From: aahz@netcom.com (Aahzmandius)
Subject: Free Cyberia!
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 15:27:26 GMT
Organization: Bill 'n' Opus for Prez

Here follows the two original posts (and incidentally answer Meredith's
question on how to find Ariel):

From: gaunt@grendel1.acc.stolaf.edu (John Gaunt)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Cyberia Uses Revolutionary Tactics!!
Summary: News at 11, Film at 2.
Date: 1 Jun 91 10:59:35 GMT
Organization: The Pathcos Embassy.... and maybe the Cyberian Consulate..

From an article by Steve Savitzky, aka Mandelbear
>==========================================================================
>
>DISCLAIMER: 
>
>  The following is a work of fiction.  Any resemblence between the
>  totally off-the-wall ideas put forth below and opinions actually
>  held or actions advocated by any person (including the author) or
>  organization (especially the author's employer) is highly unlikely.
>
>==========================================================================
>
>		      THE FREE STATE OF CYBERIA*
>		      PROLEGOMENA TO A MANIFESTO
>
>  When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary...
>
>Well, that's the way it ought to start, followed by
>
>  We, the people of Cyberspace, in order to form a more perfect union...
>
>The point is that Cyberspace is a separate country, a homeland of the
>mind, a culture, a people bound together not by geography but by the
>free exchange of information.  To a very large extent we have our own
>government, our own laws, and our own police.  The laws are, to be
>sure, chaotic and mostly unwritten; the government is an anarchy with
>volunteer civil servants, and the police are vigilantes with little
>authority or power.  We have no army, few defenses, and most of our
>territory is in the hands of foreign, imperial powers who have no idea
>of what goes on in their distant colonies, but who insist on making
>laws to rule them anyway.
>
>Could we declare independence, claim dual citizenship in our native
>countries and in Cyberia, and sieze control of our own territory?
>Probably not.  (Why not?)  It's a crazy idea.  (But is it crazy
>*enough*?)  The nation-states and the multinational corporations are
>too powerful.  (But we could put up a heck of a fight, couldn't we?)
>It's never been done before.  (There's never been anyplace like
>Cyberspace before.)  Things like that only happen in fiction.
>(Cyberspace is a fiction.  Virtual reality is a fiction.)
>
>There are precedents.  In the Middle Ages, the Church was a law unto
>itself, transcending the national boundaries of Europe.  The high seas
>have always been outside of national law.  The Native American tribes
>on their reservations are separate nations (for some purposes,
>anyway).
>
>Some tactics:
>
>o Get organized.  (This is *fiction*, remember?)
>
>o Form an educational non-profit corporation (Free University of
>  Cyberia) that owns the data and computers that make up Cyberia.
>  Stake territorial claims via copyright.  Computers and data would be
>  tax write-offs for their former owners.
>
>o Form a religion (Church Of Virtual Enlightenment?).  Make writing
>  programs, posting and reading news acts of worship.  Get protection
>  via freedom of religion.  Declare that the Deity is a hacker running
>  the universe as a simulation.  (Quantum effects are due to round-off
>  error.)
>
>o Pay (bribe) some tiny country to cede its territorial rights in
>  Cyberspace and recognize Cyberia.  Failing that, put a computer on a
>  raft in the middle of the ocean.  (Some pirate radio stations did
>  something like this a few years ago, didn't they?)
>
>o Make every Cyberian computer an embassy and claim diplomatic
>  immunity.  (This is where the whole thing breaks down.  No
>  government on Earth would permit such a claim, would they?)
>
>o Pass laws that make the advantages of Cyberia so obvious that almost
>  every individual and corporation with a computer would want to be a
>  part of it.
>
>----
>* pronounced "sy-BUR-i-a", as in "Cyberspace", so as to avoid
>  confusion with a certain Soviet republic.
>
>==========================================================================
>
>		 Copyright 1991 by Stephen Savitzky;
>			 All rights reserved.
>
>	  May be freely distributed on any electronic medium
>	provided it remains complete and unaltered, including
>	      the Disclaimer and this copyright notice.
>
>==========================================================================


Hurm.....hmmm.....

I like it.

