tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post1056541179966394814..comments2024-03-09T03:19:57.797-05:00Comments on The Delaware Libertarian: How do we build an America based on personal responsibility?Steven H. Newtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09097470960863103473noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-25910461283606913172013-11-02T17:06:17.370-04:002013-11-02T17:06:17.370-04:00Steve thanks for the dedication, I am not sure I r...Steve thanks for the dedication, I am not sure I really am more mentally healthy than you.<br /><br />I will share with you something I am working on that I think you will find is in line with your thoughts here. Unfortunately I am in South Carolina and away from my computer where it is stored.<br /><br />Great piece.Hank Foresmanhttp://vmitownie76.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-18696417639559685522013-11-02T17:05:08.710-04:002013-11-02T17:05:08.710-04:00Steve thanks for the dedication, I am not sure I r...Steve thanks for the dedication, I am not sure I really am more mentally healthy than you.<br /><br />I will share with you something I am working on that I think you will find is in line with your thoughts here. Unfortunately I am in South Carolina and away from my computer where it is stored.<br /><br />Great piece.Hank Foresmanhttp://vmitownie76.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-56318164222515744022013-10-05T14:54:25.088-04:002013-10-05T14:54:25.088-04:00You make a geed point about the short run. but eve...You make a geed point about the short run. but even then, it is not always true, and is becoming less so as IT and communications improve.<br /><br />I certainly wouldn't want to wage a war with no more strategy than instructing the individual soldiers to go kill enemies and blow shit up. but as the saying goes, no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.<br /><br />and in some of your other examples, a centralized response is<br />required by the massively centralized design of the failing systems (or in some cases by idiotic regulations that prohibited operators from disconnecting their equipment from the grid even if they saw a load spike coming that dramatically exceeded their capacity). We should be replacing these monstrosities with decentralized designs with fewer single-point failure modes whenever an opportunity presents itself, but governments love the centralized infrastructure because it empowers them. It's annoying enough that we allowed the Internet to degrade from a system that could survive a global nuclear war intact, to one where half the world can be taken down by a fire in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel. But now we have the "Internet Kill Switch" insanity to contend with too.<br /><br />During the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA not only did nothing to help until very late in the game, they actively hindered and even shut down many of the ad hoc efforts that were already providing relief when they arrived.tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06653459162258850269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-7217035455055836042013-10-05T10:10:05.828-04:002013-10-05T10:10:05.828-04:00Some responses:
1. Tom: emergent behavior gener...Some responses:<br /><br />1. Tom: emergent behavior generally wins in the long run, not necessarily the short run, and there are times when the short run is critically important. Dealing with massive, cascading power failures. Calculating the flow of logistics into a flood zone, football game, or military campaign. Scheduling an operating room. Emergent behavior is a process, and like evolution it is a blind process. At its best it is capable of amazing advances, but it is also completely value-free. That both is and is not a good thing.<br /><br />2. more: I don't have enough friends with sufficient resources to purchase top-flight cancer treatment at Sloan-Kettering. I'd really love to be able to exercise my option to purchase the right insurance from a competitive market, but the government has thoughtfully prohibited that. There are, however, limits to what voluntary collectivism can achieve (though it does raise the issue of whether society should be achieving any of those things). The question is whether we actually want to have a discussion about the practical limits of voluntary collective action and the necessary restraints on imposed collective action, or do we just want to pluck our navel link and argue philosophy.<br /><br />3. NCS Dad: You may consider yourself responsible, but what does that actually mean? How far does your community extend? What is the difference between your level of responsibility to your family and your community, and how would you quantify it? What happens when other people in your community fail to feel the same level of responsibility? I am arguing for a new discussion of basic questions.<br /><br />4. Delacrat: cute.Steven H. Newtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09097470960863103473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-26928426335571613322013-10-04T20:28:19.533-04:002013-10-04T20:28:19.533-04:00we grow up with the idea that we are responsible e...we grow up with the idea that we are responsible either to the law (on pain of punishment) or God (on pain of Hell) and not necessarily to ourselves, our families, and the communities in which we live.<br /><br />I have always considered myself responsible to myself, my family and the communities in which I live. <br /><br />Law has always fallen behind doing what's right. Nice post, plenty to think about.NCSDadnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-253210453201115672013-10-04T20:14:59.627-04:002013-10-04T20:14:59.627-04:00Collectivists can happen in a form of clubs and fr...Collectivists can happen in a form of clubs and friendships. If you get ill, you get your friends to help you out.morehttp://howtogetfriends.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-56483017372082596422013-10-04T18:24:33.518-04:002013-10-04T18:24:33.518-04:00"So, again, my question--how do we best measu...<i>"So, again, my question--how do we best measure where the dynamic should fall? I think we ultimately have to go back to arguing first principles--what are the rights of human beings in a free society, and what is the role of government in that society?"</i><br /><br />The ancient history of the Internet provides a beautiful illustration of how well this will work:<br /><br />Once upon a time, while the government agencies, corporations, universities & other organizations were endlessly bickering about how to specify, design and implement the OSI 7 Layer Burrito, a few random people (Vint Cerf, Robert Kahn, John Postel, Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine, among others) created a set of stopgap protocols so they would have a way to communicate and do research while they were waiting for the <i>Important People</i> to figure out the <i>Right Way</i> to build a computer network. (Admittedly, the DOD funding helped quite a bit, but in the 60's & 70's that was pretty easy to come by if you could conjure up even the most tenuous link to a military application)<br /><br />The result of their half-ass "just make something that works" approach has come to be known as TCP/IP. Forty years later, the majority of the OSI protocols are still unimplemented or unused.<br /><br />Emergent behavior will beat central planning every time...tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06653459162258850269noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7893272060787897238.post-39290583567425632342013-10-04T18:24:15.187-04:002013-10-04T18:24:15.187-04:00Steve,
There is actually much more personal respo...Steve,<br /><br />There is actually much more personal responsibility in America today than there was within recent memory.<br /><br />For example, there are millions of unemployed Americans who were(are) held personally responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown, even though they had nothing to do with it.<br /><br />Contrast that level of personal responsibility enforcement with the Savings and Loan Scandal, where only some 1,000 banksters were held personally responsible with criminal convictions .delacratnoreply@blogger.com