4 ms·

> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". There are four guys in a cri

by ant512 13y ago

> Few people are saying saying "let's not do this" for some value of "this", they're saying "let's not force everyone to do this". There are four guys in a crippled spaceship. They have 7 hours of oxygen left if they continue to breathe normally. If they all make a concerted effort to breathe slowly they could extend the oxygen to 8 hours. The rescue ship arrives in 8 hours. They are all in it together. There's nothing that can be done about that. Now the libertarian astronaut insists that he won't be forced to change his breathing pattern. No way is he going to be forced to do anything different. He's not going to be forced to be in it with the other guys. No amount of cajoling, threatening or reasoning will get this guy to give up his "one-man island" philosophy. But he is in it with the other guys. Sticking his head in the space-sand doesn't change the hard facts of 7 hours of oxygen and rescue in 8.

CamperBob2 13y ago
Do you have a permit from the EPA to burn all of that straw?
- ant512 13y ago
  It's a contrived analogy, mainly because - as Simon points out in the article: > Their eyes glaze...It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. It seems to me that people struggle to deal with this issue when scaled out to a population beyond their immediate social circle. That's one of the problems. The other is, as soon as you scale it back to a comprehensible size, people shout "straw man!" and the debate goes nowhere.
VMG 13y ago
Contrived example time? What is the political system on the spaceship that allows three of the four to hold a vote and kill off the least popular guy on the spaceship?
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  It's contrived but it highlights a real problem: free markets are very poorly suited to the task of avoiding tragedies of the commons. Unless you think tragedies of the commons don't happen in real life, the contrived example is relevant.
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    The problem with the example is that it doesn't illustrate the tragedy of the commons. Self-interest alone will lead the astronauts to do the right thing, because they're rational actors who are fully aware of their situation, and who are not in competition with each other. There's no incentive for the "libertarian" astronaut to consume more oxygen than the others. In your example, only stupid astronauts (or, I suppose, mentally impaired ones) would fail to conserve their oxygen. It's better to structure your economic views to encourage and expect rational behavior among fully-aware actors, even if this ideal is rarely approached in practice.
    - JonnieCache 13y ago
      >It's better to structure your economic views to encourage and expect rational behavior among fully-aware actors, even if this ideal is rarely approached in practice. Why?
      - CamperBob2 13y ago
        Because otherwise you end up allowing naive, irrational, and dishonest actors to determine how your system functions for everyone. It's like airport security.
  - VMG 13y ago
    Let's use your contrived example to highlight a new problem: The three astronauts Yuri and John elect Markus to be the new commissioner of oxygen, while Markus votes for Ronald and Ronald abstains. Everybody delegates total control to Markus, who unfortunately turns out to be a psychopath and kills the whole crew. What were we talking about again?
- saraid216 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens
ahomescu1 13y ago
> No amount of cajoling, threatening or reasoning will get this guy to give up his "one-man island" philosophy. That's an unreasonable assumption. If he doesn't breathe slowly, he dies. As CamperBob2 also points out, it would be completely irrational for the libertarian astronaut to refuse to cooperate, so he'd go along. The problem most libertarians point out is that we're sometimes forced (by society) to contribute, without receiving anything in return. One-sided trades are the problem, not mutually-beneficial cooperation. When you pay 40% of your income so others get welfare, you're arguably not receiving anything in return.
- fizzbar 13y ago
  How do you define what the "return" is? Perhaps it's not an immediate causal relationship, but a much more complicated, interrelated set of returns -- like a more cohesive, inclusive, better functioning society. Paying more for welfare to others might pay off in being able to walk the streets at night without being mugged, for example.
direwolf 13y ago
Actually, I think this is a really great example, and how you view it says a lot about your philosophy. Let's call the libertarian astronaut Ayn. Ayn is rational, and she happens to really like breathing normally. There's no biological reason requiring her to do so, but breathing more slowly seems inconvenient to her. So she just keeps breathing normally. Since she assumes the other three astronauts to be rational, she expects them to moderate their breathing even further to account for her normal breathing. At first, this is what happens. The other three astronauts breathe even more slowly to make up for Ayn's normal breathing, keeping them on pace for 8 hours of oxygen. But the other astronauts think this division isn't fair--there's no reason that Ayn should get more oxygen than the rest of them. They decide that they have a couple of options. First, they could all start breathing normally in the hopes that Ayn would start moderating her breathing in response. It would turn the spaceship into a contest of who blinks first, and if no one blinked soon enough, all of them would die. Second, they could kill Ayn, but they believe murder is immoral. They think Ayn's behavior is unfair, but killing is worse, so they don't do it. Instead, the other three astronauts come up with another option. They vote on and accept the moderated breathing policy for everyone in the spaceship. Ayn refuses to participate in the vote. The other three astronauts unanimously elect one of them--we'll call him Big Brother--to regulate the use of oxygen. Big Brother keeps track of everyone's breathing and can slap people in the face if they don't breathe at the agreed-upon rate. The rules allow any three of the astronauts to vote out the oxygen regulator if he doesn't do a good job, or doesn't comply with the breathing regulations himself. Ayn might not like breathing slowly, but she likes getting slapped in the face less, so she moderates her breathing. But now Ayn is upset. She argues forcefully that she's a bold risk-taker and that society should incentivize her risk-taking. She took a risk and breathed normally, taking what she wanted even though it created a possibility that the other astronauts would do so as well, which would kill them all. She points out that Big Brother has made some mistakes--he's miscalculated the breathing rate a couple of times and slapped people when they didn't deserve it. She argues for the deregulation of oxygen and the return of the free market. Who's right: Ayn or Big Brother? Neither is perfect, but I'll take Big Brother. The alternative is a game of chicken where the stakes are everyone's lives. As for this example being contrived, let's change it slightly. Let's say 7 billion people are born onto a planet. This planet has limited drinkable water, breathable air, arable land, and combustible material. We can either let people use those resources however they please, risking the resources' eventual pollution, overuse, and depletion, or we can establish systems to regulate use so that they will be available to everyone for for the foreseeable future. If we don't regulate their use, we can get iPods at slightly cheaper prices, at least in the short term. The point is that people will take what they want and cut corners to make money, even if endangers the health of the human race. Yes, we're all in it together. Personally, I'll take the sustainability of the planet over cheaper iPods. This doesn't mean that I think the government should regulate everything, that all regulation is good, or that our current system of regulation is optimal. But I think it's inarguable that some things need to be regulated, and that there is a role for government. Can government be inefficient, corrupt, or just plain wrong? Sure. It's fallible, just like any human creation (including private entities). But we need it.

