Re: Cheerful libertarianism

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 05:40:22 MDT

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    On Tue, Sep 09, 2003 at 04:42:37AM -0500, randy wrote:
    > On Tue, 9 Sep 2003 09:52:05 +0200, you wrote
    >
    > >So if I understood Randy right, some entire cultures should be managed
    > >by other cultures "for their own good" since they are not rational and
    > >wise, while Robert thinks people are not rational and wise since some
    > >people choose short-term goals.
    >
    > That is certainly an "interesting" extrapolation of what I actually
    > said. What I actually said was:

    Yes, I did assume that you thought "irrational" cultures should be
    managed for their own benefit. My apologies if you really meant that
    they should be allowed to remain irrational (modulo the usual
    interactions and mutual non-aggression).

    > >Personally I think you are falling into exactly the trap Brin was
    > >warning against. These views are not compatible with the libertarian
    > >idea that people can be trusted and allowed to run their own lives.
    >
    > Again....what the heck did this come from?

    Based on my possibly erroneous reading of your post. I was seeing it
    as a good example of the mindset Brin criticizes as incompatible
    with a libertarian push for increased human freedom, that mainly
    focus on the irrationality on other people or groups.

    > >In Randy's case, the response is likely to have the rational cultures
    > >manage the irrational ones.
    >
    > **YOU** manage them. I have better ways to spend my money. I say
    > leave them be--let Darwin sort things out.

    Fine. Then we have absolutely no quarrel. I certainly don't want to
    tell anybody how they must run their culture. Of course, I might go
    beyond non-intervention in that I will support movements, memes,
    people or institutions I like or think will help them (like Grameen
    International Bank, golden rice or open science publishing) in order
    to play a bit of win-win game theory. But that is Darwin too.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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