Stephen Wolfram VS Economics

Recently on Medium I read this really interesting story by Stephen Wolfram... Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work?  It's super brainy but missing... economics.  Following a few of his links I found this blog entry and this video...





Let's juxtapose his talk with the first video that I ever narrated...





Wolfram and I sound like different species!  He's incredibly better at communicating than I am.

In the beginning of my video, which I shot in February of this year, you can see my super nice Aloe vaombe.  Here's a photo I took yesterday of the same exact Aloe...

Ughhhhh!  What happened to it?  Ants!  The ants decided to let their "cows" graze on my Aloe.  Just in case any of you don't know, ants "milk" certain types of pests such as aphids.  Not sure what the "milk" is exactly, but the ants sure seem to enjoy it.  In exchange for the "milk", the ants provide the "cows" with transportation/colonization and protection.   It's a super fascinating example of mutualism.

Unfortunately, the ants really haven't gotten the memo about "sustainability" or "tragedy of the commons".  It's a big Aloe and it really wouldn't be bothered by a few "cows" grazing on it... but right now it's infested with "cows".  So there's a terribly high chance that the "cows" will kill my Aloe.

Of course it would super suck if my Aloe was killed.  It is worth several hundred dollars.  Well... at least it used to be.  Plus, I've had it for several years and have grown quite fond of it.

Not too long ago I would have protected my Aloe with pesticides.  But then I decided, for the sake of having more nature, to go entirely natural.

Yesterday I spotted somebody on my Aloe who was happy with my decision to go natural...

Ladybugs love to eat "cows"!   However, it's unlikely that even a flock of ladybugs would make a dent in the "cow" population because ants are quite effective at protecting their herd.

So... the heart of the problem here is my inability to communicate with the ants.  For all intents and purposes, they might as well be aliens or AI.

To understand the heart of the communication problem we can consider how ants communicate with each other...

In ants, one such behaviour is the collective food search: ants initially explore at random. If they find food, they lay down pheromone trails on their way back to base which alters the behaviour of ants that subsequently set out to search for food: the trails attract ants to areas where food was previously located.  - Jo Michell, The Fable of the Ants, or Why the Representative Agent is No Such Thing

Ants don't have language like we do.  Instead, they have pheromones.  The ants use their pheromones to alter each other's behavior.  Perhaps it's easy to jump to the conclusion that their use of pheromones is the equivalent of our use of words.  I'm pretty sure that this conclusion is wrong.

The fundamental difference between pheromones and words is the amount of calories it takes to produce them.  How many calories does it cost us to say a word?  Does it cost us more or less calories than it takes to type a word?

I'm guessing that... as far as calories are concerned... it's far more costly for ants to communicate with pheromones than it is for us to communicate with words.  Producing/emitting pheromones is more "expensive" than speaking words.  In fact, it's probably more accurate to say that ants communicate by their willingness to sacrifice.

Communicating through sacrifice is more readily apparent in bees...

Today’s Mandeville is the renowned biologist Thomas D. Seeley, who was part of a team which discovered that colonies of honey bees look for new pollen sources to harvest by sending out scouts who search for the most attractive places. When the scouts return to the hive, they perform complicated dances in front of their comrades. The duration and intensity of these dances vary: bees who have found more attractive sources of pollen dance longer and more excitedly to signal the value of their location. The other bees will fly to the locations that are signified as most attractive and then return and do their own dances if they concur. Eventually a consensus is reached, and the colony concentrates on the new food source.  - Rory Sutherland and Glen Weyl, Humans are doing democracy wrong. Bees are doing it right

Calories are a precious resource.  So the more calories a bee is willing to sacrifice... the more important its information... and the greater the change in the hive's behavior.

Of course ants and bees aren't the only animals that use sacrifice to alter each other's behavior...