by ant512 13y ago

CamperBob2 13y ago

Do you have a permit from the EPA to burn all of that straw?

ant512 13y ago
It's a contrived analogy, mainly because - as Simon points out in the article: > Their eyes glaze...It's too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. It seems to me that people struggle to deal with this issue when scaled out to a population beyond their immediate social circle. That's one of the problems. The other is, as soon as you scale it back to a comprehensible size, people shout "straw man!" and the debate goes nowhere.

VMG 13y ago

Contrived example time? What is the political system on the spaceship that allows three of the four to hold a vote and kill off the least popular guy on the spaceship?

jjoonathan 13y ago
It's contrived but it highlights a real problem: free markets are very poorly suited to the task of avoiding tragedies of the commons. Unless you think tragedies of the commons don't happen in real life, the contrived example is relevant.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  The problem with the example is that it doesn't illustrate the tragedy of the commons. Self-interest alone will lead the astronauts to do the right thing, because they're rational actors who are fully aware of their situation, and who are not in competition with each other. There's no incentive for the "libertarian" astronaut to consume more oxygen than the others. In your example, only stupid astronauts (or, I suppose, mentally impaired ones) would fail to conserve their oxygen. It's better to structure your economic views to encourage and expect rational behavior among fully-aware actors, even if this ideal is rarely approached in practice.
  - JonnieCache 13y ago
    >It's better to structure your economic views to encourage and expect rational behavior among fully-aware actors, even if this ideal is rarely approached in practice. Why?
    - CamperBob2 13y ago
      Because otherwise you end up allowing naive, irrational, and dishonest actors to determine how your system functions for everyone. It's like airport security.
- VMG 13y ago
  Let's use your contrived example to highlight a new problem: The three astronauts Yuri and John elect Markus to be the new commissioner of oxygen, while Markus votes for Ronald and Ronald abstains. Everybody delegates total control to Markus, who unfortunately turns out to be a psychopath and kills the whole crew. What were we talking about again?
saraid216 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens

