From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Thu Oct 17 2002 - 20:09:32 MDT
Samantha Atkins wrote:
> spike66 wrote:
>
>> As before, I presupposed you would
>> compensate away much of the government's power as
>> transparency increased. This is a critical point.
>> No government can be trusted with the power that
>> transparency would provide.
>
> How would you "compensate away the power" and how would you keep other
> dangerous concentrations of power from arising and abusing the system?
We vote it away, Samantha. Many of our laws are guard-rail
type laws: they are in place to help prevent the commission
of a crime. Drug laws, instance. The main reason we have
them is to prevent dopers from stealing to buy dope. So
if you can prevent theft by other means, there is no longer
a compelling reason to have anti-drug laws.
Gene mentioned the problem of carrying a lot of cash and
having it confiscated as drug money. If we had no drug laws,
drug money would be just as legitimately owned as any other
variety.
Another example is speed laws. We don't need them. We
only need laws against driving unsafely. Depending on the
circs, it might be perfectly safe to haul.
>>> Technology is an asymmetrical enabler, since favouring centralism. Why
>>> giving up privacy, which is irreversible, in face of statistically
>>> insignificant threats? The mind boggles.
I like to think of this system as providing statistically
significant opportunities.
Consider for example, a kind of mini-borg that could
develop. Unlike the Star Trek variety, this one would
be totally voluntary. You will not be assimilated
unless you want to, resistance is welcome.
I got thinking about this one day after I had visited
the hardware store to get some materials to repair my
sprinkler system. I passed by a broken sprinkler in
front of a public building that was spewing water. I
had half a mind to just stop and fix it. Of course I
would have been sued. But if we had some means of forming
a huge interconnected metaman that pooled its talents,
and just dealt with problems as it witnessed them,
the improvement in efficiency would be difficult to
imagine.
In the broken sprinkler example, a repairhuman would
need to be called, she would need to drive her van
or truck to the scene, fix the thing. The bill would
need to be a couple hundred bucks, just to cover the
repair of a 2 dollar part. I could have fixed it for
practically nothing.
Back to the problem of power abuse: we really can stop
this. For instance, consider speeding. Everyone here
has done it. Well, ok, everyone other than Eliezer and
Johnny Grigg. What if we got a ticket *every single time*
we exceeded the limit? Would not a political candidate
arise who would be elected on nothing besides a promise
to remove speed limit laws?
As surveillance increases, I expect the legal system
to compensate, first by removing absurd guard-rail laws.
spike
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