I don’t know. That’s another example of you assuming that the government is controlling every aspect of our lives. You even imagine future scenarios where it exists. It is difficult to argue against this, when you can simply make up things that “will happen” in the future,because you imagine that the government wants to control every aspect of your life.
In libertarian land, I guess these companies would be allowed to do whatever they want, and crap would be dropping out of the sky on a regular basis. In real life, a government would probably enact regulations along the lines of what is in place for major jet airline manufacturers. And they seem to be able to run their companies.
All of this, all of it, ignores the fact that we only are where we are today because of society. Even if it was feasible to move to a Libertopia today, you’re still arguing here that it’s possible because of technological innovation. Technological innovation that could not have happened without government. The market isn’t some magical beast that roams the wilderness. It needs a government to protect it so that it can thrive.
We were cavemen until we started banding together.
No, somebody mentioned that technological dangers were what necessitated regulation. Technology will most likely continue to create threatening situations so indeed more and more and more regulations will be created.
There is no government regulation preventing you from developing your Space Escape Pods ™ right now.
Are you suggesting that in your Libertopian paradise the market driven economy is going to develop a highly specialized and thus otherwise mostly useless technology, that of vehicles capable of performing and sustaining manned escape from an apocalypse of planet earth, and just have it waiting around in the wings on the miniscule likelyhood that it will be useful (and profitable) this fiscal year or next?
I too am having difficulty separating the descriptions of Libertopia in this thread from fantasyland.
Everyone’s assumption in this thread is that our current government is not showing a tendency toward authoritarianism. I believe this to be false, thus libertarian ideals are something to be considered in moderation.
Without a libertarian voice, authoritarianism will continue its creep.
You oversimplify. I do not say that there was some Bureau Of Warm-Making Methods investigating how to create fire. What I say is that the protections and basic level of living standards government affords its citizens allows them to turn their minds from having to worry about where the next meal is coming from to less immediate concerns such as abstract theory and invention.
In a libertarian society, everyone has to be a generalist to survive. You must spend large portions of your education and life on basic concerns that government currently provides or ensures just to get by. Absent-minded geniuses and hyperspecialist scientists can’t survive in that world, yet they provide some of our best breakthroughs.
That’s why I say technology and society would regress. It would at best fall back to the latest era of time when people were more or less expected to fend for themselves. My guess would be early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution kicked off. If that appeals to you, bully for you. It doesn’t me.
US inner cities are not “heavily armed”. The gangs are heavily armed. The general population isn’t - due to anti-gun laws in a lot of such cities. Like Chicago. Or Baltimore.
No the market has allowed you to not worry where your next meal is coming from. The government’s role should be only to protect property rights (this includes individual rights).
In a libertarian society, where would they get the “proper, scavenged materials”? Someone would have to produce those materials, spending billions to do it. So - why would someone do that, and if they did for some weird reason, why would they be so lax with their $billions investment that they would let someone else steal it?
The market doesn’t care. The market would sell me sawdust if it could. That means I then have to spend my time researching companies to find the ones who won’t sell me sawdust, which is a waste of my time when we could have an entire agency whose job it is to check up on companies for me.
It was the government that made sure that “highly efficient food industry” can’t poison us before we can discover the poison.
That’s what regulations do, you see. They allow the market to exist and thrive by ensuring greedy short-sighted entrepreneurs don’t exploit workers or consumers. It prevents high-intensity short-term gains in favor of a steady, sustainable long-term benefit.
High efficiency is not always the best option. Without regulation, I could very easily create a food company that made massive amounts of money just by lacing its products with addictive drugs. By the time anyone realized I was doing so, I’d have a major percentage of the populace who had to keep buying my company’s brand of food. That’s efficient, right?
The prevailing attitude of this thread is such that it leads me to believe people are afraid of everything and everyone. And in order for people to lead their lives they must be protected from wronddoing at every turn.
Do you know who is unafraid of anything? Infants.
Terr can have this thread back. I’ve said what I wanted to say.