Conservatism

The opposite of "conservative" is not "liberal" but "radical". The essence of conservatism is not unthinking resistance to any form of change, but rather a respect for practices that have proven successful in the past, and a reluctance to replace them with new ones which have only theoretical support. A sensible person is conservative to an extent, but not excessively so. New practices should be tried in small experiments before widespread adoption unless the arguments that they will prove superior are overwhelming or continuing in the old practices is for some reason no longer an option. No matter how confident one is in the value of one's own ideas, one should understand that others will be justifiably less so.

The basis of conservative thought is not so much pessimism as intellectual humility. We are not necessarily more intelligent nor more moral than were our ancestors, although we are more technologically advanced. The radical, on the other hand, suffers from intellectual hubris. If can find no theoretical justification for a long established custom, he ascribes its persistence to mere habit and superstition. He does not consider the argument that the persistence of a custom is itself evidence that the custom has empirically proven itself to be adaptive to be a valid one.

It is certainly possible that practices can continue for centuries or even millenia no other reason than cultural inertia, but one should only conclude this is what is occurring after having spent a reasonable amount of effort searching for other possibilities. Somewhat more plausible is the possibility that traditions benefit a privileged few who are responsible for their persistence. But even this implies a level of stupidity on the part of the general populace that should not be too readily assumed. People often are stupid and ignorant, of course, but they tend to be most so in areas where it would not practically benefit them to be wise.

I think conservatism has largely failed to attract intellectuals in America for two main reasons: intellectual hubris is a lot more fun than intellectual humility, and it has become associated with revealed religion, in particular with a literal interpretation of scripture which requires a belief in facts which have been fairly conclusively proven to be empirically false. The religious association is largely spurious. Religious institutions have often been radical rather than conservative voices, and have often attempted to justify their radical positions on (novel interpretations of) scripture. But conservative social institutions really don't have much in the way of direct scriptural support.

The Cypherpunk Dream

I'd like to describe briefly a concept I'll refer to as "the cypherpunk dream". People should be able to create persistent online identities (by which I mean it should be possible to prove that the same entity is using a specific identifier). It should be impossible to connect an online identity with a "meatspace" (physical) identity without the person's consent, nor to connect two online identities with each other if a person chooses to have more than one. These online entities should be able to communicate securely with each other, and by "securely" I mean not only can no third party intercept or interfere with their communication, but they should be unable to even discover that communication is taking place. Entities should be able to advertise, establish reputations, contract for and pay for goods and services, all without being linked to a physical entity.

It seems obvious that this dream in its purest form cannot and should not be practically realized. For example, having goods delivered to one's house gives a strong clue as to one's identity. The lack of any overseeing authority may make disputes likely and satisfactory resolution difficult. There are also nonconsensual services that could conceivably be offered, but ideally would not be.

Technology knows no morality. Either people can communicate privately, or there exists some entity which can eavesdrop on any conversation. There is no way to guarantee privacy for the "good guys" while allowing "government" to eavesdrop on "bad guys". Similarly, either goods and services can be exchanged discreetly and confidentially, or there exists some entity with the ability to arbitrarily forbid or tax transactions. Designers must accept that tools will be used in ways that they did not intend. My own opinion is that the danger from arbitrary authority is worse than that from excessive freedom.

Certain elements of the cypherpunk dream are already available. I think modern cryptography algorithms are sufficiently strong that properly implemented systems using them are in practice unbreakable. Using mixmaster remailers it is possible for people to communicate without outsiders being able to know who is communicating with whom, but so few people use mixmaster that using it says something about one in and of itself.

Reputation systems are by nature problematic in a pseudonymous world. People may create identities specifically for the purpose of inflating their own reputations or trashing those of their competitors. There is little incentive to participate in rating, and there can even be a disincentive as it could provoke unwanted attention. And rating is largely subjective in any case. But I don't think any of these hurdles are insurmountable. I'm disappointed in the progress made in this area, although I must admit I don't have any particularly innovative ideas.

There have been several software implementations of Chaum's ideas for anonymous payments, but I think their use has mostly been limited to toy systems. This I think is due to there being an almost all-or-nothing aspect to the concept. If a real practical system were implemented its operators would likely be subject to hostile action from the state almost immediately.

A Representation Scheme

I had an idea once for vastly improving the quality of representation in a representative democracy. As far as I can recall I came up with it independently, although someone else must have suggested it first because it's so completely obvious. It's possible I read it somewhere and I'm just blanking out where.

