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Please read the linked article. It makes a very persuasive argument that the very ability to deploy a mechanical army tips a government towards totalitarianism,

Please read the linked article. It makes a very persuasive argument that the very ability to deploy a mechanical army tips a government towards totalitarianism, as it takes human beings out of the decree-enforcement loop.

ivankirigin 17y ago
As a libertarian, I'm definitely sensitive to the issue, and look forward to reading the article. I think the threat of oppressive government is much higher from democracy than from any robots. If I were starting a new country, it wouldn't be a democracy, but a extremely small government that by built in limits couldn't be oppressive. In such a case, I'd prefer to have automated police and military forces, to have fewer human points of failure. I consider, for example, the Roosevelt court packing debacle to be a significant human point of failure in our democracy.
- asciilifeform 17y ago
  > extremely small government that by built in limits couldn't be oppressive Unless the limits are enforced by benevolent, technologically advanced aliens, you're screwed. History offers massive proof if you're willing to look. As for robots: at least FDR had to convince actual humans - the kind with their own interests, and some measure of built-in resistance - of something in order to pack the court. As opposed to, say, personally programming a 100,000-strong robot army to fire on his command.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    No, Roosevelt threatened the court to vote his way to to add more justices to make the court vote his way. Micronations that allow for easy migrations would probably work with a BDFL. It's like a company really. You're free to move from Microsoft to Google, both organizations work really well, and neither is anything close to a democracy. If there is no money to spend, the need to vote is far reduced. How much would congress even have to do if the budget were $100B and not $3T?
    - asciilifeform 17y ago
      > Micronations that allow for easy migrations would probably work As would large countries governed by benevolent aliens or gods. Both are a fantasy. The Libertarian fantasy of a plethora of micronations ignores the fact that military power is the ultimate determinant of sovereignty and strictly follows economies of scale. To put it shortly: if you can't defeat the U.S. militarily, you aren't sovereign. And you need a heavy industrial base and probably a huge population to parasitise in order to manufacture nukes, ICBMs, warplanes, etc.
      - ivankirigin 17y ago
        The US doesn't invade countries without strategic interest. I think that you mainly need to defend against neighbors and pirates. Dozens of countries don't need to defend against the US to have their sovereignty because they are on "mutual" defense.
anamax 17y ago
I can't find the article now, but in the same issue of the Yale Law Journal in which Levinson's "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" was published, there was another article arguing that nuclear weapons were a violation of the 2nd amendment because they allowed war-making without real-time human involvement.

ivankirigin 17y ago

As a libertarian, I'm definitely sensitive to the issue, and look forward to reading the article. I think the threat of oppressive government is much higher from democracy than from any robots. If I were starting a new country, it wouldn't be a democracy, but a extremely small government that by built in limits couldn't be oppressive. In such a case, I'd prefer to have automated police and military forces, to have fewer human points of failure. I consider, for example, the Roosevelt court packing debacle to be a significant human point of failure in our democracy.

asciilifeform 17y ago
> extremely small government that by built in limits couldn't be oppressive Unless the limits are enforced by benevolent, technologically advanced aliens, you're screwed. History offers massive proof if you're willing to look. As for robots: at least FDR had to convince actual humans - the kind with their own interests, and some measure of built-in resistance - of something in order to pack the court. As opposed to, say, personally programming a 100,000-strong robot army to fire on his command.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  No, Roosevelt threatened the court to vote his way to to add more justices to make the court vote his way. Micronations that allow for easy migrations would probably work with a BDFL. It's like a company really. You're free to move from Microsoft to Google, both organizations work really well, and neither is anything close to a democracy. If there is no money to spend, the need to vote is far reduced. How much would congress even have to do if the budget were $100B and not $3T?
  - asciilifeform 17y ago
    > Micronations that allow for easy migrations would probably work As would large countries governed by benevolent aliens or gods. Both are a fantasy. The Libertarian fantasy of a plethora of micronations ignores the fact that military power is the ultimate determinant of sovereignty and strictly follows economies of scale. To put it shortly: if you can't defeat the U.S. militarily, you aren't sovereign. And you need a heavy industrial base and probably a huge population to parasitise in order to manufacture nukes, ICBMs, warplanes, etc.
    - ivankirigin 17y ago
      The US doesn't invade countries without strategic interest. I think that you mainly need to defend against neighbors and pirates. Dozens of countries don't need to defend against the US to have their sovereignty because they are on "mutual" defense.

anamax 17y ago

I can't find the article now, but in the same issue of the Yale Law Journal in which Levinson's "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" was published, there was another article arguing that nuclear weapons were a violation of the 2nd amendment because they allowed war-making without real-time human involvement.