Small government was Re: [extropy-chat] EMP Attack?

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> Joseph Bloch wrote:
> > Brett Paatsch wrote:
> >> Do you think a "PostHuman era" can emerge with existing
> governments
> >> in place?
> >
> > Do you think it cannot?
> 
> Yes I think it cannot.  I think a PostHuman era and existing
> governments
> are incompatible.  Existing governments would oppose a PostHuman era
> emerging without even noticing that they were doing so unless
> PostHuman
> advocates became violent or directly threatening to it, then they'd
> oppose
> it knowing that they did so.
> 
> > How do you envision bringing it about?
> 
> I don't envisage it.  I envisage a lot more history largely as usual.

Old saying: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way".  It might be nice
to speculate about ways to get rid of existing governments, but it is
*EXTREMELY* important to know at least approximately where you're going
before you start trying to go there.  Some form of government exists at
all times (anarchy, in some cases), ergo if there is a path from where
we are to the Singularity, one or more forms of government (possibly
transitioning from one to another as needed) will be in place during
that path.  What type of government would be conducive to bringing the
>H era about?

Once you have answered that question thoroughly, *then* you can start
meaningfully discussing getting rid of the current government in favor
of that.  Otherwise, chances are anyone getting rid of the current
government would just make things worse.  (Yes, the current government
may lean against >H in many ways, but in many ways they lean in favor
of it - for instance the fact that there are public hospitals through
which certain cures and medical techniques can be delivered to the
population at large.  A pure anarchy would get rid of such things, or
at least severely disrupt the current hospitals' logistics.)

If you can't answer that question, you might want to stop talking about
it until you can.  Not because I said so, but because it will help you
see exactly what about the government you would like to change, and
what you really can do about it.  (For instance: you see that people
are voting for short-sighted interests, and that is putting
short-sighted politicians in power.  Can you see a way to change things
so that most people would vote for long-sighted interests, thus putting
long-sighted politicians in power?  And if you can, do those ways
require abolishing our current government before you put them in place,
or is said abolishment instead a probable result of those ways -
meaning that you could overthrow the government without fighting it
directly?)