I kinda implied that I would write a lot of journals here in Costa Rica, but it just didn't happen. I've been pretty busy with school, socializing, partying, poker, programming projects, and massive amounts of email con mi nueva novia. As is typical in procrastination cases, the longer you wait the harder it is, because the looming bulk of ignored responsibility es mas intimidando.

But we can sometimes work around our own irrationalities, and I decided that the key was to not feel like I had to write all my thoughts and feelings today. I'll give you a little todas las dias, and then we'll have something instead of nothing. Plus since I've been blathering in email upon many a subject, I can always cut-n-paste if I run short, y solo uno de tus will know.

Today, the content will be brief. The above meta-entry and a couple quotes:

"I used to eat, but then I discovered opiates!" (just joking guys...nothing to be worried about...)

"Let me go and I will come back soon, hold me and for sure some day I will leave for good."

After a long interlude, I've decided to attempt a return to purple hair (although not a mohawk this time). In preparation, Katy bleached the hell out of my hair this weekend. The result, while just an intermediate stage, looks rather amusing:

I just got a 1U rackmounted server that I'm planning to colocate for ~$70/mo, which I can then use for all sorts of exciting high-bandwidth always on applications. I've had lots of ideas about fun things to do with net servers that just ain't practical over DSL. Getting unix running on it is somewhat stretching my technical abilities, which is a little frustrating but at least its proving a useful learning experience.

Two of my plans for the summer involved visiting Costa Rica and taking Spanish classes. It seems I can combine them by going to an immersive language school in San Jose, Costa Rica for 1-4 weeks. Since its in the capital, I'd also be able to play in the juicy local no-limit poker game a few days a week. A positive addition to my thoughts on moving to CR is the success of their libertarian party in the latest election, (6 out of 55 members of congress). I am still torn about expatriation, as I wrote to a friend recently:

I am torn between being deeply bothered by supporting things that I find repugnant, and the fact that my whole life is here: my friends, my family - my community. I vacillate between feeling as though I cannot, in good conscience, remain here, and feeling as though I can't leave. Reading newspapers always puts me in in the first mode, and time spent immersed in my life and ignoring world events in the second. I have seriously considered moving to Costa Rica, but as yet I have not found the strength to actually do so. Do I not have the courage of my convictions, or am I being realistic and practical?

For now I am taking steps to make an eventual move possible, but doing so fairly slowly.

The annual Burning Man festival is coming up at the end of august. Last year my friend Brian and I decided that we would return this year if and only if we had a cool project. Inspired by the Cluster Ballooning website</a>, our plan is to bring enough helium and balloons to lift a person and some ballast into the air, using a paragliding harness (with integrated parachute). The person would be tethered for safety, of course. Since the theme this year is the desert as ocean, we are thinking of using EL wire to decorate the cluster as a giant jellyfish (running a power line up the tether). Carl & I did some preliminary investigation and think it could be done for $5K or so. I just hope those F-16's don't buzz the camp low again this year, that could be dangerous...

I spent 2 weeks this month at the annual World Series of Poker in vegas, where I played 4 tournaments, reaching 11th (out of ~420) in one of them, my highest WSOP finish to date. Woohoo! The championship event starts monday, wish me luck!

After a period of more than 6 months without a major project to work on, I've reluctantly admitted that I should get a job. Being a dilettante is great fun, but I could use some more structure in my life, to help me get work done. I'm going to try to get a half-time job this fall, something that I can telecommute to which involves fun programming and/or working on something whose goals I approve of. Until then, though, I'm gonna stick with the usual mishmash of missions, potluck of projects, and tons 'o travelling :).

On the plane back, I'm writing up the factoids and trying to bring it
all together. First, an amusing announcement over the speaker: "For
passengers wishing to get off, contact the flight attendant and the
appropriate forms will be provided". Sheesh, I knew they were regulating
a lot of things these days, but that's a little too much!

The constant rain (resulting in mudslides and some flooding) which I
experienced is apparently not the result of its being the rainy season,
but rather it being specifically the end of the rainy season. Its like
this for a month, not 2/3 of the year, which is good.

One of the poker players was an american expatriate. He said that CR was
pretty mellow on recreational possession of drugs, but very serious on
distribution. Supporting this was an anecdote from one of the LFC folks
about a friend who was caught by the police with a gun, cocaine, and
marijuana. They kept the coke, gave back the rod and weed, and sent him
on his way. He also said that many Costa Rican girls are bisexual because
the guys are so lame. This may be macho exaggeration, but it is
clearly true that ticas like american guys, because they are rich and
treat their women better. The rate of domestic abuse is apparently quite
high in Costa Rica, I spoke to someone whose friend had worked for an
abuse service. Presumably this is a byproduct of the macho culture.

