From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@freedomspace.net)
Date: Wed Mar 24 1999 - 00:26:18 MST
I've lately thought that on Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Billy Brown wrote:
>Randall Randall wrote:
<snipped stuff that was more of the same>
>True enough, but that won't stop them from trying. More to the point, it
>makes it very hard for a region of anarchy to survive in a world of States.
I am not sure how long an anarchy could survive while surrounded by
States. However, I am of the opinion that States are becoming less and
less viable. The State is strongest at low technology, even if that same
technology does not allow it to grow to huge sizes, but there seems to
me to be a very limited window of technology that allows large, pervasive
State. With nanotechnology, we will have reached the point where the
citizen doesn't need a State at all, and can escape its influence with
relative ease.
I expect, unfortunately, that we are in for a very bad time, then, as
all sorts of minted weapons of mass destruction are thrown around by
people who are living thousands of times too close to each other for
peace.
>That remains to be seen. Terrorism has yet to destabilize a single country,
>after all.
Hm. Depends on your definition of "terrorism"; to use Somalia again,
the people there apparently rejected the idea of a central government
en masse.
>Universal surveillance is going to be a real possibility in a
>couple of decades, and mind control probably isn't too far behind it. It is
>not especially obvious to me how these developments will all work out.
There are so many decisions that must be made in the everyday life
of an individual citizen that the only way to replace the citizen's
autonomy is to create an AI to run his or her body. And anyway,
what's the point?
-- Wolfkin. wolfkin@freedomspace.net | Libertarian webhost? www.freedomspace.net On a visible but distant shore, a new image of man; The shape of his own future, now in his own hands.-- Johnny Clegg.
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