] Why should hackers care especially about civil liberties? Why
] programmers, more than dentists or salesmen or
] landscapers?
]
] Let me put the case in terms a government official would
] appreciate. Civil liberties are not just an ornament, or
] a quaint American tradition. Civil liberties make
] countries rich. If you made a graph of GNP per capita vs.
] civil liberties, you'd notice a definite trend. Could
] civil liberties really be a cause, rather than just an
] effect? I think so. I think a society in which people can
] do and say what they want will also tend to be one in
] which the most efficient solutions win, rather than those
] sponsored by the most influential people. Authoritarian
] countries become corrupt; corrupt countries become poor;
] and poor countries are weak. It seems to me there is a
] Laffer curve for government power, just as for tax
] revenues. At least, it seems likely enough that it would
] be stupid to try the experiment and find out. Unlike high
] tax rates, you can't repeal totalitarianism if it turns
] out to be a mistake.
]
] This is why hackers worry. The government spying on
] people doesn't literally make programmers write worse
] code. It just leads eventually to a world in which bad
] ideas will win. And because this is so important to
] hackers, they're especially sensitive to it. They can
] sense totalitarianism approaching from a distance, as
] animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.

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