[ExI] General comment about all this quasi-libertarianism discussion

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 7:15 AM, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com> wrote:
> Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Richard Loosemore <rpwl at lightlink.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Which is to say:  if you think these libertarian/anarchist proposals are
>>> so
>>> great, WHERE IS THE CODE?
>>
>> Funny coming from you Richard... :-)
>
> So it seems that you missed the joke completely :-( even though I spelled it
> out in my post.  (And you took the opportunity to make another disparaging
> personal remark ... that's pretty sad.)
>
> I hate to have to point out the obvious, Kelly, but:  I asked for code
> precisely *because* of your own stance, which appears to be that someone
> with no code is saying nothing.
>
> So apparently you don't get irony.  That's no fun.

Richard, I've been around mailing lists for twenty years. My
conclusion is that irony is incompatible with the medium. Now that I
get it, I'm laughing.

>> Richard, a simulation wouldn't prove anything, nor change anyone's
>> mind. A simulation only reflects the mind of the writer of the
>> simulation. The closest thing that I can think of to a simulation of
>> libertarian views is the novel Atlas Shrugged. I suggest you go watch
>> the movie when it comes out as the book is very long. There are some
>> holes in it, but it does point out that getting to the pure
>> libertarian from where we are is going to be painful for a lot of the
>> hangers on.
>
> Sounds to me like somebody is making excuses.

Absolutely not. I honestly believe libertarianism would work, but that
it would be EXTREMELY painful for a while. The reason being that we
have created a system where more than half of the population is
dependent in some pretty big way on the government carrying their
water. The American experiment started out as a libertarian
experiment. All of the founding fathers would today be considered
strong Ron Paul type libertarians.

> So "a simulation wouldn't prove anything", huh?   And - oh, deary me - you
> cite a horribly bad novel, filled to the brim with naked propaganda, written
> by an egomaniacal, hypocritical cult leader, as a substitute for the
> computer simulations that you should be doing...?

Believe me, I'm not the one to be writing any such simulation. Not my
specialty. I wouldn't know how to start.

I would agree that Ayn Rand is an egomaniac, but that's what she
espoused, so I don't see how that is hypocritical. She lived her life
pretty much as she believed life should be lived. And her position on
altruism being evil is very compelling, if you understand it. Anyone
who dismisses her as an asshole is missing out on a very interesting
philosophy.

> Funny coming from you Kelly... :-)
>
> But seriously, this is excellent news.  Now I don't have to write any AGI
> simulations, since they won't prove anything.

I'm going to assume you are attempting Irony again here. Haha.

> And if you ask me for code in the future, I can just tell you to go read
> "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day".  (Or you could watch the movie
> version, if that's easier.)

Now I'm sure you are attempting some sort of humor that I won't
attempt to label.

-Kelly