The macho culture, while not pervasive, was certainly noticeable. Its the
sort of attitude I associate in the states with young white males with
baseball caps and red faces. Taxi drivers, for example, seem extremely
reluctant to downshift, as if its somehow an admission of defeat.

I heard a story about an american who bought an expensive condiminium.
His costa rican lawyer made up the deed transfer with the lawyer's name on
it, so once it was signed, the property was now the lawyer's. It would
have been a long and expensive legal battle to attempt to recover it.
This is not a typical case, but bilking rich yanks is clearly a thriving
local industry.

The LFC folks told a story about driving the wrong way down a one-way
street and through a police barricade. Their car was impounded because it
was not registered (which I think might mean that they hadn't paid the
huge import duties), but other than that there were no consequences.

Americans seemed to be fairly well liked and tolerated, in a very greedy
self-interested sort of way. I heard a story about an american couple who
were kidnapped in the Nicoya Peninsula, which is extremely unusual. The
story behind this is that they were zealous environmentalists, and had
been bribing local officials to prevent them from issuing building and
development permits. The local populace, who were poor, wanted further
development so they could have more jobs and bring more money into the
local economy. The american couple refused to compromise, and the
kidnapping was the eventual result.

Cellular phone numbers are issued by a government monopoly, with the
result that new ones take years to get and they go for hundreds of dollars
on the black market. I was told that its OK if you carry a gun, although
killing someone in self defense would get you in trouble. There was a
decent police presence in San Jose, but apparently the police, like the
population, are spread much more thinly elsewhere.

The stories I heard confirmed an impression of CR as a place with a
typical latin american government that is large, inefficient, and corrupt,
resulting in practice in a society that is fairly laissez-faire if you are
willing to pay occasional bribes and not stop the locals from making
money. Basically, stay out of the way of the government beauracracy and
they won't mess with you. If you want to run an above-ground business,
there are a lot of hurdles, but if you operate in cash, or run a web-based
business and don't use local bank accounts, you'll be left alone. Not
exactly a libertarian Zion, but a definite step in the right direction.
Contrast this with the US, which not only has a large and somewhat
inefficient government (although more efficient than CR), but has many
agencies which actively work to suppress the black market and the freedoms
of its citizens.

This fact made me wonder if I've been too narrow in my search for
countries. Freedom can be had under a somewhat socialist government as
long as it is willing to leave you alone (which includes not taxing
residents on offshore income). If non-citizen residents have full rights
and the state is fairly respectful of those rights, and if governmental
interference mostly consists of tax-n-spend (welfare, subsidized
education, subsidized housing) as opposed to the

Symptom: Socks, even formerly clean ones, have a bluish tint and
strange odor when taken off at night.

Explanation: Inside of shoes has become moldy.

Solution: Throw out shoes & socks when opportunity presents itself.

Wednesday I awoke early and shlepped to Dave's hotel to go sport fishing,
something I'd never done before. We drove to Quepos, while Dave quizzed
our driver about local conditions and the details of the boat, and I
smiled and nodded and pretended I knew what the hell they were talking
about. We embarked on the 31 foot long Bluefin
III, with twin 315hp engines and a brace of local fishermen. It was
grey and drizzly the whole day, which (while annoying) seemed appropriate,
and was more fun at sea than it would have been staring at the windows in
my smelly cabin.

I stared at the water and thought about islands and boats, long romantic
sailing adventures with Katy, eating fresh fish and fruit and exploring
remote islands. I watched with great interest the details of our
trawling, the way the lines were set, the hooks were baited. Deep sea
sportfishing is a whole different kettle of fish than the placid lake
variety I am used to. The fish are much larger and stronger, and put up a
long, tiring fight - so much so that there is a special rotating chair in
the back of the boat where the fisherman can sit and battle, winning by
endurance.

We only caught one all day, but it was a huge one, a mahi-mahi that leaped
out of the water as it grabbed our bait, and fought Dave and I (taking
shifts) for half an hour. I had pictured boring grey fish, but it was
yellow and blue and exotic, like a thriving aquarium escapee. It weighed
80 pounds and was almost as long as I am tall. Hearing the snickers, may
I remind the audience that while that ain't much for a guy it is plenty
for a fish! We took the standard
smiling-while-holding-huge-fish pictures and I watched in fascination
as one of the locals skinned and filetted our catch.

While we sighted sailfins a few times (Quepos is the #1 sailfin area in
the world), we didn't manage to land one, and returned home, slightly
disappointed but generally feeling that one is a whole lot more than zero.
We took the fillets to Dave's hotel, which had a fabulous restaraunt, and
had fresh fish for dinner.

