[ExI] Strong libertarianism, societal good, & suffering (was: Cephalization, proles)

[Damien Broderick]

On 5/15/2011 1:04 PM, Amon Zero wrote in reply to Rafal:

> You seem to be vacillating between claiming that your views, if put into
> practice, would (A) cause net good rather than net harm, and (B)
> declaring that we shouldn't care about others, and therefore presumably
> what the outcome of your freedom is for other people. If you don't care
> what happens to others, then your worldview fails on axiomatic grounds
> as far as I'm concerned, in that it is not good, of net utility to
> society, or indeed Extropic (unless it is possible for someone to
> achieve an Extropy worthy of the name by the deliberate victimization of
> others).
>
> If, on the other hand, you actually believe your brand of extreme
> libertarianism would be broadly beneficial to society (i.e. not cause
> widespread suffering), then please do go ahead and prove it.

I have the feeling that Rafal's position is not a million miles from the 
True Knowledge of the (paradoxically) libertarian communist future 
portrayed in Ken MacLeod's novel THE CASSINI DIVISION:

<Life is a process of breaking down and using other matter, and if need 
be, other life. Therefore, life is aggression, and successful life is 
successful aggression. Life is the scum of matter, and people are the 
scum of life. There is nothing but matter, forces, space and time, which 
together make power. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. Might 
makes right, and power makes freedom. You are free to do whatever is in 
your power, and if you want to survive and thrive you had better do 
whatever is in your interests. If your interests conflict with those of 
others, let the others pit their power against yours, everyone for 
theirselves. If your interests coincide with those of others, let them 
work together with you, and against the rest. We are what we eat, and we 
eat everything.

All that you really value, and the goodness and truth and beauty of 
life, have their roots in this apparently barren soil.

This is the true knowledge.

We had founded our idealism on the most nihilistic implications of 
science, our socialism on crass self-interest, our peace on our capacity 
for mutual destruction, and our liberty on determinism. We had replaced 
morality with convention, bravery with safety, frugality with plenty, 
philosophy with science, stoicism with anaesthetics and piety with 
immortality. The universal acid of the true knowledge had burned away a 
world of words, and exposed a universe of things.

Things we could use. [pp. 89--90] >

Damien Broderick