1. Decentralization is capital-G good. In the weak case, given two equally effective solutions, the decentralized one is still better. In the strong case, given two solutions with uncertain efficacy, my priors boost the decentralized one.
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2. Libertarianism doesn't lead to decentralization. Benefits to economic scale and finite resources selects for opaque hierarchies, even before co-option by people who "are libertarians" only because it's a good way to package "I want to pay less taxes."
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3. Government is good, actually. It's a vehicle for solving collective action problems. And, it can even help foster an environment with more decentralized power.
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4. The argument that government power eventually gets co-opted by opaque hierarchies anyway is a good one. So is the argument that citizenship is an endless struggle against that which requires giving a fuck as its inputs.
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5. If you evaluate government solutions to collective action problems using "does this lower or raise my taxes" or "is this more or less regulation" you're probably never doing real cost-benefit analysis, and people are probably not in you equation either.
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6. If you evaluate government solutions to collective action problems in a way that ignores the predictable co-option, you're also not doing a real cost-benefit analysis which still does real harm.
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7. Experts see things you can't even perceive. That's what expertise is — congealed experience. If you reject expert opinions on the basis of their credentials or membership in a credentialed class, you're an arrogant fool.
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8. But rank credentialism attenuates critical thinking in a way readily exploited by an army of credentialed profiteers, too. And, non-experts enjoy Linus' Law: there's a lot of them and if they're all trained on a problem, they're going to see things experts can't, too.
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9. Our true wealth, as a species, is a vast, accumulated, and tangled web of hard-earned informational and social relationships. In such a system, the greatest contributor is still paltry. That doesn't mean you should stop weaving a better future though!
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