Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On Wed, Oct 10, 2007 at 01:22:26PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: Am I the only one, or does anyone else agree that politics/political theorising is not appropriate on the AGI list? Yes, and I'm sorry I triggred the thread. I particularly object to libertarianism being shoved down our throats, not so much because I disagree with it, but because so much of the singularity / extropian / futurist discussion universe is dominated by it. Why is that? Before this, the last libertarian I ran across was a few decades ago. And yet, here, they are legion. Why is that? Does libertarian philosphy make people more open-minded to ideas such as the singularity? Make them bigger dreamers? Make them more willing to explore alternatives, even as the rest of the world explores the latest hollywood movie? --linas - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=53020802-76f4d8
Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On 10/10/2007, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am I the only one, or does anyone else agree that politics/political theorising is not appropriate on the AGI list? Agreed. There are many other forums where political ideology can be debated. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=52314407-5d32b9
Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
I also agree except ... I think political and economic theories can inform AGI design, particularly in areas of AGI decision making and friendliness/roboethics. I wasn't familiar with the theory of Comparative Advantage until Josh and Eric brought it up. (Josh discusses in conjunction with friendly AIs in his The Age of Virtuous Machines at Kurzweil's site.) I like to see discussions in these contexts. -JW -Original Message- From: Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Oct 11, 2007 11:12 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content] On 10/10/2007, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am I the only one, or does anyone else agree that politics/political theorising is not appropriate on the AGI list? Agreed. There are many other forums where political ideology can be debated. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=52436992-ab6eb0
Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
Yes, I think that too. On the practical side, I think that investing in AGI requires significant tax cuts, and we should elect a candidate that would do that (Ron Paul). I think that the government has to have more respect to potential weapons (like AGI), so we should elect a candidate who is strongly pro-gun (Ron Paul). I think that the government has to trust and respect the privacy of its people, so your would not be forced to sell your AGI to the military. No more wiretapping (abolish the Patriot Act) so the government won't hear an AGI being successfully developed. Abolish the Federal Reserve, so no more malinvestment, and more productive investment (including agi investment). Ron Paul will do all of that. JW Johnston wrote: I also agree except ... I think political and economic theories can inform AGI design, particularly in areas of AGI decision making and friendliness/roboethics. I wasn't familiar with the theory of Comparative Advantage until Josh and Eric brought it up. (Josh discusses in conjunction with friendly AIs in his The Age of Virtuous Machines at Kurzweil's site.) I like to see discussions in these contexts. -JW -Original Message- From: Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Oct 11, 2007 11:12 AM To: agi@v2.listbox.com Subject: Re: [META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content] On 10/10/2007, Richard Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am I the only one, or does anyone else agree that politics/political theorising is not appropriate on the AGI list? Agreed. There are many other forums where political ideology can be debated. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=52468544-1f3003
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
The only solution to this problem I ever see suggested is to intentionally create a Really Big Fish called the government that can effortlessly eat every fish in the pond but promises not to -- to prevent the creation of Really Big Fish. That is quite the Faustian bargain to protect yourself from the lesser demons. Yes, of course, the Really Big Fish that is democracy. I am starting to get quite puzzled by all Americans (I don't know if you are American though, but I want to express this anyway) who express severe distrust in government. Because if you distrust all forms of government, what you really distrust is democracy itself. Here you basically compare democracy to... whom? The devil!? USA is supposed to be the leading democracy of the world yeah, right. But I never hear any people speak so badly of their government, and in effect the democracy itself. The American idea of liberalism is certainly not the same thing as democracy. Maybe this is the century when Americans will find that out. The American liberal culture was founded when the plains of America appeared endless, and if you did not like the influential people of a certain area, you just moved on to virgin grounds and started your own community with your own rules. But there is no more virgin land in America, and people have started to accumulate in the cities since long. Liberty does not work quite so well when people live close and need to depend on each other. That lesson has been learned in Europe ages ago. My recommendation is to put some faith in the will of the people! When you walk on the street and look around you, those are your fellow citizen you should feel at least some kind of trust in. They are not out to get you! Then of course the American form of democracy is not so excellent, so maybe there is a reason for the distrust even though sad. On the surface USA has only two parties which is just one more than China. Sweden is not much better, but at least we have 7 alive and active parties. But these are problems that can be solved and are not a reason to give up on democracy. Generally though, the point that you fail to see is that an AGI can just as easily subvert *any* power structure, whether the environment is a libertarian free market or an autocratic communist state. The problem has nothing to do with the governance of the economy but the fact that the AGI is the single most