I know 
to embodying it. Closer, probably, than the men running our government, 
who for all their talk of patriotism remind me more of Richelieu or 
Mazarin than Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.

When you read what the founding fathers had to say for themselves, they 
sound more like hackers. "The spirit of resistance to government," 
Jefferson wrote, "is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it 
always to be kept alive."

Imagine an American president saying that today. Like the remarks of an 
outspoken old grandmother, the sayings of the founding fathers have 
embarrassed generations of their less confident successors. They remind 
us where we come from. They remind us that it is the people who break 
rules that are the source of America's wealth and power."

:) M.
--
Megan Holbrook - megan () kapow com
Partner - Business Development
kapow, inc. (www.kapow.com) - website design and development


*** PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW LA ADDRESS & PHONE ***

kapow, inc. Milwaukee               kapow, inc. Los Angeles
2405 E. Wyoming Place               1301 Montana Ave., Suite A
Milwaukee, WI 53202                 Santa Monica, CA  90403
T: 414-273-2446 * F: 419-793-6271   T: 310.394.5276 * F: 310.394.5278
        


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/