[CrackMonkey] Information Wants to Be Free

[Jason Whittle]

From: "Mr. Bad" <mr.bad at pigdog.org>:

>I think information moves the same way. It's drawn to places that need
>or want the information. You can put blocks on the information to stop
>it, but if the pull is sufficient, the information will eventually
>seep around the blocks and get to where it's wanted or needed. Just
>like blocking water, blocking information is a -temporary- tactic. No
>container is sufficient to hold information in forever.

Interesting analogy. The major flaw that strikes me, however, is that 
there is no way to move information against a gradient, unless you 
propose something analogous to selective membranes and active 
transport structures. With only passive transport of information, 
only morons can learn.

>        1) Some sort of technical advance that makes nukes
>           obsolete. However, that's a local solution, and not a
>           global solution. Even if you have a personal nuke shield or
>           whatever, there's still gonna be kerjillions of other
>           people throwing nuke grenades at each other all around the
>           globe, and that will eventually make the world unliveable.

There has been an advance that makes nuclear weapons obsolete: 
nuclear weapons. The two things that make them useful -- their 
objective power (measured in kilotons) and their subjective power 
(measured in fear) -- are the very aspects that caused their 
obsolescence. Because of this extreme amount of power, the objective 
aspect of nuclear weapons has only been used on a foreign populace 
twice in the decades that they have existed. (The subjective part of 
their power has been used continuously throughout their history -- 
this too has contributed to their obsolescence.)

-J


"One World, one Web, one Program" -- Microsoft promotional ad

"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" -- Adolf Hitler