intelligent actor in the economy however you may arrange it. You can rearrange and change the rules as you wish, but any economy where transactions are something other than completely random is an economy that can be completely dominated by AGI in short order. The game is exactly the same either way, and more rigid economies have much simpler patterns that make them easier to manipulate. Regulating economies to prevent super-intelligent actors from doing bad things is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. I agree that a super intelligent life form could be quite a difficult adversary. It might be able to manipulate and take over a democratic power structure also, I would not deny that. Probably it would try to target the culture of the people, and insert hostile but stealthy memes into the population. I guess it would also try to gain the trust of people and make them dependant on it by offering appealing services. Depending on the economy and regulations, it could also try to obtain direct control over as much automated production capacity as possible, especially production capacity that could be used for building weapons. It is not true like you say, that the economy of a democratic socialist society has easy patterns that are easy to manipulate. The supreme power in such a society lies in the democracy, and to manipulate that power you need to manipulate the whole population. Actually, I believe that the relative stupidity of the population could act as a kind of protection against manipulation. I have a son that is one month old, and I would say it is really difficult to control someone who is so extremely dumb as kids of that age are. However, I would not go as far as saying intelligence implies power, saying that a super intelligent life form by necessity would be able to take over any given power structure. I remember having this discussion with a friend a long time ago. The trivial example is if you have a super intelligent AGI brain in a box in front of you on your desk, and you have a gun. Then you can take the gun and shoot the box. That proves at least that there is no implication in the strict logical sense. But of course the picture gets more complicated if we have an AGI system that interacts in a social context, where we put different degrees of trust in it. Apparently the danger increases the more dependant we are on the AGI systems. But there are methods to protect ourselves. One way is to never utilize the most intelligent AGI systems directly: For example we could use it to produce
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
BillK On 10/6/07, a wrote: I am skeptical that economies follow the self-organized criticality behavior. There aren't any examples. Some would cite the Great Depression, but it was caused by the malinvestment created by Central Banks. e.g. The Federal Reserve System. See the Austrian Business Cycle Theory for details. In conclusion, economics is a bad analogy with complex systems. BillK My objection to economic libertarianism is that it's not a free BillK market. A 'free' market is an impossibility. There will always BillK be somebody who is bigger than me or cleverer than me or better BillK educated than me, etc. A regulatory environment attempts to BillK reduce the victimisation of the weaker members of the BillK population and introduces another set of biases to the economy. This is the same misunderstanding that justifies protectionism among nations. When nation A (say the US) trades with nation B (say Haiti), nation A may be able to make every single thing much better and cheaper than nation B, but it still pays both nation B and nation A to trade freely, because nation B has a comparative advantage in something: a comparative advantage being whatever they make least badly, they can swap with nation A and both nations benefit. Likewise, Michael Jordan may be much better able to mow his lawn than whoever he pays to do it, but it still benefits both of them when he pays the lawn guy and concentrates on basketball. You benefit greatly by trading with people who are cleverer, better educated, richer, stronger than you. The more clever they are then you, the more they have to offer you, and the more they will pay you for what you have to offer them. Regulations that restrict your ability to enter into trades with these people hurt you. They do introduce biases into the economy, biases that make everybody worse off, particularly the weaker members of society, except for some special interests that lobby for the regulations and extract rent from society. BillK A free market is just a nice intellectual theory that is of no BillK use in the real world. (Unless you are in the Mafia, of BillK course). BillK BillK BillK - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: BillK http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your BillK options, please go to: BillK http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51872796-cb97bb
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On Oct 10, 2007, at 2:26 AM, Robert Wensman wrote: Yes, of course, the Really Big Fish that is democracy. No, you got this quite wrong. The Really Big Fish is institution responsible for governance (usually the government); democracy is merely a fuzzy category of rule set used in governance. I am starting to get quite puzzled by all Americans (I don't know if you are American though, but I want to express this anyway) who express severe distrust in government. Because if you distrust all forms of government, what you really distrust is democracy itself. This bias is for good reason; there are well described pathological minima that are essentially unavoidable in a democracy. The American government was explicitly designed as a constitutional republic (not a democracy) to avoid these pathologies. In the 20th century the American constitution was changed to make it more like a democracy, and the expected pathologies have materialized. If you do not understand this, then the rest of your reasoning is likely misplaced. Much of American libertarian political thought is based on a desire to go back to a strict constitutional republic rather than the current quasi-democracy, in large part to fix the very real problems that quasi-democracy created. Many of the bad things the Federal government is currently accused of were enabled by democracy and would have been impractical or illegal under a strict constitutional