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

[Damien Sullivan]

On Sun, Feb 27, 2011 at 11:10:03AM -0500, Richard Loosemore wrote:

> And having said all of that, we do have something like the required  
> simulations already:  game theory.  Libertarianism is something close to  
> an "all defection, all the time" strategy ;-), and I believe those don't  
> do very well....

That's unfair, I'd grant that it's more like Tit For Tat.  The problem
is that while TfT largely solves the iterated two-person Prisoner's
Dilemma given certain population assumptions, the multiplayer game is
less amenable to solution and the real population is less ideal.  There
is a non-governmental solution, but it's a second-order norm of such
strength as to make a democratic governemnt seem lax, where you punish
defectors and anyone who isn't punishing a defector.  The coercion to
cooperate is distributed, but still coercive.  When I was libertarian,
it was for the sake of real freedom, not replacing government with
social oppression.

-xx- Damien X-)