The idea is this: instead of having any sort of election, you have people announce that they are willing to serve as representatives, and citizens choose one. A representative's vote in congress has a weight proportional to the number of constituents he represents. Perhaps a representative needs a minimum number of constituents (say, 5000 or so) to be seated. Representatives could be chosen from anywhere in the country, although it's likely that some of them would announce that they are particularly devoted to the interests of some particular area, and so citizens who live in that area who are particularly concerned with local issues would be likely to choose that representative. Perhaps changing representatives could be done at any time, or perhaps only once a year or so. Who represents whom would be a matter of public record, so if a representatives "constituents" were largely dead or fictitious persons this would quickly be discovered and he would be prosecuted.

It seems to me that something along those lines would enormously increase the degree to which a "representative" really did represents his constituents, would eliminate all concerns about districting/gerrymandering, and would substantially reduce voter fraud.

I mention the idea because the idea itself and its advantages (assuming one thinks accurate representation is a good thing) seem so obvious to me that I wonder why no nation as implemented it (although I think the German system of electing Bundestag members has some similarities). I can't recommend it as stated, because it would still seem to allow a majority to arbitrarily impose its will on a minority. But I think it may be useful as a mental stepping-stone.

Voting

From the standpoint of individual benefit voting is almost certainly a waste of time. For example, if one estimates the chances of one's vote deciding a presidential election as being about 1 in 10 million and the personal benefit of having one president over another as valued about $10,000 then the expected return from voting is about a tenth of a cent. I think there's far less difference than that to most people in most elections, but we'll use those numbers.

Voting is the ultimate collective act, and one could argue that the same anticipated benefit would accrue to the entire citizenry of about 350,000,000 people. In that case, one could imagine one's vote as being a gift to the country of a tenth of a cent per person, or $350,000 total expected value. If one is at all civic minded, such a gift is certainly worth one's time.

There is an obvious flaw with this argument: it cannot possibly be true for the general voter. Approximately half the voters are voting "the wrong way". Those of us who are exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable may feel that "we" are smart and "they" are stupid. But stupidity alone cannot explain the results, because nobody could be so stupid that he always makes the wrong choice given two alternatives. A maximally stupid ought to be able to guess right about half the time. One can assume that nearly everybody that votes "the wrong way" is stupid, but then one ought to also conclude that an approximately equal number of people that vote "the right way" are stupid, which leads to the conclusion that virtually everybody is maximally stupid. This clearly cannot be true.

If one strongly identifies with some subset of the population and that subset tends to all vote the same way these difficulties vanish. Although voting is a waste of time if only considering the gains to one's self, it becomes rational if one considers voting as primarily a gift to one's group, and a failure to vote as abrogating one's group responsibilities. Since voting as a whole must be a zero sum activity the benefits to one's own group must be assumed to be offset by costs to others, but there's an easy to remember song that expresses the proper attitude towards these others: "them, them, fuck them." How one chooses which group one is voting on behalf of varies with the individual, but some kind of identity based politics is the only grounds under which the act of voting makes sense.

So, dear reader, do not ask whether a person who votes the opposite way from you is evil or stupid. Most likely he is neither one. A democratic nation can be considered as a loose coalition of many tribes, and he is simply a member of a tribe different from, and hostile to, your own.

Personally, I don't vote.

Money 2

My first post on money.

There is an enormous difference between having a strong argument that a statement is true and proving incontestably that the statement is true. Mencius wrote an interesting post arguing that the world is likely to converge on a single monetary standard, that standard will be the gold standard, and that therefore hoarding gold is likely to be a good investment. Mencius is a bright guy with a lot of interesting ideas, but I think he is wrong here, but wrong in an instructive way.

To begin with, I don't think he really gets the idea central to my first post that money as measurement of value and money as medium of exchange are two fundamentally different things. That is, it is one thing to have prices expressed in units of gold ounces, and something different to generally pay for goods with gold coins. If payment usually is in the form of gold coins, it makes sense that prices will be expressed as a quantity of gold, but the reverse is not true; even if all the world expressed prices in terms of gold, people would likely frequently use some sort of certificates rather than actual gold coins in commerce. Certainly nobody would send payment in gold coins by mail!