republic. Here you basically compare democracy to... whom? The devil!? Perhaps I should refrain from using literate metaphors in the future, since you apparently did not understand it. My recommendation is to put some faith in the will of the people! When you walk on the street and look around you, those are your fellow citizen you should feel at least some kind of trust in. They are not out to get you! I'm sure they are all lovely people for the most part, but their poorly reasoned good intentions will destroy us all. The problem is not that people are evil, the problem is that humans at large are hopelessly ignorant, short-sighted, and irrational even when trying to do good and without regard for clearly derivable consequences. Actually, I believe that the relative stupidity of the population could act as a kind of protection against manipulation. Non sequitur. Also, the history shows that intelligence is no guarantee for power. The Russian revolution and the genocide in Cambodia illustrates effectively how intelligent people were slaughtered by apparently less intelligent people, and later how they were controlled to the extreme for decades. You are improperly conflating intelligence and rationality. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51970341-6a9d1c
[META] Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
Am I the only one, or does anyone else agree that politics/political theorising is not appropriate on the AGI list? I particularly object to libertarianism being shoved down our throats, not so much because I disagree with it, but because so much of the singularity / extropian / futurist discussion universe is dominated by it. Richard Loosemore J. Andrew Rogers wrote: On Oct 10, 2007, at 2:26 AM, Robert Wensman wrote: Yes, of course, the Really Big Fish that is democracy. No, you got this quite wrong. The Really Big Fish is institution responsible for governance (usually the government); democracy is merely a fuzzy category of rule set used in governance. I am starting to get quite puzzled by all Americans (I don't know if you are American though, but I want to express this anyway) who express severe distrust in government. Because if you distrust all forms of government, what you really distrust is democracy itself. This bias is for good reason; there are well described pathological minima that are essentially unavoidable in a democracy. The American government was explicitly designed as a constitutional republic (not a democracy) to avoid these pathologies. In the 20th century the American constitution was changed to make it more like a democracy, and the expected pathologies have materialized. If you do not understand this, then the rest of your reasoning is likely misplaced. Much of American libertarian political thought is based on a desire to go back to a strict constitutional republic rather than the current quasi-democracy, in large part to fix the very real problems that quasi-democracy created. Many of the bad things the Federal government is currently accused of were enabled by democracy and would have been impractical or illegal under a strict constitutional republic. Here you basically compare democracy to... whom? The devil!? Perhaps I should refrain from using literate metaphors in the future, since you apparently did not understand it. My recommendation is to put some faith in the will of the people! When you walk on the street and look around you, those are your fellow citizen you should feel at least some kind of trust in. They are not out to get you! I'm sure they are all lovely people for the most part, but their poorly reasoned good intentions will destroy us all. The problem is not that people are evil, the problem is that humans at large are hopelessly ignorant, short-sighted, and irrational even when trying to do good and without regard for clearly derivable consequences. Actually, I believe that the relative stupidity of the population could act as a kind of protection against manipulation. Non sequitur. Also, the history shows that intelligence is no guarantee for power. The Russian revolution and the genocide in Cambodia illustrates effectively how intelligent people were slaughtered by apparently less intelligent people, and later how they were controlled to the extreme for decades. You are improperly conflating intelligence and rationality. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51972366-e14515
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
(off topic, but there are something relevant for AGI) My fears about economical libertarianism could be illustrated with a fish pond analogy. If there is a small pond with a large number of small fish of some predatory species, after an amount of time they will cannibalize and eat each other until at the end there will just remain one very very fat fish. The instability occurs because a fish that already has managed to eat a peer, becomes slightly larger than the rest of the fish, and therefore has a better position in continuing to eat more fish, thus its progress can accelerate. Maybe if the pond is big enough, a handful of very big fish would remain. This is of course just an illustration and by no means a proof that the same thing would occur in a laissez-faire/libertarianism economy. Libertarians commonly put blame for monopolies on government involvement, and I guess some would object that I unfairly compares fish that eat each other with a non-violent economy. But lets just say I do not share their relaxed attitude towards the potential threat of monopoly, and a bigger fish eating a smaller fish do have some similarity to a bigger company acquiring a smaller one. First of all, the consequence of monopoly is so serious that even if the chance is very slight, there is a strong incentive to try to prevent it from ever happening. But there are also a lot of details to suggest that a laissez-faire economy would collapse into monopoly/oligopoly. Effects of synergy and mass production benefits would be one strong reason why a completely free market would benefit those companies that are already large, which could make them grow larger. *Especially when considering AGI and intelligence enhancement I believe a libertarian market could be even more unstable. In such a setting, the rich could literally invest in more intelligence, that would make them even more rich, creating a positive economic feedback loop. A dangerous accelerating scenario where the intelligence explosion could co-occur with the rise of world monopoly. We could call it an AGI induced monopoly explosion. Unless democracy could challenge such a libertarian market, only a few oligarchs might have the position to decide the fate of mankind, if they could control their AGI that is. Although it is just one possible scenario.