The intellectual superiority in this discussion has been pretty annoying. I tinker, but i'm not a coder. Your technical knowledge is undoubtedly superior to mine, but with a little time and study, I am capable of understanding.
What my life and career has taught me to understand though is human nature. Ultimately, if you do anything that affects a large group of people that defies human nature, it is doomed to fail.
For example, whilst we appreciate the cypherpunk mission - the idea "all bytes are equal" defies human nature and universal morality. Especially when we consider things like images of abuse (now) or plans for personal issue mass murder weapons (in the future - nuclear or biological).
Ignoring this reality will alienate 99% of the population and undermine the spread of the privacy tools and freedom money that we all need, which it is important to remember, we all care about here. Whilst "we" may never align on this issue, we do on so many others.
Life is a messy balance - if a system is technically perfect but socially unusable, it fails its purpose and will be marginalised. I believe Hal understood this.