My clothes (including my single pair of pants) were soaked, and when I got
back to my cabin I hung them outside, but in the humid air they stayed
wet. I set off for San Jose in the morning wearing swimming trunks over a
pair of camo long underwear. It had rained all night and it rained all
day, causing several mudslides which reduced the road to one lane. The
rivers I crossed were brown and swollen, flooding some nearby farms, and I
mentally noted that elevation and drainage would be important when
choosing land.

I didn't stop for gas, so I when I got to the rental agency in San Jose I
asked for directions. They degenerated quickly into hand gestures and
"uhs" because of the difficulty of navigating in the city, and I asked the
agent to hop in the car and navigate for me. He locked up the shop and
did so, and while filling up we had a good conversation about 9/11, the US
reaction, and the close-mindedness of some american patriots. His cousin,
who lives in the US, believes the US can do no wrong. I cited the events
in which a past Costa Rican president recieved the Nobel Peace
Prize for diplomatically settling a major central american conflict
which the US wished to "solve" through the escalation of force ("maybe if
we keep giving rebels arms and money, these incessant wars will end").

After dropping off the car, I found a nearby hotel, where I got a nice
room away from the street and negotiated with the maid in my minimal
spanish for the washing and drying of my clothes ("Mi pantalones tiene
mucho agua. Tienes un...uh...uh...", "Si, un [word I've already
forgotten]). My room has a dehumidifier, so perhaps my shoes will finally
dry, although I'm still throwing them out when I get home.

In the morning, the maid made me breakfast (perks of cheap labor), and
I walked off. My destination was San Jose, to check out of my hotel and
get a car to go exploring. The City Club, where I had planned to call a
cab, didn't open for another hour, but since I love walking in general,
especially as a way to explore an area, I didn't mind too much. I headed
off into the hills as a mild drizzle began. Eventually I found a bus
which supposedly went to San Jose, and belching pollution the whole while,
it performed as advertised.

The travel agent in my hotel was only too happy to help me rent a car and
make hotel reservations near Quepos, a sportfishing town just north of
Manual Antonio, one of Costa Rica's most famous national parks. With much
wielding of my Amex card, I paid high but reasonable prices for the
car/insurance (given the conditions of CR's roads and the insanity of its
drivers) and crappy gringo prices for a room (a mistake I didn't make
again). The brand-new SUV (400 miles) was ready in less than an hour, and
I was on the road towards the pacific.

Left alone with my thoughts, I began seriously missing my girlfriend for
the first time on the trip. Travelling unaccompanied is also very
inefficient moneywise, and I wondered whether this extra week would be
worth it. It was rainy and cloudy, which didn't help lift my spirits any.
The roads, despite what I'd heard, were very good for most of the four
hour trip (although they were often 2 lanes, with large trucks that slowed
traffic), until about 20KM north of Quepos. Then they became iffier,
patches of nasty rutted dirt, and one lane bridges with massively potholed
approaches, all of which had larger bridges being constructed
adjacently.

Thinking about the roaming lifestyles I'd encountered and read about,
"Perpetual Tourism" and expatriation, I pondered about the nature of
"home". In the states, it meant a place where I was close to a lot of
people and a lot of things, where I spent a lot of time and had a lot of
interaction and paid a lot for the privelege. Here, it would be a safe
haven, a place I returned to for solitude and safety, a base of
operations, a place for work that didn't involve physical interaction.
Which was the right kind of home for me? Issues with the former include
worry about government interference, high prices, pollution, and
distraction. I worry about the latter being too lonely, not stimulating
enough.

As the rain fell and I made my way through the deserted countryside, I
thought about community as an antidote to loneliness. If I lived here, I
would want to buy a large rural parcel of land, preferably with one or
more houses. Rent out rooms by the month for libertarians and like-minded
folk visiting from the states, working for projects like LFC, etc. Lease
land to those who want to stay permanently. Have central community space
(a cohousing type setup. "Liberty Ranch"
(growing and exporting premium-quality freedom since 2002). Besides the
human interaction, it would be much more efficient to share resources like
a satellite net connection, landing strip, plane/helicopter/boat, etc.

To ensure stimulation, I considered the idea of high-efficiency
interaction. Go to ISIL,
BARGE, Burning Man, Pennsic, and other locations where a
lot of interaction occurs over a short period of time. Combined with the
internet and (hopefully) a reasonable flow of visitors, perhaps this would
suffice. And it would leave worktime (writing and programming) relatively
uninterrupted. Batch processing, in essence.

I saw Movimiento Libertario signs in a few places along the way.
Woo-hoo!

The desk clerk in the hotel has trouble believing that I am 25 (as opposed
to 18) and american (as opposed to latino). The first I am used to, the
second I expect to be. I fall asleep at seven or eight pm, and wake up at
midnight. I read the guidebook for an hour before falling back asleep.
It rains incessantly for the rest of the night, and I worry that I'll have
to stay in my hotel all day, but it breaks at about 8am and I am
relieved.

