Dear Jacob:
I think hacking is a form of trespass. It is an invasion. Is it ever justified? Sure. But only against criminals. Or evil governments. But wait. I repeat myself.
Best regards,
Walter
From: Jacob Lovell
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2020 9:34 AM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]
Subject: Re: Sequel to Defending the Undefendable
Dr. Block,
As I work through my thoughts in an organized fashion, I’ve been unable to defend hacking as it appears to ultimately be a form of fraud no matter how I frame it. I apologise for promising to get you something on this. I will be at the AERC if you want to talk through that or my other ideas.
Thanks,
-J
On Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 3:20 PM Walter Block <[email protected] wrote:
Dear Jacob:
Thanks. I appreciate this.
Send me something on hacking, please.
Best regards,
Walter
From: Jacob Lovell
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2020 1:48 PM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]
Subject: Re: Sequel to Defending the Undefendable
Dr. Block,
Enjoying your appearances on Tom Woods show. I wanted to remind you of the ideas I sent you years ago, in case you wanted to use them in the third installment, included below. I also thought of a way to defend computer hackers if you think hacking is defensible via the NAP.
Have a nice day,
-J
-The anti-gay funeral protestors – The Westboro Baptist Church is
demonized by everyone, but they’re really a marvelous group to behold.
These small-minded bigots show how their words are ultimately not
harmful in the way that breaches of the NAP are, leftist bleeding
hearts be damned. Sticks and stones can break bones, but because
words cannot, they should never be outlawed. Their pickets show how
society can tolerate the most crass, the most offensive, the most
disgusting utterances imaginable. People figure out peaceful ways to
solve the problem since laws against the picketers have routinely (and
justifiably) been thrown out of court. Instead of relying on
government, people use free speech to combat free speech, bringing in
motorcycle parades and flags and drowning out the ugliness of the
small group that’s there. Where government fails to uphold the values
of society via government tactics, people must make their own
solutions. A better solution than these would be to privatize the
areas where the picketers protest. Were streets and sidewalks
private, the owners would be responsible for the message they’re
sending out from their property – private owners could still allow for
picketers to harass nearby funerals, but at least then such property
owners could be held responsible through ostracism, something you
can’t do to government to punish it for sending out a message you
don’t like. Because government has an anything goes policy, the use
of the public space is chaotic and cannot be coordinated efficiently –
it’s a kind of tragedy of the commons, where the picketers and
anti-picketers are racing for the limited resources of protest-space
(audibly, physically, visually, etc). The chaos that such protests
creates shows the failure of government control of public spaces, even
while statists pretend like it’s some great victory because such
intolerant people are tolerated and that must somehow be because the
government exists the way that it does. That’s not a great victory at
all, people should have (non-violent) recourse
Internet Pirates – They drive prices down for consumers and increase
choice because content creators are forced to be more responsive to
consumers. For example, movies and television shows become available
to purchase in stores much sooner after TV and theater showings than
they used to. In another example, video game developers – whose
customer base is filled with tech savvy young people who are more
capable of pirating copyrighted content than the average consumers of
other forms of media – are forced to focus more on customer service
and ease of use, something that Gabe Newell (a very successful video
game maker) openly admits for being the reason that he designed his
Steam game service the way that he did. Further, internet privacy is
a protest to the illegitimate government invention of intellectual
property, so they’re heroic.
Pornographers – Areas where pornography is legal and freely available
have seen reductions in sexual assaults according to at least one
study I’ve read. Further, women in this profession make way more
money than men, so even if the myth that women make less than men were
true, this profession helps prevent some of that.
Child pornography distributors – obviously this doesn’t include
*makers* of child pornography, since molesting a child is a violation
of the NAP, but people who only distribute (and do not create) this
content are a different story. By sharing this material in the sundry
depths of the internet, law enforcement is able to collect evidence
about the crimes being depicted in the pictures and videos. In turn,
victims and abusers might be identified, and children can be rescued
from their abusive captors. If not for these child pornography
distribution rings, these crimes might never see the light of day,
allowing for perpetrators to continue to hurt their victims in private
and with little hope of capture. Some people claim that these
distribution networks increase the likelihood of children being
victimized because the perverts are rewarded for their crimes. This
seems like an unconvincing argument – most child sex abuse victims do
not have pictures or video to show what’s happened to them.
Considering that these victims are the least likely to be able to
remember and communicate their abuse to those who have the power to
stop it, one would hope for such evidence to become widely available
enough to be found by someone who can stop the abuse. It seems
probable that such perverts would still abuse children whether or not
there is a distribution ring that (may or may not) reward them for
their sick actions. Because of government’s ham-handed approach,
child pornography distribution rings have simply become more and more
underground and less able to be found by law enforcement, cutting off
a valuable source of evidence for the actual crime of sexual assault.
Televangelists, cult leaders, and advocates of ‘alternative’ medicine
– A fool and his money are soon parted, and I think that’s a good
thing. Excepting for cases of clear-cut fraud, these types of people
help society in a number of ways. First, it allows for people to help
self-identify as idiots, which in turn helps those around them be wary
of said idiots. If I’m associating with someone who starts talking
about crystal healing or how genetically modified food causes cancer,
I know that I can stop wasting my time and better allocate my limited
life to other ends. Without such an obvious signaling mechanism, I
might not realize that I’m dealing with a moron so quickly and will
take time that I’ll later regret wasting. Second, such people are
much more likely to die of curable diseases or become too poor to feed
themselves, thus killing off morons who probably are a drain on
society and maybe cleaning up the gene pool a little. Third, for
those that aren’t killed by their own stupidity, people learn to be
less gullible and more realistic, so maybe they’ll avoid much more
dangerous scams in the future.
Genetic engineers – scientists have increased food production thanks
to GMO, reducing food prices and allowing for crops that are more
drought/disease/pest resistant. These factors in turn help the
poorest people who live in the harshest areas to better be able to
purchase or grow food. It’s too bad that governments in Africa, home
to many people who are as described above, have banned the importation
of GMO food, including the free food they are offered by richer
countries. This in turn contributes to the crippling poverty and
starvation the people on that continent have to endure, something much
more immediate than whatever negative long-term health consequences
that GMO foods supposedly have.
Dear :
Best regards,
Walter
1:00 pm on May 25, 2020