Second, I think the strength of the argument for a single money standard is exaggerated. Nick has a very good post where he talks about the advantages of having a currency standard in terms of mental transaction costs. No doubt most people will want to usually use one (or very few) currency standards most of the time, but that's not at all the same as everyone using one single standard all the time.

Finally there is the time element. Prices in a store for immediate purchase can be expressed in any unit, but for contracts that extend over a long time it is important to have currency units with a relatively stable purchasing power, or at least one that will vary slowly and in a predictable way, and I don't think gold is suitable for this task. Gold is a commodity like any other, and is subject to fluctuations in value not merely because of changes in production and industrial demand for gold, but because of changes in peoples' desire to hold "money".

I think the description as to how the gold standard is to come about is also fundamentally wrong. In the story, Sven the fisherman exchanges his fish for gold. Why exchange them at all? because his customer (unnamed, we'll call him Olaf) doesn't have the goods Sven wants, and if Sven just holds on to his fish, they'll rot. Why gold rather than silver? Because it is generally believed that gold will appreciate in purchasing power faster.

There are two fatal flaws with this theory. First, given that gold and silver are both held for their exchange value, it makes no sense that gold and silver are exchanging for a certain rate today but everybody knows that one will be able to get more silver for the same quantity of gold tomorrow. The anticipated future exchange rate largely determines the current exchange rate. Second, if it somehow could be true that everybody knows gold appreciates faster, it is true that Sven would rather be paid in gold, but Olaf would rather pay in silver for the same reason. Why the assumption that Sven "wins"?

Mencius and "John Law" seem to be anticipating a future in which gold continually appreciates faster than other investments. I very much doubt that such a sustainable state of affairs could exist, but if it could, gold would not be used as money because gold holders would not surrender it except under exceptional circumstances. Buying gold because of the self-fulfilling prophecy that others will expect gold to appreciate rapidly and therefore will buy gold causing it to appreciate rapidly is a very dangerous game. The argument that one should sell gold because others will expect gold to fall and hence will sell their gold causing it to fall makes every bit as much sense.

So there are at least two reasons why the user might want to use two or more kinds of money. First, people are risk averse, so given the uncertainty in future purchasing power, one might prefer to hold both silver and gold (or assets denominated in silver and gold) rather than all one or the other. Second, one might accept the type of money being offered even if one would prefer some other type if the alternative is to forgo a profitable trade.

From the point of view of the issuer, how to denominate currency may depend on what one has, or what one can reliably get. For example, if I own a silver mine, it makes sense that I might issue silver coins, or certificates redeemable for a quantity of silver. If one actually has to come to my mine in Nevada to get the silver, it make sense that people might continue to use the certificates as money rather than "cash them in" unless they actually have a use for silver.

I believe that pure electronic money will become important in the future. Not only will the money be transferred and stored electronically, but it will be "backed" by a guarantee to perform services over some network in some predefined way. Why would somebody give up actual physical goods for such "money"? Because they either desire the "backing" services themselves, or because they can exchange the money for good and services they want. All that is necessary for the money to have value is for someone somewhere along the line to actually desire the services, and even that is only necessary to get the system started.

Coercion

There is an altruistic philosophy that asserts that one should take an action if the benefits to another are greater than than cost to one's self, without demanding any sort of reciprocity. Leaving aside the very significant point that costs and benefits to different people really aren't directly comparable, the idea has a certain intellectual appeal. If one attacks the problem of morality by asking how it would be best for everyone to behave, the altruistic conclusion seems reasonable.

But of course if one asks one's self how one's self ought to behave, it would be absurd to assume that every other human on the planet would, asking himself the same question, obtain the same answer. That different people have different ideas as to what is moral is easily observed to be true. The very idea that we should begin by asking how it would be best for everyone to behave seems to be making an assumption that we know to be false, namely that everyone is the same. Altruism fails because altruists can be victimised by non-altruists.

This isn't to say altruism is necessarily a bad idea in all cases, but in order to avoid self-destruction it seems logical to limit it in scope and extent in pretty much just the way that people do in the real world. People will sometimes perform major sacrifices on behalf of friends and relatives, largely the people they would expect to do the same for them if the situations were reversed. People will generally only do small favors for strangers, and try to avoid relying on strangers doing anything for them. A largely altruistic society could exist, but only if it limited its altruism to members, and punished members for failing to be sufficiently altruistic.