In the morning (Tuesday), I check out of my hotel, and pay for the
previous nights dinner. The desk clerk doesn't have exact change and
gives me extra money - quite a contrast from the Ticos in San Jose
(cabbies especially) who seem to often use lack of change to squeeze out a
little more profit. I hit the road and head south to Manuel Antonio, one of CR's
most famous destinations. The way is lined with hotels, obviously
catering to foreigners and americans, and I stop at a deli to pick up
lunch. The few views I catch of the pacific are lovely, and I toy with
the idea of staying here for the rest of my trip. I park by the beach,
which has a moderate contingent of surfers and tourists (although far less
than the dry season, I'm sure).

I quickly spot a familiar face: Jose, the tour guide for all the poker
tours. I hear my name called, and see an american couple, here for the
poker tournament, who had mentioned staying a few extra days. The husband
is going sportfishing tomorrow, and would love some company (his wife will
be along but not fishing) and a partner to split the cost. This area is extremely famous for
sportfishing, and a day on the ocean sounds like great fun, so I
agree. Forget about Nicoya, I'll see it next time. We agree to meet at
7:15am the next morning in front of his hotel, and I head to the park
entrance. I pay for a map and a ticket with approx. the right number of
colones, and they insist on giving me exact change. I am offered a guide,
but I demur, not wanting anyone to impinge upon my experience.

The park is a lush jungle, and I see spider monkeys dancing around in the
trees. The foliage is too thick to see the ocean, but the surf pounds
audibly in the distance as I scan the trees for movement. I stop briefly
at the park's beaches, but as I suspect that there would be objections to
my swimming naked, I stay on shore. I am willing to tolerate clothes much
of the time, but swimming is not one of them. I later see a (young,
attractive) topless girl, but as human culture tends to view breasts and
penises quite differently, I don't take this as evidence that my suspicion
was incorrect. I miss california.

As I wander through the park, I decide its rather ironic that I am
exploring a natural area being protected from development, when my goals
are to create havens of civilization and infrastructure. While I enjoy
the natural setting, I am more interested in studying the electricity,
telephone, internet, water, and road systems in the area than the monkeys,
sloths, and lizards that live there.

I head up to Cathedral Point, a small landmass which used to be an island,
but due to the deposit of sediment has built a larger and larger land
bridge, becoming a peninsula. The path is steep, and part of it has
turned into a waterfall, but its worth it for a view of the pacific at the
top, where there is a small platform with a bench. The phrase "The
Importance of User Interface" pops into my head as I sit down, knowing
that I will write about this view rather than the others (some better) I
passed on the trail because they didn't have anyplace to sit.

There is a couple up there smoking cigarettes, and thinking of the
computer in my bag I ponder how humanity brings their addictions
everywhere, even to paradise. The small islands in the distance bring me
again to the issues of sovereignty, inependence, and loneliness with which
I've been wrestling. Ever since I began yearning for a libertarian Zion,
islands have held special meaning for me. Despite political realities to
the country, it feels like every island is deeply
independent, standing alone, with a dramatically explicit boundary
between it and the world.

My favorite present from Katy, my artistic girlfriend, is a small model
island, complete with palm tree, which floats in a glass of water above my
desk. To me, the glass emphasises the loneliness of independence. Is it
possible to be free from the pernicious influence of governments without
being cut off from the world? Security and convenience, strength and
loneliness, friendship and entanglements, every coin has two faces. I
have experimented with one strategy, surrounding myself by people and by
civilization, paying taxes to a government I detest, worrying about having
my assets seized by the policy or a frivolous lawsuit. It seems like a
good time to try an alternative strategy, but I worry about being too
deprived of human interaction.

Community and high-intensity interactions are my proposed solutions to the
problem of loneliness. Being here alone and watching the endless parade
of couples reminds me how much of a difference my girlfriend's support
makes. In a simplistic model, two people provide infinitely more
interaction than one. And if I can convince others to join me, if there
is a market for a rural libertarian community in Costa Rica (or wherever I
end up) then I will not be isolated.

As these thoughts pass through my mind, I pull out my laptop and begin to
type, while the pacific glitters in the sun and the endless parade of
waves, agents of entropy, hammer at the rocks below.

After the park, I find a hotel on the beach and get a room for two nights.
I arrange for them to knock on my door at 6:45am, since I have no alarm
(even on my computer). I take a delightful shower, make a rare change of
clothes (I packed light), and head on a search for internet access. There
are a lot more surf bums hanging around, and a football game has sprung up
on the beach. The Pan and Net serves seafood and has a modem connection
to a single computer. I wait in line, and spend half an hour online,
getting the details of my flight back, arranging for a ride, emailing Adam
about friday, and making a very businesslike proposal of marriage to my
girlfriend with frequent mention of the word "citizenship".

