From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Tue Jan 08 2002 - 01:35:28 MST
On 1/7/02 9:39 PM, "Max More" <max@maxmore.com> wrote:
>
> However, I *have*
> noticed that amongst the hard line libertarian voices, there are a growing
> number of less committed views. These (like mine) may frequently sound
> libertarian, but are more pragmatic and more interested in results than in
> clinging to any particular ideology for the sake of "consistency" or
> ideological purity.
I would have to echo that sentiment. I don't care about ideological purity
as much as I care about good long-term results. I tend to default to
libertarian principles lacking a clearly better alternative, as there is
good reason to believe that it is the least damaging alternative lacking
specific information that would allow one to select an obvious "best"
solution.
I tentatively feel these days that we (in a universal extropians list sense)
have a sufficiently good grasp of the social, political, and economic
dynamics that we could come up with a good approximation of the best
solution to just about any problem, given a working definition of "best
solution" (a difficult task in itself). Even though I have anarchist
tendencies when I'm cranky, I would be happy with just about any form of
government that managed to keep the real tax rate of everyone below 5% (with
such a low tax rate, the types of government possible are largely restricted
to "friendly" types anyway). There are certain costs associated with a
proper anarchy that probably exceed the cost of having minimal central
government, so while proper anarchy sounds fine in theory, I have my doubts
with respect to it being the most efficient structure.
That's enough late night rambling in a medication induced haze. My
apologies if it is incoherent. :-)
Cheers,
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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