[ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Dan<dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I disagree.  I don't think any major change in human nature is necessary for a voluntary society.  Granted, any voluntary society is bound to have some unwarranted coercion.  E.g., under a libertarian system, I don't expect crime to disappear.  But that's not what I meant: I didn't mean a society where there is no crime or where everything is perfect.  Rather I meant one where institutionalized coercion is absent -- i.e., where there is no state and no contender to being a state.
>
> That seems achievable now though perhaps unlikely.  One reason to be believe it's possible is humans have approached this in the past and even now in statist societies most human interactions are voluntary NOT coercive.  For example, the interactions on this list.  As far as I know, no one here literally beats up any of her or his interlocutors.

### I wish I could share your optimism. The way I see it, at least 60%
of all activity today happens under duress (since the government
directly or indirectly controls about 60% of the society), plus there
is a minor amount of private violence. This is an improvement over the
savages in the jungles of South America or Africa, where most men die
by homicide. It may be better than life in Mexican villages, where
social customs impose an implicit marginal tax rate of 85%. But there
is no doubt that the vast majority of US citizens happily endorse mass
slaughter of random brown people, destruction of lives of millions of
workers here and abroad (through protectionist trade measures), and
even the daily senseless mayhem on our roads. Today I saw five cops on
three miles of highway, brazenly, in broad daylight attacking honest
workers, just swaggering over with their guns and squeezing them for
cash under the pretext of committing what they call "crimes", and what
I call driving home.

I think that a stably non-violent society will emerge only after
enough people boost themselves to the equivalent of IQ140 or higher
(so they won't have false consequentialist ideas about the need for
initiation of violence), and erase whatever neural networks make them
envious and domineering (to remove the real emotional drivers of
violence).

Let's hope you are right.

Rafal