From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Mon Nov 13 2000 - 23:09:59 MST
Patrick McCuller wrote:
>
> >
> > Actually, the very MONEY that you don't want to give him, is a product of
> > the very GOVERNMENT that you're complaining about.... Your wealth does not
> > exist independently of the state, which punishes counterfeiters, regulates
> banks,
> > and so forth.... So the "separateness" that you posit is partially
> > fallacious...
>
> This is totally ridiculous. I'm honestly surprised to see this kind of
> argument. Since this list is supposed to be for SL4 issues, I won't fill it up
> with well-known refutations (and a few of my own.) We can take it offline if
> you want.
You're right that this is SL2 stuff, but Ben Goertzel is here for the AI -
it's okay if he hasn't read 90K about private currencies. He is a busy man.
Let us try not to use words like "totally ridiculous".
(By the way, Ben, the reason the statement is "totally ridiculous" is that
dollars are the US currency by government fiat, not because government dollars
outcompeted private currencies. We see no reason to be grateful for the
dollar, just as we see no reason to be grateful for the US government's
desultory, annoying mail service.)
Okay, total side issue, never mind, back to the main subject.
-- -- -- -- --
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://intelligence.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:35 MDT