Quote from: JorgeStolfi on April 21, 2014, 03:51:48 AM

Quote from: AnonyMint on April 19, 2014, 10:43:05 PM

Quote from: JorgeStolfi on April 19, 2014, 09:05:27 PM

[...] What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other. In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

You entirely missed the upthread point made that reputation does not require personal identity.

Btw, we always had anonymity with cash, now we are losing it. And so now we move to the slavery State if we don't have anonymity.

Yeah, sorry, I skipped several pages.

Cash itself may be anonymous, but most cash transactions are not.

I have lunch at the corner cafe every day; the owner notes the amount down on a 3x5 card, and every Friday I pay whatever he says I owe, with cash; and he doesn't mind waiting until next Monday if I am out of cash in my "hot wallet". That is because we both know and trust each other. But I would not send cash in an envelope to pay for a bill, of course.

Even when the parties have never met before and don't know each other's name, they can tell a lot about each other, with passable confidence, just from their appearance and context. The mere fact that the other guy is NOT hiding his face may be sufficiently reassuring. I might buy a hot dog from a seller in a stadium, even if I never saw the guy before; but not from a stranger in a run-down street who wears a ninja costume and a ski hood...

In the political context: anonimity may be a valuable "tactical weapon" when fighting an oppressive illegitimate government. However, by the time it is necessary, it will be very difficult to obtain. Moreover, it is not very effective -- because anonimity is essentially act of cowardice, an admission of weakness and defeat. It is fleeing rather than fighting, the way of the rat rather than of the badger. The most effective time and way to fight such governments is before they take power -- openly, not anonymously.

If you have any better strategy to fight the 1% of the 1% I am all ears..