Mike S. Lorrey wrote:
> One of the great things about libertarianism is consent. I don't care if YOU
> want to live in a repressive communal society, so long as you don't force ME to
> do the same, or if I want to try it out, you can't force me to stay if I change
> my mind. The consent of the individual in all matters is its core ethic, and one
> that I think that extropy shares. Any philosophy that shares that ethic as well
> can peacefully co-exist and co-operate with libertarians and a libertarian
> society. If you can accept that, then you really should not have any trouble
> with extropy OR libertarianism.
>
> You talk of your problems with implementation of libertarianism, but you have
> not stated what your problems are with such implementation. Do you think that
> people should be allowed to force others to do what they do not wish to do? Do
> you mistakenly think that libertarians would initiate force to make others live
> as libertarians wish to? Please explain....
My problems are really three-fold here as to specifics. #1: I'v ebrought
up the environmental issue before. Group A may wish to simply be left alone,
but they're deforesting a hillside above Group B's settlement, causing the
water to be fouled and increasing the damage of floods in the springtime. To
fix the flood problem, Group B builds a dam to moderate flooding - but now
Group C isn't getting enough water. How do you resolve this in a libertarian
fashion, if negotiation fails?
#2: Not everyone will play by the "non-coercive" rule. Simply look at how
powerful a memetic structure religion is. I would love to be left alone - but
a group of people reading one of a handful of passages from Leviticus suddenly
gets this idea that I am less deserving to live than they are. One of the
tradeoffs in modern western political systems is that this sort of activity is
mostly curtailed.
#3: Markets are wonderful, btu I doubt withotu a regulatory regime that they
would be as resistant to fraud and manipulation as they are now. Market-based
systems work, but I don't know if I could trust a mechanism that operates
on the honor system to play such a vital role in my life
The other issue here is the ability of a libertarian society or culture to
resist the influence of a better organized, more coercive society. My concern
is less the libertarian society acting in a physically coercive way (One could
argue abot memetic coercion, such as a proselytizing meme, but I don't know
how that fits into a libertarian view) but more a non-libertarian society
acting in a coercive manne rtowards the libertarian one. The closest thing
we have to a guattantor that this won't happen is the presence of nuclear
devices, and to a lesser extent the ability to locate in a place beyond
traditional borders and geographic pressures (i.e. space)
-Corey
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