On Mon, Dec 15, 2014 at 5:40 AM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 15 December 2014 at 13:57, spudboy100 via Everything List < > [email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> Sent from AOL Mobile Mail >> But the market is sorting it out. > > > Excuse me while I ROFL >
Similar hilarity may ensue from the idea that governments can tackle complex problems in the absence of war. It's even worse than this: there is no empirical reason to assume that governments can even focus on solving the right problems. Consider the war on drugs, the TSA, the food pyramid, the total surveillance apparatus and the incredible civilisational step back of reintroducing torture in the western world as a condoned way for states to operate. Modern governments have shown to be very competent when it comes to waging war. They seem to be more or less designed for that. Even the education system is modelled after the Prussian soldier factory. Even the progresses that Brent mention were part of arms races. Competition always has something to do with progress, and war is how you introduce competition in government. To have competition and peace, I'm not sure that anyone ever came up with something better than the free market. I don't understand the line of reasoning where people claim that "in the free market people act only out of self-interest, so we need organisations that act in the public interest". That sounds great, but why should one believe that positions of power will not end up attracting self-serving sociopaths? Considerable empirical evidence seems to point to that being the case. To attack climate change with regulation one would need a world government. What's the point of cutting CO2 emissions in the USA or Europe if you can't force China to do the same? On one hand, expecting that level of global cooperation seems naive. On the other hand, if it were possible, I wonder if life would be worth it under such a regime. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
