Re: The Education Function

Samael (Samael@dial.pipex.com)
Wed, 9 Dec 1998 09:16:37 -0000

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Lorrey <retroman@together.net> To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com> Date: 08 December 1998 19:39
Subject: Re: The Education Function

>If a society cannot trust the individual, how can it trust a group of
>individuals? I can always trust myself to look out for me, and you can
trust
>yourself to look out for you. I cannot always trust you to look out for me,
>especially when our interests are in conflict. Applying this principle to
one
>thing and not another is hypcritical. Applying it to technology, or to
>social/cultural issues, but not to economic relationships reflects a lack
of
>integrity which I find disturbing, and untrustworthy.

Because, like most ideals, the system breaks down under certain circumstances.

Take, as an example, garbage collection. Everyone has garbage. None of us want it cluttering up our kitchens. We coul set things up so that each of us pays a small fee to have out rubbish picked up. but some people will decline to pay. Now their rubbish is affecting me. Should I pay for their rubbish to be removed? Or should we force them to pay gfor their rubbish to be removed? Or just have their steaming piles of decomposing filth collect in the middle of the street?

Another example: Neonatology - medicine as applied to babies. A baby is born with a defect. the baby is a person. It has no income and no resources. Should it's parents be forced to pay for it, even if they can't, even if they don't want to? Should it be asked for a credit card number when it's born?

Just two problems that pure libertarian capitalism has problems with.

I agree that Libertarian Capitalism works in 90% of all cases and that it should eb left to do so as much as is physically possible. But no system works 100% of the time.

Samael