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

[The Avantguardian]

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:

> "Tend to not do" and "do not do" are two different
> things.  Some people
> do pursue the illegal path - and some of those
> suceed, gaining enough
> of an advantage to specialize and reduce their risk.
>  Corruption
> happens when someone manages to reduce the risk to
> close enough to
> zero, and starts teaching others how to beat the
> system.

This is true, Adrian. The question we have to ask is
why does the system portray itself as a "game" that
must be beaten? Why are those that beat the system
glorified by the media? The system is the very fabric
of our continued existense and we continually try to
beat it rather than maximizing the entire system of
which we are part? 

Economics is so well-described by game-theory because
it IS a game. Like all games the economy is defined by
a set of rules, too many if you are a libertarian and
too few if you are a socialist.

But what one has to realize that we as free-willed
beings have a choice as to what games we play. Thus we
have choice of what rules we play by, if any.
Therefore the definition of the game itself should
change. We choose to play a zero sum game with each
other, and the only rules that exist do so to firmly
maintain the winners from the losers, when in reality
we should be playing cooperative solitaire for
survival points. 

To a large extent the economy exists solely in the
minds of we the people, and on digital "paper" and
does not change the orbits of heavenly bodies.
Ironically, to stand any chance of SURVIVING for the
long term, those very same people will have to develop
an techno-economic system powerful enough to deflect
asteroids and import resources at least
inter-planetarily.    

We shouldn't play a game whose rules exist solely as
an economic wedge to perpetuate the socioeconomic
stratification of society. The easiest way to win such
a game is to break the rules. What we should do is
model the economy as a non-zerosum game whose end
result is to maximize the stability of the economy
itself. Instead of rewarding those who minumize
individual risk at the expense of increasing aggregate
risk to society, the rules should be such that those
that lower aggregate risk to society should be
rewarded the most.

Since we get to CHOOSE the rules of games we CHOOSE to
play, surely we should change the rules of the game to
sustain the length of the game, like good old
fashioned Space Invaders rather than a game on par
Russian Roullete. To have no rules at all as the
libertarians want to do would be for all of us to play
the game based on rules that are defined by
happenstance and at the whim of nature. Just because
one believes that nature was not intelligently
designed does not mean that one has to settle for
spending ones whole life playing an economic game that
was simililarly not intelligently designed.

So what would be some good rules that would help
accurate assessment of aggregate risk?  

The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


	
		
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