From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 10 2002 - 11:38:16 MDT
On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 10:17:29PM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> > One has to ask: why? One reason, I speculate, is that humans are imbued
> > with the "selfish gene" meme - a condition that can be described as a
I don't think the key problem with libertarianism is selfishness. It's
concentration of power, and primate status hierarchies, coupled with the fact
that "give me liberty or give me death" is not in fact the preference of most
of the human race. Look, almost any story about some post-apocalypse deals
with who takes charge, whether an inspired leader or a brutal strongman or a
democratic vote. "Yee-ha, the Feds are dead, let's form free-market
libertopia" just doesn't work psychologically.
Note Somalia has clan structures and elders and some semi-enlightened
warlords.
> "will there ever be a society based mostly or completely on non-coercive
> interactions? And how can we get (closer) to it?".
I really question whether anarchy can be stable without some strong
stabilizing force. Given a large group of agents, some coalition can form and
start bossing around the other agents, unless they're protected by geography
or a strong willingness to die rather than submit. A willingness which is
missing from most people.
> rational selfish actors can form non-coercive societies. The problem is
> the lack of rationality, which causes people to choose suboptimal
Is it rational to fight and die rather than pay taxes and live?
-xx- Damien X-)
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