[MD] Flying Spaghetti Monsters

[David M]

Hi Ian

This may interest you:

http://www.zmag.org/shalompol.htm

You know I am getting to loathe our current form
of democracy. How about some direct democracy
rather than representative democracy. Guess we'd
have to gather in little parliaments once a week or so.
Kind of fed up with other people making crap decisions
on my behalf.

David M



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "ian glendinning" <psybertron at gmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 11:08 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] Flying Spaghetti Monsters


> Hi Craig
>
> (1) Yes. (Though "want" is subject to a good deal of cultural
> conditioning and pragmatic limitations, and actions may not literally
> reflect wants, but my objection is second order here. So still yes.)
>
> (2) No, not necessarily. It certainly affects their choices (actions)
> and affects which costs are borne where. Any net increase in cost is
> not necessarily bad either, if there is some net increase in value
> too. That may be "bad' for some individual members, better for other
> individuals. (We can't avoid individual vs social debates here) The
> choice of the word "interference" is negative to start with, but
> incentives and limits can (do) have positive value.
>
> (3) Yes. Stultification is a negative word, so yes that's not good, but 
> see (2)
>
> (4) Yes. Pure redundancy would indeed be simple wasteage, so not good.
> But gimme an example. Clearly by choice (democratic elections for
> example) people do delegate their choices upwards, for reasons of both
> efficiency and greater goods. There are natural monopolies and the
> like.
>
> (5) No. Bad public interference is not good, but not all public
> regulation of (otherwise) free markets is necessarily bad.
>
> Even in Rand's utopia, the members freely delegate some of their
> choices to certain members, and support their specialist authority on
> certain subjects. Authority can command respect.
>
> By free choice, people choose to have controls and incentives on
> otherwise "free" markets. It's pragmatic common sense. As I think I
> mentioned already, the only weak link is in choosing the form of
> governance to which you delegate such (contingent) authority. Some
> form of democratic freedom seems to be the clear "western' choice, but
> there are many possible flavours for setting up such institutions, and
> remembering that they are just that ... instituted as servants of the
> (free) people.
>
> I'd really welcome a discussion on the latter point, free of partisan
> dogmas, but most people here already seem pretty polarised on this.
>
> Regards
> Ian
>
>
>
>
> On 9/27/06, craigerb at comcast.net <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Ian,
>> 1) In a free economy, the voluntary actions of its members express what 
>> they want.
>> 2) Public interference (i.e., interference with the voluntary actions of 
>> the members) either stultifies what the members want or duplicates what 
>> they would want, but at a greater cost.
>> 3) That which stultifies the wants of the members is not good.
>> 4) That which duplicates the wants of the members but at a greater cost 
>> is not good.
>> 5) :. Public interference is not good.
>> There should be something here which you can either agree with or refute.
>> Craig
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