I head back to my hotel, which is a long, lonely, romantic walk down the
beach alone. The landmark to mark my turnoff is a bent tree which leans
way out over the beach, so I climb it and sit and think while the rain
drizzles and the surf pounds. The walk turned my thoughts back to the
omnipresent subject of loneliness and the conflict between my
gregariousness and independence. How bad would it be, and how much is
worth it? I think about my semester in Budapest. My lack of language
isolated me from the locals, but I had 35 other american math students to
interact with, and I visited my girlfriend in england every month, and
together those were enough.

The islands which glint in the moonlight remind me of my ultimate
objective, and I feel positive that I would be willing to suffer a great
deal of loneliness for that. The thought of living alone, on an island
that is completely mine, quietly building infrastructure and waiting for
others to choose to join me, is a serene one. True freedom would be worth
long periods of isolation, if the eventual result was a free country. But
how much loneliness can I accept for this little step towards freedom,
this slight disentanglement from government?

Still wondering, I clamber down and go to sleep.

I knew Adam from a semi-private online site called Dodge City, a
subsidiary of Laissez-Faire City. LFC
was an organization that had some publicity in the
mid-nineties for gathering money in a trust to found a free
city. Unfortunately, it couldn't find a willing government with
reasonable land, and the project lost steam. It was reinvented as a project
to create an independent, sovereign state in cyberspace, with physical
territory as a longer-term goal. Dodge City was the most visible arm of
the project to outsiders, being a sort of web-based BBS with message
groups, internal email, and access to various LFC projects being tested,
such as an internal stock exchange.

I can sympathize with LFC's general course of action quite a bit, since
physical territory is my long-term goal, and I see cryptoanarchy as a
useful short-term path to decrease the power of governments. However,
good as they are on philosophy, it seemed from my experiences that LFC and
DC had some serious issues with implementation. Being an argumentative
sort, quick to criticize what I see as hypocrisy, I quickly got into some
heated arguments online under my nickname of Rational Anarchist (Rash for
short).

Despite mouthing libertarian philosophy, I found the individual in charge
of DC (we'll call him "Ben") to be autocratic, angered by being
questioned, flawed in his understanding, and in the habit of censoring
messages he didn't like. Some examples will serve to illustrate the
point. LFC is funded by grants from individuals who agree to be
"Founders" for around $5K each. The ostensible purpose is to create a
suite of services for individuals. However, at the time I was on DC, a
program was being developed by LFC which involved spending a substantial
amount of money to sponsor teams of kids across the world on internet
projects. Given that the main services which LFC had been created to
provide were still not working, and the rate of improvement seemed to be
very slow, one DC user asked the obvious question "Why are you spending
all this money on a long-term program when none of the services you
promised for founders work yet, instead of hiring more programmers?".

Rather than receiving reasonable explanations (or even silence), he was
attacked, not for his arguments, but for questioning those in charge. I
stepped in and argued vociferously on his behalf, and received several
private emails from people who were glad to see someone standing up for a
change. There were other similar occurences during my brief tenure of
immediate hostility towards any doubts or negatively phrased question. I
found the management's reactions to be extremely unprofessional, and they
greatly increased my doubts in the whole venture ("Methinks thou dost
protest too much").

As an example of Ben's inconsistent vision, consider the Bot, which is an
account in the DC system. The Bot is surrounded by a great deal of
rhetoric about how it is completely anonymous and independent, divorced
from the real world, unrelated to conventional physical structures, etc.
This is a pretty standard description of an online persona. But DC then
goes on to insist that a cardinal rule of the system is that each human
individual only have one Bot! This association with physical reality
directly contradicts the previous claims, besides being impossible to
monitor or enforce without destroying the very anonymity that is the
foundation of the Bot's definition. Unenforceable rules reduce users
faith in a system - an important lesson that the governments of the world
have failed to learn. I had hoped for more sense here, but was
disappointed.

My biggest arguments in DC were in regards to something called the Digital
Monetary Trust, an anonymous online banking scheme being developed by LFC.
While I think this is wonderful in theory, I had some disagreements with
the architecture of the system, as described in some publically available
documents. It seemed to me that the DMT displayed the same faults I saw
in DC: it sounded good on the surface, but a close examination revealed a
design that betrayed deep biases towards centralization and control, and
failed to make full use of the possibilities of computers and
cryptography. Both enterprises seemed to be designed by people who, while
proclaiming their allegience to the new world, had one foot firmly planted
in the old.

