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> ...as they would like it to become... Friendly society... DRO... I think this has always been my primary gripe with ancap -- it's Utopian. And all Utopian th

> ...as they would like it to become... Friendly society... DRO... I think this has always been my primary gripe with ancap -- it's Utopian. And all Utopian thinking has the same problem -- it's either irrational, or very rational but starting from very strong axioms. Ancap writers, to their credit, tend to care a lot about crafting strong, rational arguments. When I think about ancap (or any political theory that sets off my Utopia alarms), I reason through the entirety of society. I raise a lot of objections to myself, and make a note each time I come to the conclusion that I need some assumption about how people will behave. Then I take those assumptions, and apply them to various state-based systems. Usually I end up with an equally Utopian world, or only require a small delta in the axioms to end up at a Utopian world. To me, that suggests that it's the axioms that are doing all the heavy lifting. If you can make enough assumptions, the state is much more than unnecessary -- it's also irrelevant! You get a Utopia either way! The enemy isn't the state, it's human behavior. FWIW the same exercise can be used to derive ancap out of a thorough analysis of communist literature. And it also applies to more centrist policy proposals that posit Utopian-level returns. At least, that's my experience with struggling through ancap literature. YMMV.

di4na 10y ago
Well welcome to nearly all political theory. There is a reason we are still stuck with some fairly well known different systems for all these years. Human bahaviour is the same so far. And saying that we need to modify human behaviour to make it "better" is a complex road too... The thing is, we tryied to did it with the widespread education of since the 50s, with a more or less loose objective and set of policies, implemented differently in different countries. We now have more data than ever... But can we really shape our future toward something that help our species to survive? I think that it is the big hole in the set of goal that Elon Musk set for himself, and it talks also a lot to the goals that sama want for YC. How do we educate, teach, create opportunities, so that humanity keep going or have the tools to overcome what is to come...
- danharaj 10y ago
  > Well welcome to nearly all political theory. There is a reason we are still stuck with some fairly well known different systems for all these years. There are plenty of anti-utopian and materialist political theories. The real reason why we've seen only a few different systems is that they are the ones that most effectively wield power and violence to maintain their class relations. That's the position of Marxists. Most strains of anarchism are also anti-utopian. I think it is naive to say that the reason we haven't progressed is because we don't have the right set of ideas. Idealism itself is an obstacle. Understanding the material forces that create and propagate our world is essential. Most mainstream political ideologies pretend the world is driven by ideas when it's the other way around.
nickik 10y ago
I don't think its all that Utopian. An-Caps take a lot of care to make there institution prove against human weakness. There is also a lot of study into historical examples that explain part of how a An-Cap society would work. I don't one can expect more from any group. An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system. Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect. In fact, I would actually say that it would probably not be that much better then what we have now. I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system... Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect. Perhaps. That doesn't make it any less Utopian in my book. > I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments. Depends on the writer. There certainly are writers for whom this is true. IMO it's not true of Molyneux, to name one. Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave...
  - nickik 10y ago
    Then I don't understand your definition of Utopian or how it is useful. Molyneux is no longer an AnCap, he has gone of and is basically something on its own now. There are actual economics/poetical science PhD working on this stuff, see for example Peter Leeson, Bryan Caplan. > Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave... Rational choice in this context means not Homo Economicus (as in mathematical maximisation of expected outcome) but rather rational choice limited by information and so on. This assumtion is much weaker and applies to enough people as to make it useful. Its basically what much micro economics and political science already does. I don't know what better scientific disciplines we have to make better evaluation of theoretical system of humans.
mmirate 10y ago
> it's either irrational, or very rational but starting from very strong axioms. I'm not sure I understand why the latter is anywhere near as bad as the former, or even bad at all. ... Err, by "very strong" did you mean "makes (a conjunction of) many claims" rather than "resilient"?
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > Err, by "very strong" did you mean "makes (a conjunction of) many claims" rather than "resilient"? Kind of. I certainly did not mean "resilient"! when speaking of axioms, typically "strong" means "a lot of stuff follows from the axiom". It's in reference to the deductive power of the axiom, usually when taken as part of a larger system of deduction. So for example, "False" is a really, really strong axiom in most systems of deduction. Strong axioms aren't necessarily a bad thing. But if you need a lot of strong axioms, you might be saying something about a very specific hypothetical situation...