ahomescu1 13y ago

> No amount of cajoling, threatening or reasoning will get this guy to give up his "one-man island" philosophy. That's an unreasonable assumption. If he doesn't breathe slowly, he dies. As CamperBob2 also points out, it would be completely irrational for the libertarian astronaut to refuse to cooperate, so he'd go along. The problem most libertarians point out is that we're sometimes forced (by society) to contribute, without receiving anything in return. One-sided trades are the problem, not mutually-beneficial cooperation. When you pay 40% of your income so others get welfare, you're arguably not receiving anything in return.

fizzbar 13y ago
How do you define what the "return" is? Perhaps it's not an immediate causal relationship, but a much more complicated, interrelated set of returns -- like a more cohesive, inclusive, better functioning society. Paying more for welfare to others might pay off in being able to walk the streets at night without being mugged, for example.

direwolf 13y ago

Actually, I think this is a really great example, and how you view it says a lot about your philosophy. Let's call the libertarian astronaut Ayn. Ayn is rational, and she happens to really like breathing normally. There's no biological reason requiring her to do so, but breathing more slowly seems inconvenient to her. So she just keeps breathing normally. Since she assumes the other three astronauts to be rational, she expects them to moderate their breathing even further to account for her normal breathing. At first, this is what happens. The other three astronauts breathe even more slowly to make up for Ayn's normal breathing, keeping them on pace for 8 hours of oxygen. But the other astronauts think this division isn't fair--there's no reason that Ayn should get more oxygen than the rest of them. They decide that they have a couple of options. First, they could all start breathing normally in the hopes that Ayn would start moderating her breathing in response. It would turn the spaceship into a contest of who blinks first, and if no one blinked soon enough, all of them would die. Second, they could kill Ayn, but they believe murder is immoral. They think Ayn's behavior is unfair, but killing is worse, so they don't do it. Instead, the other three astronauts come up with another option. They vote on and accept the moderated breathing policy for everyone in the spaceship. Ayn refuses to participate in the vote. The other three astronauts unanimously elect one of them--we'll call him Big Brother--to regulate the use of oxygen. Big Brother keeps track of everyone's breathing and can slap people in the face if they don't breathe at the agreed-upon rate. The rules allow any three of the astronauts to vote out the oxygen regulator if he doesn't do a good job, or doesn't comply with the breathing regulations himself. Ayn might not like breathing slowly, but she likes getting slapped in the face less, so she moderates her breathing. But now Ayn is upset. She argues forcefully that she's a bold risk-taker and that society should incentivize her risk-taking. She took a risk and breathed normally, taking what she wanted even though it created a possibility that the other astronauts would do so as well, which would kill them all. She points out that Big Brother has made some mistakes--he's miscalculated the breathing rate a couple of times and slapped people when they didn't deserve it. She argues for the deregulation of oxygen and the return of the free market. Who's right: Ayn or Big Brother? Neither is perfect, but I'll take Big Brother. The alternative is a game of chicken where the stakes are everyone's lives. As for this example being contrived, let's change it slightly. Let's say 7 billion people are born onto a planet. This planet has limited drinkable water, breathable air, arable land, and combustible material. We can either let people use those resources however they please, risking the resources' eventual pollution, overuse, and depletion, or we can establish systems to regulate use so that they will be available to everyone for for the foreseeable future. If we don't regulate their use, we can get iPods at slightly cheaper prices, at least in the short term. The point is that people will take what they want and cut corners to make money, even if endangers the health of the human race. Yes, we're all in it together. Personally, I'll take the sustainability of the planet over cheaper iPods. This doesn't mean that I think the government should regulate everything, that all regulation is good, or that our current system of regulation is optimal. But I think it's inarguable that some things need to be regulated, and that there is a role for government. Can government be inefficient, corrupt, or just plain wrong? Sure. It's fallible, just like any human creation (including private entities). But we need it.