Re: Local Groups Wanted!

From: Mark Walker (mdwalker@quickclic.net)
Date: Sun Dec 23 2001 - 13:58:09 MST


----- Original Message -----
From: "Max More" <max@maxmore.com>
> 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.
>
Sorry to be so insensitive--I sometimes forget that religion can be such a
touchy subject around here. I am less bothered by it. (In fact, in February
I am reading a paper at the U. of Toronto which argues that the solution to
the traditional problem of evil is for Christians (et al) to become
(religious) transhumanists. (http://www.markalanwalker.com/evil.htm) BTW, I
don't hold the converse thesis, that transhumanists ought to be religious)
> >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.
>
Just to be clear, I guess you mean by 'more government' more government
regulation rather than implementation. One could, for example, be for more
government regulation of drivers licenses--perhaps insisting on yearly
driving tests for drivers over 100--but like to see driver's license offices
privatized (as I would). So it is quite consistent, I think, to say that we
ought to have a lot less government (implementation) with a lot more
government (regulation). As to your specific question:
(1) Can governments be totally disinterested in what some will do with
certain resources? Food fish are often considered a renewable resource. Let
us suppose we privatize schools of fish and company X buys the rights to all
of a certain species and fishes them to extinction. Of course it might be
objected that this would be irrational on their part because they would
forgo future profits on the fish. However, they say that we are not looking
at the big picture, they need a quick cash influx so that they can invest
(say) in some nonfish related technology. We don't even have to imagine that
the CEO of company X reasons correctly, only that she believes she is
reasoning correctly about how to maximize the profits of her company.
Advancing technology makes it possible to completely eradicate a renewable
resource.
(2) Can governments be totally disinterested in what is considered a
resources to be privatized? Are whales a resource or do they have rights?
Again, as technology advances the ability to hunt them to extinction only
increases.
(3) Should governments protect those who want to opt out of the
technology/market economy? Suppose a group of people in Nunavut wants to
keep a traditional hunter/gather life style but can't afford their land
because it is rich in natural resources that they do not consider resources,
e.g., gas, or deep mineral deposits etc. Better transportation technology
means that there is nowhere for anyone to go to escape the long arms of a
market/technology driven economy.
> 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?
Well, I guess the short answer is that the question not so much about what
is better now but what ought to come along in the future. The primary focus
here of course is what the future will or ought to be. As far as I can see,
both a pure market model and pure nonmarket models have failed, so we are
left with ad hoc mixed models--more market in the US less so in Canada and
Europe, but mixed models in all cases. Even you and Damien seem to agree on
a mixed model, although obviously Damien's guaranteed income is much more
nonmarket oriented than your vision. And yes, I do think that the best known
experiments in nonmarket driven societies have failed, and failed miserably.
Although I must say I am not exactly sure why. Sometimes it is said that
they failed because they presuppose a false view of human nature. Marx, for
example, thought that humans are both productive and social by nature and
that communism would emancipate this true "species being" of humanity. Well,
he was right that humans are productive and social by nature, but of course
humans are also unproductive and anti-social by nature. If it is simply a
matter of having the wrong nature to implement say socialism then it would
seem (in theory at least) just a matter of reengineering human nature.
Sometimes the failure of nonmarket mechanism is blamed on the inefficiency
of information transmission, i.e., that markets are much more efficient
about transmitting information between producers and consumers. Of course,
if this is the case then one might wonder whether technology might be able
to overcome this limitation. Perhaps a deeper understanding of consumption
and production will allow us to bypass all the little experiments and
hardships of a market economy. The problem with completely market driven
societies is to deliver on foresight and fairness. I take it your comment on
basic research is one about foresight. I have little faith that technology
will necessarily make the market fairer. Do you think that advances in
technology will necessarily lead to a more equitable distribution of wealth?



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