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Off-topic for aiqbench

Off-topic for aiqbench

This story was gathered from a source we follow but falls outside AI and quantum coverage, so there is no aiqbench take for it.

Wiki-libertarianism

LessWrong4 min read

I feel that there is a terminological gap, and possibly a lack of conceptual clarity, for people who agree with the following: Fact 1: Individuals have (potentially different) goals Value judgment 2: Individual goals that don't physically affect others should not be stopped by the state Value judgment 3: Individual goals whose realization would have a physically measurable effect on other individuals, but not endorsed by those other individuals, should not be stopped by the state Conclusion 4: There should exist a huge and convoluted state that makes sure no individual coerces other individuals, while at the same time preventing all the possible failure modes of the first half of this sentence, all the while assuming that since individuals have potentially destructive goals, at no time should the state's guarantee be based on anyone's "good character". I was not a democrat, because I didn't want major laws to be voted. Either the law serves the interests of protecting individual goals and should exist, or it should not exist. Was I a believer in a democracy with a longer than usual list of inviolable rights? No! Even for the small things, I don't want people to vote if they would like the law based on whatever political philosophy they have; I want people to vote whether they think the law is a good way of fostering Conclusion 4. But this is not what is usually understood under democracy, so no, I wasn't this either. Was I a libertarian? In the US, the word means my Value Judgment 2 + "anti-state capitalism". In Spain, and possibly other European countries with a strong anarchist tradition, the word means/meant my Value Judgment 2 + "anti-state communism". My disagreement is twofold: On the one hand, and obviously, I want a huge state. But more importantly: I am very confused about economics, and willing to discuss about it from my political stance. Let me elaborate on both points, in the inverse order. Economic agnosticism I believe "economical facts" are neither obviously defended by my VJ2, nor obviously forbidden by VJ3. I am currently agnostic about them, but even if I ever reach a conclusion, I would still like to have a handy word for my economically-agnostic libertarianism. I propose the term "Wikipedia libertarianism" for that, for possibly obvious reasons to be elaborated in the next point. What is an economical fact? I have in mind something like the fact that a person is the legal owner of a factory and can set the salary under which he is willing to hire workers to work in his factory. This ownership is not a physical fact, unlike the fact that my fist is approaching your face or that the music I'm playing is entering your ears. It is a very complex fact that means something like: If anyone tries to enter without your permission, you could call the police, and everyone reliably knows the police would help you, so people are deterred from entering. So this is not a primitive fact in defense of which a state can be build, but something that only exists because a specific kind of state has been built. Do we want this specific kind of state? Communists say no, non-libertarian anarchists say yes, I say I am confused. (Foot note: But see later for a physical definition of property) if you are thinking about you protecting your factory with guns, and then it becomes a VJ2 issue Guns are obviously incompatible; but article 2 is good! Huge state So what kind of state am I imagining? Unsurprisingly given the title, a state that looks like Wikipedia. The reason why I don't use a term such as "pro-state libertarianism" is that I think real states don't look that much like Wikipedia, and I don't like them that much (also pro-state libertarianism probably sounds contradictory in the US). What does a state similar to Wikipedia look like? I imagine a public-facing interface of options for the citizens (you can call the police, get information about the laws or specific options at your reach, etc.), and a "Talk" section where every single fact of the state, both stable (a law) and punctual (a specific decision) can be commented on by everyone. Every state process that can be automated, should, but never with opaque AI algorithms, but only with transparent, revisable (potentially AI-created) algorithms. For the millions of small decisions that "guaranteeing that everyone's rights are respected" requires, there would be "Talk" pages for a discussion, and every vote that needs to be taken on decisions without an objective clear answer would be open only for people with certain credentials (probably ad hoc credentials for each question, and more on the direction of "has participated in this debate for a long time" than "has a university degree", but none of this is essential for the concept and there could be disagreement about this within a Wiki-libertarian position). A Wiki-archipelago How does Wiki-libertarianism compare to Scott Alexander's Archipelago, the well-known utopia of islands with different, self-c

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