[12270] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DeCSS, crypto, law, and economics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric Rescorla)
Fri Jan 10 18:26:31 2003
X-Original-To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
To: "John S. Denker" <jsd@monmouth.com>
Cc: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>, cryptography@wasabisystems.com,
Pete.Chown@skygate.co.uk
Reply-To: EKR <ekr@rtfm.com>
From: Eric Rescorla <ekr@rtfm.com>
Date: 10 Jan 2003 10:33:24 -0800
In-Reply-To: <3E1F0C40.8070705@monmouth.com>
"John S. Denker" <jsd@monmouth.com> writes:
> Eric Rescorla wrote:
>
> > When there is a conflict between liberty and Pareto
>
> > dominance, economists get a headache.
>
> Really? Maybe some of them do, but I suspect most of
> them wouldn't formulate it as a conflict at all; they
> would just ask "how much do you want to pay for your
> liberty?"
I was thinking in particular of Sen's "Impossibility of
the Paretian liberal".
> Example: Suppose you have the choice of either carpooling
> to work or taking your own car, solo. The latter gives
> you more liberty as to when you drive home. But it comes
> at a cost.
That's not the context in which I mean liberty. Rather, I'm
talking about global restrictions. Consider the following
situation as described by Steven Landsburg
(http://slate.msn.com/id/46376/)
Here's a stylized example: Suppose some people (call
them the "prudes") cherish their freedom of religion, but not
half so much as they would cherish a general ban on
pornography. Others (call them the "lewds") cherish their
right to read Lady Chatterley's Lover but not half so much as
they would cherish a general ban on religion. Then if you
outlawed both pornography and religion, you'd make everyone
happier, while simultaneously making everyone less free.
-Ekr
--
[Eric Rescorla ekr@rtfm.com]
http://www.rtfm.com/
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