di4na 10y ago

Well welcome to nearly all political theory. There is a reason we are still stuck with some fairly well known different systems for all these years. Human bahaviour is the same so far. And saying that we need to modify human behaviour to make it "better" is a complex road too... The thing is, we tryied to did it with the widespread education of since the 50s, with a more or less loose objective and set of policies, implemented differently in different countries. We now have more data than ever... But can we really shape our future toward something that help our species to survive? I think that it is the big hole in the set of goal that Elon Musk set for himself, and it talks also a lot to the goals that sama want for YC. How do we educate, teach, create opportunities, so that humanity keep going or have the tools to overcome what is to come...

danharaj 10y ago
> Well welcome to nearly all political theory. There is a reason we are still stuck with some fairly well known different systems for all these years. There are plenty of anti-utopian and materialist political theories. The real reason why we've seen only a few different systems is that they are the ones that most effectively wield power and violence to maintain their class relations. That's the position of Marxists. Most strains of anarchism are also anti-utopian. I think it is naive to say that the reason we haven't progressed is because we don't have the right set of ideas. Idealism itself is an obstacle. Understanding the material forces that create and propagate our world is essential. Most mainstream political ideologies pretend the world is driven by ideas when it's the other way around.

nickik 10y ago

I don't think its all that Utopian. An-Caps take a lot of care to make there institution prove against human weakness. There is also a lot of study into historical examples that explain part of how a An-Cap society would work. I don't one can expect more from any group. An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system. Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect. In fact, I would actually say that it would probably not be that much better then what we have now. I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments.

throwaway729 10y ago
> An-Capism is as un-utipian as you can get while still having some vauge definition of an ideal system... Most AnCaps happily admit that the assumed society would not be near perfect. Perhaps. That doesn't make it any less Utopian in my book. > I don't think the axioms are that special, its basic rational choice political science/economics that is applied in most AnCap arguments. Depends on the writer. There certainly are writers for whom this is true. IMO it's not true of Molyneux, to name one. Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave...
- nickik 10y ago
  Then I don't understand your definition of Utopian or how it is useful. Molyneux is no longer an AnCap, he has gone of and is basically something on its own now. There are actual economics/poetical science PhD working on this stuff, see for example Peter Leeson, Bryan Caplan. > Of course, rational choice is not special, but it is an enormous assumption that we're pretty sure is not a realistic description of how people actually behave... Rational choice in this context means not Homo Economicus (as in mathematical maximisation of expected outcome) but rather rational choice limited by information and so on. This assumtion is much weaker and applies to enough people as to make it useful. Its basically what much micro economics and political science already does. I don't know what better scientific disciplines we have to make better evaluation of theoretical system of humans.

mmirate 10y ago

> it's either irrational, or very rational but starting from very strong axioms. I'm not sure I understand why the latter is anywhere near as bad as the former, or even bad at all. ... Err, by "very strong" did you mean "makes (a conjunction of) many claims" rather than "resilient"?

throwaway729 10y ago
> Err, by "very strong" did you mean "makes (a conjunction of) many claims" rather than "resilient"? Kind of. I certainly did not mean "resilient"! when speaking of axioms, typically "strong" means "a lot of stuff follows from the axiom". It's in reference to the deductive power of the axiom, usually when taken as part of a larger system of deduction. So for example, "False" is a really, really strong axiom in most systems of deduction. Strong axioms aren't necessarily a bad thing. But if you need a lot of strong axioms, you might be saying something about a very specific hypothetical situation...