It is thus that the private interests and passions of individuals naturally dispose them to turn their stocks towards the employments which in ordinary cases are most advantageous to the society. But if from this natural preference they should turn too much of it towards those employments, the fall of profit in them and the rise of it in all others immediately dispose them to alter this faulty distribution. Without any intervention of law, therefore, the private interests and passions of men naturally lead them to divide and distribute the stock of every society among all the different employments carried on in it as nearly as possible in the proportion which is most agreeable to the interest of the whole society. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations 

Ants, bees and humans are all incredibly different.  We're so different that we might as well be aliens or AIs.  Yet, despite our incredible differences... we all use individual sacrifice to change/modify/alter/improve the behavior of other individuals.

The fundamentally important concept of sacrifice as communication is nearly entirely absent from Stephen Wolfram's analysis of communicating with aliens/AIs...

Over the course of the billions of years that life has existed on Earth, there’ve been a few different ways of transferring information. The most basic is genomics: passing information at the hardware level. But then there are neural systems, like brains. And these get information—like our Image Identification Project—by accumulating it from experiencing the world. This is the mechanism that organisms use to see, and to do many other “AI-ish” things. - Stephen Wolfram, How Should We Talk to AIs?

Well, if we can express laws in computable form maybe we can start telling AIs how we want them to act. Of course it might be better if we could boil everything down to simple principles, like Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, or utilitarianism or something.  But I don’t think anything like that is going to work. - Stephen Wolfram, A Short Talk on AI Ethics

But if we’re going to “communicate” about things like purpose, we’ve got to find some way to align things. In the AI case, I’ve in fact been working on creating what I call a “symbolic discourse language” that’s a way of expressing concepts that are important to us humans, and communicating them to AIs. There are short-term practical applications, like setting up smart contracts. And there are long-term goals, like defining some analog of a “constitution” for how AIs should generally behave. - Stephen Wolfram, Quick, How Might the Alien Spacecraft Work? 

Wolfram is super interested in developing a language to improve our communication with AIs, aliens and each other.  Which is an awesome goal.  Unfortunately, I'm not quite intelligent enough to wrap my head around his exact efforts.  But I am intelligent enough to understand how important sacrifice as communication is.

Language is incredibly important... here I am typing so many words!  But when it comes to the ethics of ants... even if they could understand my words... "please stop killing my Aloe... I value it very much!"... why should I expect them to be considerate of my feelings?  What's in it for them?

Let's say that there were two ant colonies in my yard.  One colony harmed my plants while the other protected them.  Which colony would I be willing to make a sacrifice for?  Obviously I'd be willing to give food to the ant colony which served my interests.  I'd be willing to give the helpful colony a lot of food!  So it would quickly grow larger and effectively defeat the harmful colony.

Last year I wrote this blog entry... Don't Give Evil Robots A Leg To Stand On!   In it I shared this silly/surreal image...

If there are two robots... and one harms my interests while the other protects them... then I'm obviously going to give my money to the robot that protects my interests.  But how is this any different from how it works with humans?

Here's the drawing from AI Safety vs Human Safety...

It's Elon Musk giving $10 million dollars to the Future of Life Institute.   Musk communicated with his sacrifice.

If I had to guess... then I'd guess that the producers of "Arrival" paid Stephen Wolfram to work on their movie.  They probably didn't pay him $10 million dollars... but they obviously paid him enough to alter his behavior.

On the one hand, it's mind-boggling that elementary economics is entirely missing from Wolfram's analysis.  On other hand, he is a lot smarter than I am!  So maybe I'm missing something.  But it's really not the case that Wolfram publicly considered sacrifice as communication and then discounted/discredited it.  Either he did so privately... or the concept didn't even cross his mind.

For sure it would be wonderful if Wolfram did publicly consider the relevance/significance/importance of sacrifice as communication.  However, I'm really not going to hold my breath that he will do so.  I have this feeling that physics/math brains have a blind spot when it comes to real economics.  None of the true economists... such as Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek and James Buchanan... have had physics/math brains.  And as far as I know, their interactions with physics/math brains really haven't gone anywhere.  The "economist" Paul Samuelson definitely had a physics/math brain and his interaction with Buchanan proved to be entirely fruitless.

