[ExI] Be nice to leftists

[Omar Rahman]

> Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:18:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
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> Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>,June 15, 2014 2:18 PM:
> "I
> had some analysis in my rpg writeup of an anarchocapitalist legal system: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf - see the "Above the law" section. Basically, it drains resources
> from you at a very high rate, so unless you have more resources than the entire
> rest of the society you will soon be in trouble."
> From
> the link:
> 
> ??Some people worry about the strength of
> Medusan Shield: what if they decided to take over? This is pretty unlikely
> since that takeover would be extremely expensive ? there are far too many
> gun-nut libertarians and other security corps around ? and most likely result
> in the loss of what makes Extropia worth anything. It is a cluster of free
> trade and free thinking, and without that it is just a big settlement with no
> particular resources."
> 
> *****
> Over many years of reading about the stability of minarchy versus anarcho-capitalism [market capitalism] my primary conclusion is that both require a high degree of cultural sophistication and unanimity in order to remain stable in a finite largely closed system such as the Earth.?

I agree that a high degree of cultural sophistication is required and I think that 'multiculturalism' as is attempted in Canada is preferable to the 'melting pot' as is practiced in the US for precisely the reason you mention below. Unanimity, I think, is best maintained through the enfranchisement of the population in the political process, culture, and the economy. 

> Cultural sophistication and unanimity cannot be maintained through coercion in a free thinking free society.?

Resorting to coercion is basically the abandonment of sophistication and the acknowledgement that unanimity cannot be maintained. Cultural sophistication and unanimity are in some senses opposites. Obviously you have to have a certain amount of unity/fellow feeling or it would be pointless to describe something as one culture, but if it requires unanimity there is no room for sophistication. This is a very tricky line to draw and is best drawn by artists. Art in all its forms from painting to cooking is this social glue and I think its importance is underestimated in some (many?) countries.

> So it would seem that present conditions are not conducive to either form.? I believe there are possible long term stable models in an open system such as space but that would first require the industrialization of space.
> 
> Dennis May

I would hope that we sort things out before we become multi-planetary as there is more potential growth in space than down here and I wouldn't want some powerful culture to come back and kick us in the teeth just because we didn't share some basic cultural understandings.

Best regards,

Omar Rahman
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