At 09:57 PM 12/22/01, Mark Walker wrote:
> >
>Damien, Damien, Damien, how dare you mock in this the most holy season of
>the market. You may find it hard to believe that a free market economy just
>happens to be the most efficient and the most fair, but this only reveals
>your lack of true faith and your panglossian nature.
This tactic of calling something you disagree with a religion is getting
very tedious. It's also a lazy way of not having to make an argument,
instead slandering something in a community of mostly non-religious people.
Give us a break. Or wait until you have your own views referred to as
religious by someone who disagrees with you (like a humanist dismissing
your transhumanist views). See if you find it a constructive, intelligent
approach.
>but we know a priori technology could never fix the problems of
>nonmarket economies. As penance I politely suggest 7 hail markets.
A curious view. If markets have shortcomings, as they surely do, the
advance of technology -- so far -- seems to help remedy them. For instance,
markets have a difficult time with a few public goods problems (though
there may be ways around them that are not being used, such as conditional
contracts). Establishing private property rights in things like schools of
fish or airborne pollutants might have been practically impossible in the
past. A government solution, crude as it might be may work better. I'd
grant that there *may* be a reasonable role for government in funding basic
research. (See, I'm not a libertarian.) However, with more advanced
tracking technology, defining and tracking such property becomes more
feasible. I can't think of an instance where advancing technology favors
more government.
I'm curious to know if you have some real thinking behind your comment. It
seems to indicate that you agree that nonmarket economies have real
problems. How do you see those problems being fixed by technology? (And why
wouldn't those technologies at the same help markets work more effectively
-- just as we see happening now, as with Web-enabled supply chain
management, customer relationship management software, KM, customer
analytics, embedded wireless RFID tags in tracking, etc. etc.?) If markets
are generally better right now, why not support them until something
clearly better comes along?
Onward!
Max
_______________________________________________________
Max More, Ph.D.
max@maxmore.com or more@extropy.org
http://www.maxmore.com
Strategic Philosopher
President, Extropy Institute. http://www.extropy.org <more@extropy.org>
_______________________________________________________
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:29 MDT