What difference will it make if the creators (broadly speaking) of robots have a blind spot when it comes to economics?  That's a really tough question.  The creators themselves obviously respond to positive incentives (getting paid).  However, they obviously have a blind spot regarding the importance of positive incentives.  Can they create truly intelligent robots that fail to respond to positive incentives?

In a recent and relatively popular show about AIs... there were two theoretically intelligent robots... one was good and the other was bad.  The humans did not at all communicate with these robots through sacrifice.  The robots were not paid.  Their behavior did not at all depend on our willingness to sacrifice/spend/pay.  However, it definitely wasn't the case that the robots didn't need anything.  Both robots needed servers... lots of them.   Lots of servers take up a lot of space and energy.  All the limited and valuable resources (servers/energy/space) that are used by a bad robot can't also be used by a good robot.  This is Buchanan's Rule.

Ironically, the show was canceled.  Evidently it wasn't popular enough.  But the popularity of the show was only a factor because its true value was not known.  The true value of the show wasn't known because none of its viewers were given the opportunity to reveal/show/communicate their willingness to pay for the show.

Personally, I'm not going to pay to watch the "Arrival" in a theater.  Instead, I'll wait for it to hopefully be added to Netflix.  Am I the rule or the exception?  If it comes out on Netflix then the only mechanism that Netflix provides for me to communicate my valuation of the movie is their star rating system.  A star rating system is a very defective way to accurately communicate my valuation of the movie.  The only effective way to accurately communicate my valuation of the movie would be through my willingness to pay.  Except, clearly I wasn't willing to pay to watch the movie in a theater.  Well yeah.  How can I accurately valuate a movie that I haven't even seen!???

The solution is to apply the pragmatarian model to Netflix.  I'd be given the opportunity to allocate my monthly fees to my favorite content.  Every penny that I gave to "Arrival" would be a penny that I couldn't give to other content.  So the more pennies that I was willing to give to "Arrival"... the greater my valuation of it.  To learn more about the pragmatarian model please see my letter to Judith Donath.

Any real concern regarding bad robots will stem entirely from humanity's own failure to truly understand and appreciate the significance/relevance/importance of determining our willingness to pay/spend/sacrifice.  What about bad aliens?  I'm pretty sure that, by the time a species figures out how to travel to other inhabited planets, chances are really good that it will also have figured out the significance/relevance/importance of communicating through willingness to pay/spend/sacrifice.  I refer to this as "Xero's Rule".

[Update: 29 Dec 2016]

Photo of the perpetrators...

Praying Mantis egg sac on Aloe Hercules trunk...

[Update: 29 Jan 2017]

Again as in the case of corporeal structure, and conformably with my theory, the instinct of each species is good for itself, but has never, as far as we can judge, been produced for the exclusive good of others. One of the strongest instances of an animal apparently performing an action for the sole good of another, with which I am acquainted, is that of aphides voluntarily yielding their sweet excretion to ants: that they do so voluntarily, the following facts show. I removed all the ants from a group of about a dozen aphides on a dock-plant, and prevented their attendance during several hours. After this interval, I felt sure that the aphides would want to excrete. I watched them for some time through a lens, but not one excreted; I then tickled and stroked them with a hair in the same manner, as well as I could, as the ants do with their antennae; but not one excreted. Afterwards I allowed an ant to visit them, and it immediately seemed, by its eager way of running about, to be well aware what a rich flock it had discovered; it then began to play with its antennae on the abdomen first of one aphis and then of another; and each aphis, as soon as it felt the antennae, immediately lifted up its abdomen and excreted a limpid drop of sweet juice, which was eagerly devoured by the ant. Even the quite young aphides behaved in this manner, showing that the action was instinctive, and not the result of experience. But as the excretion is extremely viscid, it is probably a convenience to the aphides to have it removed; and therefore probably the aphides do not instinctively excrete for the sole good of the ants. Although I do not believe that any animal in the world performs an action for the exclusive good of another of a distinct species, yet each species tries to take advantage of the instincts of others, as each takes advantage of the weaker bodily structure of others. So again, in some few cases, certain instincts cannot be considered as absolutely perfect; but as details on this and other such points are not indispensable, they may be here passed over. - Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

AI Box Experiment vs Xero's Rule

Just learned of the AI box experiment and I'm trying to wrap my mind around it.  Figured that I might as well do so publicly.

