-----Original Message-----
From: mark@unicorn.com <mark@unicorn.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 11 December 1998 20:56
Subject: Re: BASICS: Anarcho-capitalism
>Samael [Samael@dial.pipex.com] wrote:
>>Not entirely full. There appear to be a few non-anarchists about the
place.
>
>I realise you use a different version of the English language to the rest
>of us, but where I come from "full of" means "there are plenty of", not
>that the entire list is anarchists.
>
>>ie - if you want to pay for defence against enemy bombers, but your
>>neighbour doesn't, how do we defend one of you and not the otehr - and if
>> we
>>can't, do we just let your neighbour get away with something for nothing.
>
>1. Why would anyone want to bomb me if I haven't done anything to them?
>2. I don't care about defence against enemy bombers, I care about defence
> against enemy bombs. As long as I can destroy or evade any bombs that
> might have hit near enough to cause damage to me, then that's all
> that matters. If they land on my neighbour, tough luck. If they would
> have landed on my neighbour if I hadn't destroyed them, well, that's
> good luck for him or her; it's irrelevant to me.
Great. Have you seen the results fo the dresden Firbombs? The city was
_gone_.
bombs nowadays tend to take out large areas. You can't dodge them, you
can't duck, and unless you have your own personal shelter (of a damned high
quality), yoiu're probably better off investing in anti-aircraft gear and
your own fighter planes than anything else. And those are _way_ too
expensive for individuals to buy.
>3. Anyone who tries to bomb Transhuman Mark will be hit with massive
> retaliation. Anyone who looks like they're going to bomb me will be
> pre-emptively nuked. Defence is easy in an era of cheap mass-destruction
> weapons.
If you look like the sort of person who might pre-emptively nuke people,
don't you think that everyone else might pre-emptively nuke you, for
safeties sake?
And are we going to move to the 'Every man for himself' idealogy only after
you become transhuman?
>Similarly for your fire example; I don't care whether my neighbour's house
>burns down as long as mine doesn't. If fire from his house is threatening
>mine, I'll do something about it; if that helps him, I don't care.
Most fires threaten whole blocks. And will probably want to use a fire brigade to control the fire, as inividual's have neither the training nor the equipment to protect their own homes.
>You're trying to discuss a future transhuman society as though it's just
>a modern socialist state with a few more bells and whistles; it will be
>nothing of the kind.
Sorry, I thought you wanted to be a libertarian now.
In a transhuman world we will all be able to look after ourselves, so I'll be quite happy to be a libertarian. It's today I'm worried about.
Samael