* A documentary I saw claimed that Russia was converted to something very close to a laissez-faire market in the years after the Soviet Union collapse. However I don't have any specific details about it, such as exactly how free the market of that period was. But apparently it caused chaos and gave rise to a brutal economy with oligarchs controlling the society. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(television_documentary_series)]. Studying what happened in Russia after the fall of communism could give some insight on the topic. /R 2007/10/8, Bob Mottram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Economic libertarianism would be nice if it were to occur. However, in practice companies and governments put in place all sorts of anti-competitive structures to lock people into certain modes of economic activity. I think economic activity in general is heavily influenced by cognitive biases of various kinds. On 06/10/2007, BillK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/6/07, a wrote: A free market is just a nice intellectual theory that is of no use in the real world. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?; - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51384923-1d1de1
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On Oct 9, 2007, at 4:27 AM, Robert Wensman wrote: This is of course just an illustration and by no means a proof that the same thing would occur in a laissez-faire/libertarianism economy. Libertarians commonly put blame for monopolies on government involvement, and I guess some would object that I unfairly compares fish that eat each other with a non-violent economy. But lets just say I do not share their relaxed attitude towards the potential threat of monopoly, and a bigger fish eating a smaller fish do have some similarity to a bigger company acquiring a smaller one. The only solution to this problem I ever see suggested is to intentionally create a Really Big Fish called the government that can effortlessly eat every fish in the pond but promises not to -- to prevent the creation of Really Big Fish. That is quite the Faustian bargain to protect yourself from the lesser demons. Generally though, the point that you fail to see is that an AGI can just as easily subvert *any* power structure, whether the environment is a libertarian free market or an autocratic communist state. The problem has nothing to do with the governance of the economy but the fact that the AGI is the single most intelligent actor in the economy however you may arrange it. You can rearrange and change the rules as you wish, but any economy where transactions are something other than completely random is an economy that can be completely dominated by AGI in short order. The game is exactly the same either way, and more rigid economies have much simpler patterns that make them easier to manipulate. Regulating economies to prevent super-intelligent actors from doing bad things is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Cheers, J. Andrew Rogers - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51651108-c1aa2b
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
J. Andrew Rogers wrote: Generally though, the point that you fail to see is that an AGI can just as easily subvert *any* power structure, whether the environment is a libertarian free market or an autocratic communist state. The problem has nothing to do with the governance of the economy but the fact that the AGI is the single most intelligent actor in the economy however you may arrange it. You can rearrange and change the rules as you wish, but any economy where transactions are something other than completely random is an economy that can be completely dominated by AGI in short order. The game is exactly the same either way, and more rigid economies have much simpler patterns that make them easier to manipulate. Regulating economies to prevent super-intelligent actors from doing bad things is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Succinctly put. -- Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/ Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51662113-7b9e18
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
Economic libertarianism would be nice if it were to occur. However, in practice companies and governments put in place all sorts of anti-competitive structures to lock people into certain modes of economic activity. I think economic activity in general is heavily influenced by cognitive biases of various kinds. On 06/10/2007, BillK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/6/07, a wrote: A free market is just a nice intellectual theory that is of no use in the real world. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51046640-b84781
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
a wrote: Linas Vepstas wrote: ... The issue is that there's no safety net protecting against avalanches of unbounded size. The other issue is that its not grains of sand, its people. My bank-account and my brains can insulate me from small shocks. I'd like to have protection against the bigger forces that can wipe me out. I am skeptical that economies follow the self-organized criticality behavior. There aren't any examples. Some would cite the Great Depression, but it was caused by the malinvestment created by Central Banks. e.g. The Federal Reserve System. See the Austrian Business Cycle Theory for details. In conclusion, economics is a bad analogy with complex systems. OK. I'm skeptical that a Free-Market economy has ever existed. Possibly the agora of ancient Greece came close. The Persians though so: Who are these people who have special places where they go to cheat each other? However I suspect that a closer look would show that these, also, were regulated to some degree by an external power. (E.g., threat of force from the government if the customers rioted.) - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51221478-ab187a
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
