[ExI] libertarian (asteroid) defense

[Kelly Anderson]

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 7:51 PM, Damien Sullivan
<phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 07:11:48PM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> Some probably would.  But do you raise as much through individual
> donations individually decided upon as you do through "mutual coercion,
> mutally agreed upon"?

Certainly not! But you wouldn't need as much either. So much of the
money that goes to Washington just feeds the pig. If it were dealt
with by smaller organizations, it would be more productively focused.
Look at the difference between the results of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation vs. the United Nations.

> Would you raise enough?

For needs, I think yes. For wants, probably not, unless enough people
wanted it. The problem today is that you have a congress that doesn't
seem to care what the people want, and vote programs down our throats
anyway.

> What of the free rider
> problem, and what do economic experiments tell us of willingness to keep
> on donating for non-excludable goods?
>
> Historically, how did orphanage funding quantity and orphanage quality
> change between pure private and mostly public funding?

Historically, they used to get more orphans into private homes than
they do now. Unless they were defective in some way, in which case
they were put into horrible institutions. I am not romantic about the
past, and I do worry about whether enough people would be willing to
privately donate enough to properly care for the disabled in a
libertarian utopia. I do believe the current zeitgeist would have
strong enough incentives to raise the necessary money. However, under
a true libertarian system, such feelings might well eventually shift
to something more akin to the Inuit or Spartan approach...

My personal hope is that the coming trans-human technologies will
enable many of the currently disabled to become fully enabled, but
that's more of a dream than an expectation. There are a lot of ethical
dilemmas on that road too... do you give a functional body with a
dysfunctional brain to an AGI?

-Kelly