Exactly. I really liked Yudkowski's framing of the rationale behind his political beliefs and agreed with his progression of ideas until he reached his conclus

Exactly. I really liked Yudkowski's framing of the rationale behind his political beliefs and agreed with his progression of ideas until he reached his conclusion. In particular, I liked his stating the issues in terms of pragmatism rather that principles because it allows for some consideration of "the public good" (which idealistic libertarians bristle at), even though that idea is admittedly hard to pin down. I won't hesitate to acknowledge the (seemingly inherent) problems with government. However, laissez-faire capitalism has it's own inherent failings: every non-libertarian has their own list but they tend to include externalities (environment, public health, ...), ideas of "fairness" (large income inequality, valuing lives in terms of income, opportunity, ...), commons (turning things that are naturally shared---public spaces, roads, ideas, water---into private monopolies). There are well-worn libertarian responses to all of these concerns, but each issue is complex and I've not generally been satisfied with purely laissez-faire approaches (so far). I like the idea of government serving as an (imperfect) check-and-balance on corporations, just as voters and separate branches are imperfect checks on government. As broken as government tools like regulation can be, I suspect the threat of their use is government's most effective tool.