[extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong

[Technotranscendence]

Nope.  You move to private militaries and then you can use technologies like nuclear weapons in self-defense.  Your neighbors might have a huge army, but that will be a huge burden on them -- as militaries tend to be -- while your nuclear device keeps them from invading.  You might want to check out _The Myth of National Defense_, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe on privatizing security.

As for the immune defense analogy, the differences are two-fold.  One is that a military is a threat and a heavy cost to the citizens.  For a nation state like the US, this should be readily apparent since its citizens are forced to pay for military adventures that have almost nothing to do with security and much more to do with politics in its elite.  Two is that if the cost is privatized, those who feel most threatened will pay for the cost.  Under the current system, since militaries are tax funded -- i.e., security is treated as a public good, when it's really a private good -- the cost and quality have no relation to reality.  Does the farmer in Wisconsin really have to pay for the defense of some far-flung outpost of empire?  Is it really in his interest to have troops stationed here and there?  No.  He pays for it because he's forced to.  (You disagree, then advocate abolishing the taxes for these things.  See who will pay for, say, bases in Okinawa or to have the Sixth Fleet moving around Italy.  I bet most of these affairs would go away and go away quickly and the only ones who'd be the worse for it would be arms manufacturers, government contractors, and meddling politicos.)

Regards,

Dan
  From: Mike15007 at aol.com 
  To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
  Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 8:29 PM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] my country, right or wrong


  In a message dated 12/15/2005 8:11:49 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, neptune at superlink.net writes:
    And a better way to lessen wars would be to slash government military budgets (down to zero if possible), lower the size of the government military (again, down to zero), abandon many foreign commitments, and foster, as much as possible, free trade through unilaterally opening markets.  Privatizing military forces would probably be best too.  If each person had to pay the direct cost of all the military she or he wanted, I think most people would opt for purely defensive forces and there would be a marked drop in foreign adventures -- save for those few who felt some kind crusading spirit.  Those few would be very few indeed and their leaving on such adventures would likely be no great loss and even a welcome respite from their bleeding heart asinine harangues.
      As neat as this sounds, a state that did this would likely lose to any neighbors that maintained a large, well-funded, tightly centrally controlled military. This option (slashing military budgets and the size of the government military down to zero, or as low as possible) is only a viable strategy - or a safe one at least - if everyone else one knows about is doing the same.
      And then, like in many similar games where the perceived benefits of "defection" are huge, all it takes is one "defector" to upset the whole order, and it's only a matter of time before one comes along. Doing away with, or minimizing, the military and military budgets, is still a little too close to doing the same with one's immune system. Ditto for intelligence agencies (which let you know when someone else is spying on you and planning to do something to you that you wouldn't like).
      As long as there are "germs," there'll be need of "immune systems." And "germs" are a good deal tougher to eliminate completely than sophants of any kind.

    Regards,

    Dan
  My first post,

  Mike
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20051216/dab62299/attachment.html>