I wrote a critique of the DMT, which included some of these psychological
evaluations. I was attacked for the latter, with little regard for my
cryptographic comments (and what there was was from people who clearly
didn't understand them). There was even the suggestion (which I found
very amusing) that I was from some mysterious governmental agency, trying
to sabotage their project. The eventual result was that my account was
suspended due to my arguments and criticisms, which I found extremely
hypocritical given the supposed libertarian ideals of the place. Also the
fact that they silence dissenters is a bad indication as to the viability,
honor, and realism of the project. My attention being taken up by other
things, I ignored DC, and although I toyed with the idea of creating an
anti-DC site, other projects took priority.

The one correspondence I kept up from DC was with Adam Selene. He was
computer-savvy and understood cryptography and security, which many of
those on DC did not (this boggled my mind, these being fundamental
technologies for accomplishing their goals). He was intelligent,
rational, and philosophically an anarchist, which stood in stark contrast
to the sort of laissez-faire in theory, fascism in practice endorsed by
Ben. I expected to find DC and LFC swarming with Adam-like people, but
since there was just him, I kept in touch.

He had mentioned moving to Costa Rica, so when the trip came up I dropped
him a line. It turned out that he had moved there a month or two ago, so
we agreed to meet. While he does not work directly for LFC due to
differences in philosophy, he is currently working for a company which is
socially associated and located in the same buildings, and lives nearby.
Thus he was able to serve as an introduction to the LFC community...

The City Club could, if properly designed, have functioned as a social hub
not only for LFC but for other technomads and libertarian expatriates.
It seems as though this was not its intention, however I think it is
important not to underestimate the power of communities to help social and
political movements. Their Consulado across the street, a large complex
with offices and housing, was more of a communal center, but being walled
and guarded it was private and internally oriented. The impression I got
from the City Club was somewhat confirmed by other descriptions of the LFC
(and especially DC) scene: political bickering, secretive personalities,
and an internalist perspective that seemed paradoxical for what is
ultimately a political movement.

As an example of the internalism, one of the issues that I had raised with
the DMT was trust. The DMT's cryptographic structure means that the user
must trust the DMT completely, despite alternate schemes (sketched in my
critique) allowing for minimal trust. It seemed to me that the DMT was
focused on a paradoxical market too paranoid to trust traditional physical
banks, yet not so paranoid as to be concerned about the trustworthiness of
the DMT itself. One of the LFC programmers addressed this concern with
the DMT in a conversation during my visit by saying "Well, I lived with
[one of the principal authors of the DMT] for several months, and I know I
trust him". I made the obvious response: "Sure, but isn't people who have
lived with one of the principals for several months a pretty small
market?". He agreed, but I found the fact that he bothered to present
personal evidence to be reflective of the conflict between LFC as a tool
for the in-group and LFC as a tool to change the world.

A similar piece of evidence was a brief discussion with another LFC
programmer about the acrimony surrounding my presence in DC. He said that
the DC folks don't expect to be questioned because they mostly all know
each other. Its their baby, and they resent outsiders telling them how to
run it. The fact that they are attempting to get users to pony up money
for their services and planning an eventual major rollout clashes with
this attitude, and I was one result of that clash. Real users expect real
products, and real clients expect professionalism - and a response to
comments on features and security different than "How dare you question
us?"

I found it both surprising and amusing that Rash's brief crusade against
hypocrisy had been a big deal at the time, with a lot of DC folks getting
pretty pissed off. Rash was even mentioned once during a conversation by
someone who had no idea that I was he, causing Adam to cast an amused
glance my way. Fortunately I was not the only one fed up by DC's
censorship, and some major changes were occuring while I was there,
including DC being weaned from the LFC tit.

The evolution of the LFC/DC structure embodies (to my mind) their flawed
vision, so I think its worth going into. Muni, or the LFC Municipal
Corporation, is funded by money from the LFC International Trust, which
gets its money in turn from those who agreed to be Founders (I believe).
Muni then funds all the LFC projects, including their stock exchange, PGP
webmail system, and DC. To the economically minded folks out there
scratching their heads, I agree with you. This government-like
agglomeration of heirarchal subsidies creates a poor incentive structure,
failing to harness the spirit of laissez-faire competition which these
folks claim is their guiding force.

While the whole thing is funded by voluntary payments (unlike a
government), the bulk of those payments currently is from founderships,
not the provision of services. So the main incentive for DC, for example
(inasmuch as they have any incentive, given their lack of competition and
Muni subsidy) is to get people to sign up as LFC Founders - not to make
those Founders happy later. Adam had been a staunch opponent of this
system, and while they eventually came around to his side, the fact that
any argument on the subject was necessary raises some major questions in
my mind about the LFC team's real understanding of their stated
principles.

