[extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism - a search formeaning...

[Brett Paatsch]

Sorry some sloppy typing and lack of proofreading in my reply.

I meant a virtual country would need people who understand
the principles of reciprocality as citizens rather than people
who just happen to think of themselves as transhumanist
because the coupling of rights with responsibilities is crucial.
There can be no rights given that are not matched by 
responsibilities accepted. 

Instead of "To harm is done", I meant "No harm is done".

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Brett Paatsch 
  To: Jack Parkinson ; ExI chat list 
  Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 10:27 AM
  Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism - a search formeaning...


  Jack Parkinson wrote:

  > ... shouldn't the first concern be to draft a manifesto
  > of individual liberties which will admit of any kind of political system
  > - but will curb the tendency of elite groups to gather all resources
  > and prerogatives to themselves?


  Are you suggesting a tranhumanist bill of rights?  I think there is some
  merit in such a suggestion. If someone makes a reasonable first draft
  of it, I'd be interested in checking it out and maybe giving feedback.

  I think it is possible to establish virtual countries on top of the existing
  countries by first getting right the concept of virtual citizenship. 

  I'm not personally keen to make the running on a transhumanist bill
  of rights because although I have friends that think of themselves as
  transhumanists I don't think a virtual country needs people who understand
  the principles of good citizenship (reciprocosity) more than it needs
  people who just happen to call themselves transhumanists.  

  Get the mix of rights and responsibilities right and there is no logical
  impassible barrier that I can see to founding a virtual country using
  contract law, on top of the legal infrastructure of existing countries. 

  Its legally permissible to contract, to form associations, to trade 
  (including internationally) and to minimise tax, and to share knowledge
  of local opportunities and conditions. 

  > Sorry this is such a long initial post! But I view governments the 
  > same way you might view AI - we create them, but we don't
  > neccessarily control them.

  Sorry this initial post didn't get a response earlier. 

  > A good first step might be to make politicians personally 
  > accountable for their errors...

  That's not a bad idea. But you can't have a first step that is not
  operationalisable.  Holding all politicians as a class accountable for
  their collective errors isn't operationalisable for you or me or indeed 
  any one person. Because they don't operate as a class. They take
  individual oaths of office and to the extent that they can individually
  avoid being held to account for breaking their oath, then of course
  they will (on average) try to do just that.

  If you want to hold any one politician accountable and set an example
  of holding accountable to the others you have to go after the highest
  profile one. You have to make sure the US President, the highest 
  profile politician in the world is held accountable. 

  There is absolutely nothing wrong or immoral in holding a person 
  accountable for upholding what they have promised to do.

  And if it turns out that you or I am mistaken in thinking that they
  haven't breached their oath or promise but we have sought to hold
  them to account only by lawful, honourable means, then nothing
  is lost. To harm is done. 

  Another area where accountability might be considered is in the
  area of corporations.  Are corporations doing more harm than
  good in 2005 by allowing human decision makers inside them 
  to decouple anti-social (sometimes) individual actions from the
  social consequences of those individual actions?  I don't know
  the answer to this. I haven't thought it through properly but perhaps
  whatever reasons there were for corporations historically are no
  longer as true today as they were when corporations were 
  first formed.

  Brett Paatsch




   


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