[Exi-bay-chat] on Geoethical Nanotechnology

[Anton Sherwood]

> Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>> It is sad to see people who once wrote eloquently about libertarian
>> approaches to the world giving even lip service to words like 
>> "global regulatory framework".

Natasha Vita-More wrote:
> . . . why would you hang your future so tightly to any one political
> theory when no one political theory is substantially adequate to 
> intelligently address the rate of change and the effects of change 
> and how the world can function in order to protect individuality and
> freedom.

Every political regulation is prevention of some kind of individuality,
denial of some kind of freedom.  That is the core competence of the
political process; thus we agree that each political system is
inadequate to preserving freedom and nurturing individuality.

Perry and I therefore prefer to rely on *non*political approaches.
They require more imagination sometimes, but on the other hand they
cause fewer deaths.  So we are disappointed to see Max now apparently
willing to resort to the "easy" road of control by threat of violence.

Fyi & imho: libertarianism is more an ethical theory than a political
theory; there are libertarian anarchists, libertarian democrats and
libertarian monarchists.  Everyone agrees that government can exist
and function only by doing things that would be wrong if a private
party did them.  Libertarians hold that classifying such acts as
"political" does not make them less wrong.  (Not all are anarchists
because not all believe that the evils inevitably tolerated in anarchy 
are less than those necessarily created by the state.)

> If you are referring to Max  [...]
> then you would find that his eloquence has evolved, not declined.

That's not what bothers us.

-- 
Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/
"If only he'd used his genius for niceness instead of evil." --Agent 86