Bob Mottram wrote: Economic libertarianism would be nice if it were to occur. However, in practice companies and governments put in place all sorts of anti-competitive structures to lock people into certain modes of economic activity. I think economic activity in general is heavily influenced by cognitive biases of various kinds. On 06/10/2007, BillK [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/6/07, a wrote: A free market is just a nice intellectual theory that is of no use in the real world. No. Not true. Anti-competitive structures and monopolies won't exist in a true free market society. The free market is self sustaining. It's government regulation that creates monopolies, because companies partner-up with the government. See Chicago school of economics and Austrian school of economics for explanations. Monopolies are much less likely to exist if there is a smaller government. As a response to anti-competitive structures to lock people. Microsoft is a government-supported monopoly. It got its monopoly from the use of software patents. Microsoft patented its file formats, APIs, etc., which resulted in vendor lock-ins. Patent offices, like all bureaucratic agencies, are poor in quality, so lots of trivial ideas can be patented. Do not misinterpret me, I am not against software patents. This is out of topic, but I am in a habit of writing defenses. References http://www.mises.org/story/2317 http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv12n2/reg12n2-debow.html http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/rutoc.html - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51227227-be874f
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On Sat, Oct 06, 2007 at 10:05:28AM -0400, a wrote: I am skeptical that economies follow the self-organized criticality behavior. Oh. Well, I thought this was a basic principle, commonly cited in microeconomics textbooks: when there's a demand, producers rush to fill the demand. When there's insufficient demand, producers go out of business. Etc. --linas - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=51229271-e939ba
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
Linas Vepstas wrote: My objection to economic libertarianism is its lack of discussion of self-organized criticality. A common example of self-organized criticality is a sand-pile at the critical point. Adding one grain of sand can trigger an avalanche, which can be small, or maybe (unboundedly) large. Despite avalanches, a sand-pile will maintain its critical shape (a cone at some angle). The concern is that a self-organized economy is almost by definition always operating at the critical point, sloughing off excess production, encouraging new demand, etc. Small or even medium-sized re-organizations of the economy are good for it: it maintains the economy at its critical shape, its free-market-optimal shape. Nothing wrong with that free-market optimal shape, most everyone agrees. The issue is that there's no safety net protecting against avalanches of unbounded size. The other issue is that its not grains of sand, its people. My bank-account and my brains can insulate me from small shocks. I'd like to have protection against the bigger forces that can wipe me out. I am skeptical that economies follow the self-organized criticality behavior. There aren't any examples. Some would cite the Great Depression, but it was caused by the malinvestment created by Central Banks. e.g. The Federal Reserve System. See the Austrian Business Cycle Theory for details. In conclusion, economics is a bad analogy with complex systems. - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=50774944-955341
Re: Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
On 10/6/07, a wrote: I am skeptical that economies follow the self-organized criticality behavior. There aren't any examples. Some would cite the Great Depression, but it was caused by the malinvestment created by Central Banks. e.g. The Federal Reserve System. See the Austrian Business Cycle Theory for details. In conclusion, economics is a bad analogy with complex systems. My objection to economic libertarianism is that it's not a free market. A 'free' market is an impossibility. There will always be somebody who is bigger than me or cleverer than me or better educated than me, etc. A regulatory environment attempts to reduce the victimisation of the weaker members of the population and introduces another set of biases to the economy. A free market is just a nice intellectual theory that is of no use in the real world. (Unless you are in the Mafia, of course). BillK - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=50792589-4d8a77
Economic libertarianism [was Re: The first-to-market effect [WAS Re: [agi] Religion-free technical content]
OK, this is very off-topic. Sorry. On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 06:36:34PM -0400, a wrote: Linas Vepstas wrote: For the most part, modern western culture espouses and hews to physical non-violence. However, modern right-leaning pure capitalism advocates not only social Darwinism, but also the economic equivalent of rape and murder -- a jungle ethic where only the fittest survive, while thousands can loose jobs, income, housing, etc. thanks to the natural forces of capitalism. This, anyway, is a common misunderstanding of capitalism. I suggest you to read more about economic libertarianism. My objection to economic libertarianism is its lack of discussion of self-organized criticality. A common example of self-organized criticality is a sand-pile at the critical point. Adding one grain of sand can trigger an avalanche, which can be small, or maybe (unboundedly) large. Despite avalanches, a sand-pile will maintain its critical shape (a cone at some angle). The concern is that a self-organized economy is almost by definition always operating at the critical point, sloughing off excess production, encouraging new demand, etc. Small or even medium-sized re-organizations of the economy are good for it: it maintains the economy at its critical shape, its free-market-optimal shape. Nothing wrong with that free-market optimal shape, most everyone agrees. The issue is that there's no safety net protecting against avalanches of unbounded size. The other issue is that its not grains of sand, its people. My bank-account and my brains can insulate me from small shocks. I'd like to have protection against the bigger forces that can wipe me out. --linas - This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244id_secret=50672693-e11dc1
