Bacchus
Sunni: Wow. The job culture is just one small aspect of modern Western society that many people consider inimical to individual happiness, or downright unhealthy. Do you really think it's possible to de-institutionalize our society, as Butler Shaffer advocates? Can that happen without losing a lot of the advances we currently enjoy, do you think?
Bacchus: I think institutions are a problem to the extent that they are coercive. Governments, obviously, are coercive by definition; you can tell because if you ignore them, you'll wind up with a gun in your face. Corporations, despite being government creations,aren't as obviously coercive; if you ignore them you may starve, but at least in theory you can compete with them and flourish. Trouble there is, if you compete too well, corporations have a bad habit of phoning up their government allies and saying, "Can you get some guns over here to get rid of this upstart competitor of mine?" Other institutions -- churches and private schools, charities, community associations, all sorts of groups you can safely ignore, but which may improve your life if you participate -- they don't bother me so much. Although some churches do have a bad habit of trying to get government favor so they can join or rejoin the coercion club, so you'll get a gun up in your face if you ignore the sermon. That's got to stop.
Can we get rid of coercive institutions? I don't see that as being a question of whether we need them, any more than we need any other sort of parasite. Life would be better without them. But they are very hard parasites to kill. Frankly, I see us moving to more of a Snow Crash
Sunni: Ah, another Neal Stephenson aficionado! I liked Snow Crash, but was much more intrigued by The Diamond Age
Bacchus: His Neo-Victorians didn't do much for me. I enjoyed the book, but I wouldn't want to live in that particular social enclave.
Sunni: Same here. It was the nanotech, and the concept of cultural enclaves that one could join, that most intrigued me. Speaking of enclaves, what are your thoughts on the proposed, and now suspended, plan for the .xxx top level domain? I took some heat for calling that idea a "Warsaw ghetto".
Bacchus: That's exactly what it will be if it ever passes. Howdy, you nasty pornographers, please put on this yellow .xxx patch so it will be easier to round you up in the dark of night. Meanwhile, please stand over there in a nice tight bunch so that we can take you out with one planeload of bombs during the next election cycle. To be fair, there's pressure in the domain name space. We could use a domain that's unabashedly for porn. But there's no point unless it's just an addition, like calling a second shuttle bus when the first one gets full. And there's no way that will happen here. Once the .xxx domain exists, there will be constant demands that all adult content be exiled to it. And there will be widespread censorship of that domain -- whole countries, states, counties, cities, corporations, ISPs, institutions of all kinds will block it.
Sunni: Back on the business side for just a moment. Do you dabble in domain name speculation? You know, buying domain names on the hope that someday they'll be wanted by someone willing to pay big dollars for them? Seems like an even riskier way to try to make money, but I'm intrigued by it all the same.
Bacchus: Ooh, you've found my secret shame! I do have a bad domain name buying habit. I've bought several hundred domains in the past couple of years. It's not very risky if you do it the way I do it and search for unregistered domains, but of course that limits your upside potential these days. I pay about nine bucks a year for my domains, and so far I've sold only a few. But I don't buy domains unless I think they might be worth a thousand dollars to somebody, so my few sales have been very satisfying.
