[extropy-chat] The Hidden Luddite was Re: peak oil debate

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> Business has no way of legally initiating force against anyone.   
> Governments do.  This is the crucial and often overlooked difference 
> in a nutshell.

Ah, but is it force to lie to someone and sell them poison when they
think they are purchasing food?  Is it force to make sure that
customers have access to complete (or as complete as possible)
information about a company before doing business with them?  What if
most companies view it in their self-interest not to give out
information, such that mass refusal to do business with the secretive
(the market's way of punishing this) is not a practical option?  And
if businesses then initiated force, but made sure the general public
never knew about it, hiding it in the generally-accepted secrecy...

This is the kind of situation we were discussing.