Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
The most enjoyable discussions for me involve new ideas or points of view that I have not encountered before. People interested in SF seem to be more likely to have unique ideas than people who are not SF fans. Not that there isn't a lot of noise of conventional ideas mixed in...anyway, I write about my points of view, and hopefully they are interesting to some, and I hope others will do the same. Well, that explains a lot. There are some _very_ old ideas that I accept (e.g. a good position needs logical consistency) that I see as being the cause of us going in circles. For what it's worth, virtually nothing you've written has been new to me. I've seen new combinations, but virtually all of them involve, IMHO, contradictions that are not accepted by the author. My humble opinion is that, with most internet discussions Ecclesiastes 1:9 is right on target. The value of these discussions, IMHO, is when both parties agree to accept ground rules of logical arguement and data. I realize that my request for that has been called by you trying to impose my will on others. But, if you look at where actual progress has been made (e.g. in science), that has always been present. Thanks for giving me information that helps me figure out from where you are writing. I am very much oblidged for you doing this. I just find it amusing how different your view and Shelly Glashow's views are concerning the vetting of new ideas(he was one of 3 people who developed the standard model of physics). Dan M. Dan M. myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
On Aug 13, 2009, at 11:10 PM, John Williams wrote: What ever gave you the idea that I want things to work out neatly? Messy, quirky, diverse, surprising, unpredictable, they're all good (as long as coercion is minimal). I suspect that is your objective here on the list as well. Charlie may have a point! I do agree that there is little experimentation going on right now in government. One of the best reasons for getting humanity out into space is to allow that experimentation to begin again. Though I expect that 99% of the time humanity will just reinvent the wheel. Today all that experimenting is occurring in science and fantasy fiction and more and more in virtual computer generated worlds. I fear that is where we, humanity, will end our run, experimenting in virtual worlds as the real universe swallows us up and spits us out. Perhaps if we are luck it will keep a few mega servers around running our virtual worlds as a form of zoo. learner ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
I do agree that there is little experimentation going on right now in government. One of the best reasons for getting humanity out into space is to allow that experimentation to begin again. One thing to remember about experimentation: 99.99% of experiments fail; they do not achieve the goals they set out to achieve. In physics, theorists have come up with tens if not hundreds of thousands of wrong theories. Shelly Glashow, who I mentioned, said he came up with 5 new theories per day. Only one of his really paid off...and it paid off big. Most experiments in physics dont find the new and exciting thing they are looking for; they just find that the 2 sigma signal they spent 2 years getting more data on disappear. Economic studies have shown that, for average entrepreneurs, the business ends up failing and costing money. We are fortunate that we have these folks, because every once in a while they come up with something that _really_ benefits everyone. But, even averaging the winners in, the average person taking a risk on a new business loses money. Finally, we do have experimentation in government. California and Texas have very different governments; and very different sets of problems. California is wining the race down to failure, it seems.because Texas doesn't have much of a housing problem and is not about to go bankrupt. You may argue that these are minimalistic changes; and they are. But big changes work better in fiction than in fact. The American Republic stands almost uniquely as a radically new form of government that worked. (Its not the only working form of representative government, of course, but the other representative governments changed to something close to 1 man 1 vote after the US was shown to survive the Civil War.) Dan M. myhosting.com - Premium Microsoft® Windows® and Linux web and application hosting - http://link.myhosting.com/myhosting ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 7:26 PM, dsummersmi...@comcast.netdsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: One thing to remember about experimentation: 99.99% of experiments fail; Which suggests we need a lot of experiments to get successes! ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Chris Frandsenlear...@mac.com wrote: I do agree that there is little experimentation going on right now in government. One of the best reasons for getting humanity out into space is to allow that experimentation to begin again. It does seem like there is a lot more latitude for innovation when there is a new frontier being explored and settled. Unfortunately, the timescale involved in opening up space colonies or colonization of other planets is so long that I do not think I have much chance of seeing it. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Role of Government in a Libertarian Free Market
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 7:51 PM, dsummersmi...@comcast.netdsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote: That's a true statementbut the problem with failure with radically new government is that the failures are horrid: (e.g. the French Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, Pot Pol). Which suggests that we need lots of very small scale experiments, so failures are small. The US was lucky in that it was a very controlled experiment. At this point, I don't think we should just roll the dice, but use the states as labs to test new ideas in government. States are still too large for most of the experiments, I think. Even many cities are too large. Also, I think dividing things geographically is often counter to the goals of many experiments we might devise. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