How about.....
===========================================================================

      The Declaration of the Formation of The Free State of Cyberia


	WE, THE PEOPLE of The Free State of Cyberia, in order to provide for
the furthur development of the human race, to promote the invention of newer
and higher technology for the betterment of mankind, to insure the spreading
of this technology, as well as the data and freedom it represents, to secure
the blessings of nature and technology for ourselves and our posterity, and
to spread these blessings among our brothers and sisters as they desire them
and as they can assimilate such blessings into their societies, do ordain and
establish this most virtual Free State of Cyberia.

	As such a state, in its mostly immaterial form, can not truly exist
separate from the diverse nations it communicates with, and neither wanting
nor able to go to war against any other nation in order to obtain land on
which to base itself, The Free State of Cyberia declares as its foundation
the hearts and minds of those who dedicate themselves to holding up its
prime beliefs.  The Free State of Cyberia (hereafter referred to as simply
"Cyberia") also declares as its realm the virtual reality created by the use
of electronic communication devices, particularly those devices commonly
referred to as computers.  Any and all computers donated to Cyberia also
become property, as they are the base from which virtuality is obtained.
The owners of such computers, if private, become Consulate Pro-Tem to the
community in which they reside.  If corporation-owned, Cyberia shall, at an
agreed-upon date, decide which person in said corporation shall be considered
the Consul to said corporation.

==============================================================================

Well, that's a start.  I'd love to continue the formation, Mandelbear, if 
you'd actually like to hammer something out......

And now to an actual introduction of myself.....

-------------------------------------

"Greetings, gentlebeings!

"My name is Ariel; some of you who read rec.arts.poems may have actually
read some of my work.  Perhaps some of it has stuck in your mind, perhaps
I simply flatter myself.

"I've been quietly lurking in Callahan's for about a month and a half, now,
only catching Yaargh's glass from crashing before he forgot to make a toast.
It seems he's been gone a while, so here I sit, a half-full glass of Kyrellian
Gold-Thrush in one hand, and an empty glass wreathed in emerald fire floating
about a foot and a half above and beyond the table I share with Dart.

(Dart, by the way, for anybody who doesn't know, seems to have been placed in
 a crystalline shell of healing -- she's been sick, and hasn't been heard from
 in a _very_ long time....)

"In any case, I've followed some of the converstion, though I've not even TRIED
to follow the Morality of Science debate currently going on around and about
the story-poker table.  The Mandelbear's work (reprinted above for those who
may have missed it) was the first that REALLY caught my eye.  I've been trying
to get time to properly reply to it ever since it came out, but have just now
gotten it.

"Mandelbear: I applaud your ingenuity and your audacity.  Imagine trying to go
to war against such a state; it would be effectively impossible, the only real
way to keep it out of the country would cut yourself off from the rest of the
world.  I'd like to see if this fantasy couldn't be made a reality....but
that's insane, isn't it.

"If anybody else would like to join my "crusade" to pull reality and virtuality
together, please either contact me at gaunt@acc.stolaf.edu, post it here in
Callahan's, or else write the bodily me at:

		Scott Crain
		332 Lawn Ave.
		West Lafayette, IN, 47906

"If you truly believe that a country which crosses the boundaries erected by
man can and will break those lines, please reply."

The youngish man knocks down the rest of his Kyrellian Gold-Thrush, then wraps
the green fires around both glasses.

"To Cyberia: may the thought be planted in fertile soil!"

A double *CRASHCRASH* sounds in the fireplace as the two glasses break against
its back wall.  Ariel walks gracefully over to the fireplace (his shirt now
reads: --Free Cyberia-- Virtual Reality) and reaches, barehanded, into the
flames.  The fire turns green for a flickering instant, and Ariel pulls his
hand out.  No pottery, no glass, no plastic or anything else which has been
cast into the fire over Callahan's existance -- not a fragment remains inside
the blaze.  Instead, Ariel holds forth a handful of glittering emeralds.

"Who will join me?"

---------------------------------------------------------
Ariel, working from -- gaunt@acc.stolaf.edu
--------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: The world is broke.
-----------------------
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
----------------
-- 
                         --- Aahz (the *other* Dan Bernstein)
                             @netcom.com 

Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6

Mothers are inventors by necessity