While I was there, the whole structure was being shaken up. Muni was
divesting itself of its subsidiaries, including DC, letting them sink or
swim without its funding. Muni itself was planning to specialize in one
service, and its subsidies from LFCIT are scheduled to end at the end of
the year. Laissez-Faire City's internal system will, finally, be a little
more appropriate for their name, and I predict and hope that it will
increase their rate of progress.

I learned that others had also been bothered by DC presenting a negative
impression of LFC to outsiders. My read on why DC became so prominent is
that DC provided a concrete, interactive community, with news updates and
discussion boards and access to LFC services. This filled a sorely-needed
market niche, and caused DC to appear as more of the public face of LFC
than some considered desirable.

I was far from the only person to be bothered by the censorship on DC, and
with the Muni splitup other news forums were being planned. I was told
that Ben had said something like "No one will read or use unmoderated [ie
uncensored] news forums - they'll be full of spam and flames and
arguments!". While Usenet is indeed full of spam, flames, and arguments,
it is rather far from the truth that no one reads or uses it. I look
forward to participating in LFC forums where deletion is not an available
form of response to criticism of the establishment.

The LFC activists embody these ideals, as they have chosen to live in a
country with more freedom, to free their finances from funding the
terrorist american government, and to dedicate their professional efforts
towards increasing global freedom. They have demonstrated true
committment to their causes. I may see flaws in their understanding, but
I have the utmost respect for their courage and their choice of vocation.
"Real programmers ship", and it used to be said that "cypherpunks write
code", but as that no longer seems to be true, someone sure needs to.

I had an interesting discussion of intellectual property in the
Libertarian/Anarcho-Capitalist setting with Josh. Josh was concerned with
the ability of an author to profit from his reputation, and to receive
voluntary donations from readers, both of which require authentication of
authorship. After some arguments stemming from a gut anti-IP reaction on
my part, Josh helped me realize my mistake. Much of my anti-IP belief
stems from the lack of excludability. Unlike a hammer, if I have a
digital copy of a book, and I give you a digital copy, we both still have
it (as does everyone else with a copy), so having a third-party (such as
the government) prohibit that copy is prohibiting a voluntary transaction
which causes no coercive harm to others. However, known authorship, and a
revenue stream associated with known authorship, which Josh was interested
in protecting, do have the property of exclusivity. If I was the sole
author of book A, you cannot also be the sole author. One of our claims
must be false.

These desirable institutions can be accomplished solely through voluntary
contracts and the libertarian anti-fraud provision. Consider a
contractual statement associated with a book which says "The author is XXX
and the bank account created for him to receive proceeds from the book,
which may now be owned by someone else, is YYY, click here to send ten
cents". If XXX or YYY are false, this constitutes fraud. The author can
help prove his authorship through the use of an anarcho-capitalist
institution which authenticates such connections. For example, he could
send in drafts periodically, signed by his private key, or use some other
system.

These enable the author to use capitalist funding methods such as selling
stock or bonds based on his current or future revenue streams, letting his
reputation provide leverage for future projects. Hernando De Soto's _The
Mystery of Capital_, which was clearly an influence on Josh (and I skimmed
briefly while there) suggests that many of the economic difficulties of
the third world lie in an inability to use such leverage, due to insecure
property rights and inefficient government institutions related to such
rights.

I had dinner with the City Clerk, his girlfriend, and Adam, and we
discussed a number of things, including how CR is as a residence for libs
(my data on that topic in a seperate email). The topic of 9/11 came up,
and (as with discussion on expatriation), I found points of view that I
had argued vociferously in the states taken for granted here. We
expressed mutual horror at the bloodthirsty jingoism coming from the
Objectivist camp, and it was suggested that crises such as this reveal who
the true libertarians are and who are closet statists. While the current
tightening of state power is unfortunate, perhaps it will have the
positive result of impelling people to leave (me, for example), and cause
eventual failure/revolution/drastic change sooner.

Adam mentioned that Grenada's cash-for-citizenship program was just
suspended due to worries about terrorism, and suggested that I take
advantage of Dominica's (the other well-known, above-board, low cost
program) as soon as possible. I recall that Dominica's program involves
citizenship for one's spouse at no extra cost, so perhaps this is an
auspicious time for Katy and I to get married. Purely for convenience, of
course, as both of us have serious objections to that state/religious
institution, with its oft-hypocritical undying vows and high failure
rate.

Several of the LFC folks, including Adam, seem to speak very little
spanish (less than I've been able to scrape up in memories from middle
school), which was a bit strange to me. Communication seems like such a
basic skill. I did without it in Budapest, but that was due to the utter
peculiarity of the language and not lack of trying. I can't imagine
living in a romance-language country and not at least working on the
basics.

