[extropy-chat] Extropy and libertarianism - a search fo rmeaning...

[Jack Parkinson]

Brett Paatsch wrote >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.

What I really had in mind was not actually a transhuman bill of rights - but a sort of rubric if you will - couched in philosophic/moral rather than procedural terms. I have an inherent distrust of codified 'law' - we have way too much of it and I have seen estimates that statute law has burgeoned in some western nations by 200% or more in the last two generations or so. 

At present we employ vast numbers of people to formulate written legislation and then yet greater numbers to pick holes in the laws, circumvent them, evade them or otherwise invalidate them. If all that vast repository of law was abolished overnight - I wonder - would it really matter? Probably not IF you could still go to court, plead your case, and be judged by good people in your society on the basis of what is right and wrong... 

This in essence is the argument for common law. It is flexible and reflects current mores and attitudes, England got by for centuries on it. Codification and statutes are well-meaning but too often fail in delivering genuine justice: In the beginning was the word, then the word was twisted...

The letter of the law is not the same as it's spirit (which allows no loopholes and technical acquittals of wrongdoers). 

Perhaps it should also be said that legislation is used at least as much to oppress as it is to protect....

>> 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.

It should not be too difficult - one simple practice would do it: every executive decision/promise has an executive sponsor who signs off on the order/pledge and takes full responsibility for it. No sponsor = no order/pledge, no matter how strong the wording it - becomes just a suggestion/hope... A committee need not be jointly responsible - but they must have one member who is prepared to 'carry the can' for the rest. Where multiple members DO sign, retribution is not mitigated by membership of the group - they are jointly and severally liable. The same system would work as well for corporations as for politicians. 
No more limited liability! no more decoupling of action from adverse consequence! We might expect a lot less frivolity, self-serving decision-making and empty promises if such a system were in place...
Jack
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