Libertarians often ridicule altruists, but the non-aggression principle seems to me to be a product of the same circular wouldn't-it-be-great-if-everyone-were-just-like-me thinking that leads to altruism. Libertarianism (int its strict sense) must fail because libertarians can be victimized by non-libertarians.

I have become convinced that there is no one correct moral philosophy, nor is there such a thing as a best culture or a best way of organizing society; rather, there may be any number which are "best" according to their own standards of goodness. This of course does not mean all are equally good; one society may consider some other to be better according to the first's standard of goodness, and so will seek to become more like the second. If two societies cannot peacefully coexist, perhaps one will destroy the other. This will not prove that the surviving society is better than the vanquished one in every way, but it must have been better in at least one way.

Every society has rules, with some sort of punishment for members which break the rules. Whatever other rules there may or may not be, for stability there must be the meta-rule: failure to assist in punishing rulebreakers is itself a violation of the rules. Further, a society must have some way of distinguishing between members and nonmembers. It would be unreasonable to expect someone who is not a member of a society in the first place to obey that society's rules (except when as a guest in what it acknowledges to be that society's territory), and it would be surprising if the full set of obligations to members of one's own society were extended to outsiders.

The only way to ensure that disputes can be resolved peacefully and noncoercively is if all disputants (and that means all members of the society) have agreed in advance to abide by some sort of dispute resolution procedure. Perhaps a largely libertarian society is possible, but it would have to have a clear distinction between members and nonmembers, and the strict demand for noninitiation of coercion would only apply to members. This doesn't mean "anything goes" with respect to nonmembers, of course. Limits on what behavior is acceptable would have to be devised based on the need to avoid conflict with other groups and basic human decency. But a strict requirement of noninitiation of coercion couldn't work, both because nonmembers could not be expected to submit to any sort of peaceful dispute resolution, and because it is unrealistic to assume nonmembers would necessarily refrain from initiating coercion given opportunity.

Magic, Mysticism, and Science

The magical and scientific viewpoints toward the world are fundamentally different. The scientific viewpoint asserts that the universe behaves according to fixed mechanical principles. The magical viewpoint is that what happens is fundamentally determined by the wills of concious entities (gods, spirits, whatever). The magical viewpoint is consistent with, but does not necessarily imply, the idea that some or all human beings can effect changes in physical reality through acts of will alone. The scientific viewpoint is not. I fully subscribe to the scientific viewpoint. I cannot prove it is correct, I very much doubt that it can be proven, even in principle. Disputing the scientific viewpoint goes outside the scope of this blog.

It is, of course, possible for a scientist to believe in the existence of some sort of deity. He could, for example, believe in a deistic god which created the universe and its physical laws, and afterwards refrained from interfering. Or he could believe in a more personal God which normally allows the universe to proceed according to physical laws, but who can and does sometimes cause miracles, events which are impossible according to normal law. But in order to do science, one must for all practical purposes rule out the possibility of a miracle occurring in the course of one's experiments.

The key element of the scientific viewpoint is that matter, at least at its most fundamental level, lacks any sort of purpose or goal or morality. Water doesn't seek its proper level, it merely follows the grade; it can't spontaneously flow uphill in order to later flow farther downhill. Of course, human beings do exhibit goal-oriented behavior, but our constituent elements do not.

Mystical beliefs (astrology, alchemy, etc.) are often thought of as being part of magic, but actually they were essentially scientific, but they were bad science. Their practitioners believed in universal rules, but their rules didn't work. The alchemists were bad enough chemists to realize that their attempts to transmute lead into gold were futile, but good enough economists to realize that in order to achieve the vast riches they coveted they needed not only to learn the process, but to keep it secret from others. Secrecy is the essence of mysticism, and thus mysticism is almost invariably bad science. It is nearly impossible to keep a principle of nature secret while making use of it for some practical effect.

Since the "Age of Reason", calling an idea "scientific" has been a way to imbue it with credit, but the fact that something is called scientific doesn't mean that it truly is. Not only can it be bad science, it can be an appeal to magic disguised with scientific terminology or rationale. Scientific vocabulary or equations notwithstanding, an attempt toc cause physical results via will alone without a physical causal mechanism is magic, not science.

There is, however, one area in which something much like magic might plausibly be expected to work: when the desired effect is to change human behavior. Because people act on the basis of their beliefs, it stands to reason that changing people's beliefs will change their actions. Also, because most people crave approval, if one could be control what gains social approval, behavior would adjust accordingly. This type of thought is central to the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century.