Besides the City Club and Consulado near San Jose, many LFC folks have
land on the Nicoya peninsula, and some live there. LFC has a project to
develop housing there, but its on hold while they work on other things. I
was quite interested in it as a community sort of thing, and hope to check
it out next time I'm in town.

After talking late into the night, I look for the suggested guest bed.
The first door I opened was to a room with a bed with a woman in it.
After briefly thinking to myself "Wow, what hospitality!", I realized that
this must be the wrong room, and recognized my hostess, who pointed next
door. Apologizing, I entered the right room and crashed.

Note: LFC has since been dissolved, with the particular individual and
style of business which concerned me being the major reason. For an
excellent account of this, see
Scamdog's page.

My flight is being paid for by the Casinos Europa - I am ostensibly
traveling for a poker tournament, which will occupy my first week (of
two). The poker world is small, united by the major tournaments, and
after I arrive in LA to change planes, I see my first acquaintance (Kathy
Kolberg) before I even reach my new gate. I see several more at the gate.
I get little sleep on the long flight, and after checking into my hotel, I
head for the casino, where I will spend 50 hours during the following week
to qualify for my comp.

The combination of the attractive comp offer and the good reputation of
the previous tournament drew over a hundred americans, many of whom I
knew, including several friends from my area. I spent the week in typical
poker tournament fashion, playing most of the time, sleeping at odd
intervals, and being annoyed by cigarette smoke. I had a paint fume mask
from home depot, and there were a couple occasions when there were many
smokers at my table and it was worth the uncomfortableness to wear it.
It seemed to help a little.

Costa Ricans, like many in the developing world, love to smoke, and (with
the exception of a few world-class players like the Brenes'), play fairly
badly. The owner of the casino, "The Don", loves to gamble, and during
the tournament he played in a very large no-limit game. No-limit holdem
is my specialty, but unfortunately (being worried about safety) I had not
brought enough money to play in this game, so I stuck to the small games.
However, I found out how I could deposit money in the states and have it
available as casino credit, and planned eagerly to return and take on the
locals.

Starting at the airport in LA, the predominantly male poker players had
discussed taking advantage of the cheap cost of labor by patronizing the
legal local
bordellos, and the infamous Del Rey was a frequent destination
after late-night poker games.

The first night of the tournament, The Don was at my starting table, doing
business constantly in whispered asides. To make the players feel
welcome, he had hired 20 or 30 gorgeous young Costa Rican models, all
wearing black dresses, to stand around, approximately one for each table.
They fetched drinks and chatted with the players and generally were quite
distracting. There are evolutionary hooks implanted deep in the male
brain which shout for attention when hot female bodies are in ones field
of vision, and I found it annoying that I could not override this
programming.

Speaking of cute young things, The Don keeps a large number of golden
retrievers, and as a result has an endless supply of puppies. The first
night, he had many of them groomed and brought to the tournament to show
them off. As if 19 year-old models in black dresses weren't distracting
enough already, imagine them with cute puppies wearing red bows nestled in
their arms. One of them, having ditched its owner (what was it thinking?)
trotted by my seat, and I scooped it up and held it for an hour or so.
Occasionally I would show it my cards, pause as if consulting it, and
throw them away disgustedly.

While it was in my lap, I noticed a small pile of shit on a nearby floor,
clearly the result of a puppy choosing to be natural rather than cute.
It was cleaned up after five minutes or so, and in my mind helped add to
the "You're not in Kansas anymore" feeling of the whole place. A woman
eventually came by for my new friend, and first asked "Do you want to
buy?". Having recently been tested as allergic to 118 out of 130
substances, including cat and dog dander, I had to demur, and she took him
away saying he needed to eat.

I managed to explore the city a little during the week, and found it dingy
and crowded, although small and easy to walk around. Checking out a
McDonalds, I was amused to see it offer "McInternet", half an hour free
with a happy meal or super-sized combo. Even cooler was a "Movimiento
Libertario" (Costa Rica's libertarian party) billboard which I passed
every day on the way from my hotel to the casino. The local women,
especially the young ones, had two propensities which went quite well
together: wearing very tight clothing and being gorgeous.

The american organizers of the event had arranged daily tours for those
who were interested. While I had been too busy socializing and getting in
my 50 hours of play to attend, on saturday after the tournament had ended
I went on the day-long trip to Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in
the world. It rumbles daily, and we saw clouds of smoke as it erupted.
Our main destination was a local hot-springs resort which takes advantage
of the geothermal heat. It was quite posh, with a score of sculpted
pools, waterfalls, and very professional landscaping. While we ate dinner
after nightfall, Arenal spoke again, and we saw glowing red lava flowing
down the sides. I slept through the drive back, and in the morning,
called Adam Selene.