[ExI] size of polities

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Feb 17, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:

>  A broader view might restate your assessment in terms of information
>  technology (in the broad sense that paper documents and even town
>  meetings are technologies), recognizing that while historically
>  "obvious" that a nation could not effectively represent, let alone
>  model, the fine-grained values-complexes of its constituents, we have
>  now at hand technology capable of representing, modeling, aggregating
>  our values in **better** detail than we previously could know even
>  ourselves, c.f. amazon, lastfm, pandora, etc.

### But note that all these services are something you can use, alone
or in combination, and easily drop any or all services whenever you
want to. This is the main difference between an arrangement likely to
represent desires of individuals and others that don't - not size,
since even the smallest state can successfully trample over you, but
the easy exit option (or lack of networked encirclement).

-------------------------------------------------


>  We are beginning to see that prediction markets, betting on expected
>  outcomes, has many advantages over "democratic" voting.  Less
>  well-recognized is the meta-benefit -- and within a societal context,
>  the moral imperative -- of rather than betting on specific outcomes,
>  betting on the efficacy of the principles driving successful outcomes
>
>  Apologies in advance for the density of my comments. I am in fact quite dense.

### Ah, a restatement of "The ends do not justify the means". Good, very good.

Rafal