FC: John Gilmore replies to "a cautionary tale about spam"

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
"Charles Platt: 'A cautionary tale about spam'"
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04784.html

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To: declan () well com, politech () politechbot com, gnu () new toad com
Subject: Re: FC: Charles Platt's nonobvious conclusion
In-reply-to: <5.2.1.1.0.20030528112840.048a4090 () mail well com>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003 17:36:34 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

> My autoreply from panix.com now sends a message telling people my phone
> number and asking them to call me to get my new email address. This seems
> a safe strategy because of course phone calls actually cost money (unlike
> email which is virtually free), and consequently telephone spam is much
> less of a problem.
>
> The conclusion is obvious.
>
> --CP

Perhaps I'm dense.  The conclusion is that we should not continue to
reduce the cost of communicating?  Or that we shouldn't be teaching
computers to handle audio easily?  Nor teaching them to speak and
understand speech?

AT&T just called me up today (unsolicited bulk calling) to let me know
that I could get nationwide local and long distance service from them
for a flat monthly rate of $48.95.  I declined because I already have
such a service from MCI.

Should we keep phone service on a per-minute basis?  Should we prevent
phone companies from lowering that monthly rate to $30, to $20, to
$10, to $2?  The conclusion is obvious?

I can see it now -- college students all over the country will get
software that lets them make $1000 a week by dialing out to random
phone numbers and offering various amazing promotions.  Be the first
in your area code, and we'll throw in free email for life!

(If the post office wasn't run by a government monopoly, postal costs
would also be dropping rather than rising.  The price and speed of
moving freight and express packages has been dropping for centuries.
And nanotech assemblers will cause the price of duplication of
physical objects to drop like the price of duplication of data, in a
decade or two.)

The conclusion is not obvious.  The obvious conclusion is that
communication costs are going to continue to drop -- as are the costs
of physical transportation of objects -- and that this is a GOOD
thing.  But that doesn't tell society how to handle unwanted letters,
unwanted calls, unwanted emails, unwanted magazines, unwanted
communications, unwanted packages, unwanted medicines, unwanted free
clothing, cars, and furniture, all arriving at your door or phone or
mailbox.  And any policy that purports to tell you how to handle
such "unwanted" things will burden the "wanted" emails, phone calls,
magazines, and medicines.

If Bill Gates made 6 billion doses of AIDS vaccine and mailed one dose
to every person on earth, should we tell him he's not allowed to?  If
Richard Stallman made 6 billion copies of a totally free and cool
operating system and emailed one to every person on earth, should we
tell him that treating your brother as you yourself would like to be
treated is a crime?  If Ted Fang could make more money selling ads
than it takes him to print and distribute his newspaper, what cop
sworn to uphold the First Amendment will haul him off to jail if he
delivers a free copy to every door?  If Rev. Jerry Falwell discovered
the ten-word magic prayer that really, truly, does cure cancer, who
among us will cast the first stone if he phones it to every cancer
patient in the country?  If George Bush the Tenth wants to be
President because nine generations of his forefathers were all
president too, can he not send every voter a chicken in every pot?

George W Bush actually *did* call every Republican or independent
voter in Nevada shortly before the Nov 2002 election.  He merely asked
them all to get out and vote.  His recorded voice, and some computers
somewhere on the telephone network, encouraged enough Republicans to
vote, so that the Nevada marijuana legaliation initiative got a
stinging defeat.  (Republicans tended to oppose it, Democrats tended
to favor it.)  Shouldn't he be able to suggest that people vote
Republican?  Even if the cost of those calls is low or free?

        John




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