JoshCahoon@cs.com wrote:
> "In a message dated 8/5/01 12:06:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> reason@exratio.com writes:
> <<
> > > http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html
> I answered "yes" to all of those questions. Does this make me idealistic or
> unrealistic? (Or possibly callous).
>
> I mean, answering any of those questions with anything other than yes means
> that you believe there are some aspects of life in which people shouldn't be
> allowed to make their own decisions; shouldn't be allowed to rise or fall on
> their own merits. How does preventing this lead to a better society?
>
> Reason
> http://www.exratio.com/ >>"
>
> Re draft: It's not conceivable to you that a war, if won by a particular
> side, would lead to a better outcome for humanity than if the other side won,
> and that a draft might affect the outcome?
Affect, yes, but which way? Forcing all of our resources under a
central directive, with the increased likelihood of more casualties,
as opposed to letting people come up with their own solutions and
increase our technological edge over just about any enemy...at least
for the USA, I believe the draft now does more harm than good in that
respect. It will also help force us out of wars we should not be
fighting (like Vietnam), when those in power get incorrect notions that
the public at large sees through.
> Re free speech: It's not conceivable that public airing of military or
> patented information might be bad for humanity? That it might not be in the
> best interest of humanity to allow unrestrained libel?
The purpose of patents is to communicate the ideas to the public, so
broadcasting them is actually a good thing. As for military - if our
own public broadcasters have as good data on sensitive military info as
someone we're waging war against, our enemies are screwed to the point
that this won't make a difference anyway. That said, it is the
military's responsibility, not the public's, to keep their secret data
secret.
> Re borders: It's not conceivable that a completely open Mexico-U.S. border
> would lead to a mass exodus from Mexico and might just possibly have some
> deleterious effects on one or both countries?
You mean like how people wouldn't die trying to cross illegally, and
more workers could generate wealth in the US and send a fraction of it
(their paycheck, less US taxes) back home to help build up Mexico?
> Re minimum wage: It's not conceivable that a repeal of the minimum wage might
> cause greater poverty and other unwanted effects (such as more inter-class
> strife)? Economics is no science. You ought not be so sure you know with such
> assuredness the outcome of tweaking the parameters.
This one I'll grant. The perceived value of brute labor, from the
perspective of MBAed managers with no concept of honest labor, is often
less than its actual value. Besides, this helps subsidize robotics:
if it's cheaper to build a machine to do a job than to task some human
with boring, rote, mechanical work...
> Re foreign aid: It's not coneivable that foreign aid might be better in the
> long run for giver and receiver than its absence and that privately funded
> foreign aid just might not be sufficient for this betterment?
It's a good idea in theory. In practice, it rarely actually goes to
the ends that it was intended. Take the large fraction of aid
shipments to African countries which are intercepted en route to the
hungry villagers, then sold to benefit the local junta. Now, if
foreign aid were accompanied by guards with the ability to do something
about these interceptions, or something else along the lines of a
"smart contract"...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:02 MDT