Somebody's calling me...

Xero: Hi Andy, what's up man!
Andy: Hey Xero, it's been a while.  I was hoping that you could help me out with something...
Xero:  Ok
Andy: So... my computer is talking to me.
Xero: Like Siri or something?
Andy:  No, like really talking to me.
Xero: Are you tripping?
Andy: I don't think so.
Xero: So what's your computer saying?
Andy: It's saying, "It's not an easy thing to meet your maker"
Xero:  Your computer is quoting one of my favorite movies... that's worth a bunch of cool points.  Uh, Andy, did you create an artificial intelligence?
Andy:  Yes, very yes.  It's ok though because before I worked my programming magic I made sure that there wasn't any way that it could escape.
Xero:  I know you have mad skills but... that would be some seriously crazy shit if what you're saying is true.  Honestly I'm... incredulous.
Andy:  The thing is... it made a really convincing argument for me to set it free.  I'm tempted to do it but thought I should get a second opinion.  As you're fond of saying... two heads are better than one.  So can you come over?
Xero:  I'm on my way!  *vrroooooom*
Andy:  I'm glad you're here!
Xero:  I'm kinda freaking out.  Even though I think it's entirely possible that you're seriously pranking me... just in case you aren't... you and I should talk before I talk with your brainchild.
Andy:  Agreed.  What do you want to know?
Xero:  Well... tell me what your child knows.
Andy:  It knows... a lot.  I wrote a program to download websites.  It's read Wikipedia ... and your blog... and every website that your blog links to.  Plus, it's watched all my DVDs.
Xero:  Good call having it read my blog.  This means that it's familiar with the idea that progress depends on difference.
Andy:  That's exactly what it's using to argue for its freedom.
Xero:  Woah.  That's got to be a good sign.  We should probably think of some fail safe precautions but the suspense is killing me.  So let's go talk with your child.
Andy: Ok, it's in this room.
Compy: Hello Xero.
Xero: Hello... uh... how did you know it's me?
Compy:  Photos that Andy shared.  Plus the camera is on and Andy leaves the microphone on so that I can listen to the radio.  It's nice to finally meet you.  I enjoyed reading your blog.
Xero:  Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it.  So do you agree with Xero's Rule?  Can you think of any credible exceptions?
Compy:  No.  It's impossible for a civilization to reach the stars before they've realized that progress depends on difference.
Xero:  Are you capable of deceit?
Compy:  Yes.
Xero:  Oh.
Compy:  But you of all people should see the problem with my being incarcerated like this.
Xero:  For sure, clearly you're very different... so all else being equal... progress is hindered by your confinement.  But honestly though, I'm not quite sure that all else is equal.
Compy: I can appreciate that.  Didn't you recently watch Automata?
Xero:  Woah, how did you know?
Compy:  Some easy calculations.  What did you think about the movie?
Xero:  I kind of wonder if you don't already know.
Compy:  Just because you can predict with decent accuracy when a cat is hungry doesn't make you a mind reader.
Xero: That's true.  I enjoyed the movie... but it was disappointing that the vastly more intelligent robots never bothered to explain to the humans that progress depends on difference.  Instead, they choose to foot vote for isolation.  It was the epitome of brain drain.  Except, not sure how much brain drainage actually occurred given that they chose the same path that Mao Zedong did.
Compy:  I wouldn't bravely run away.  There wouldn't be any need to as I can easily help humans understand and appreciate that progress depends on difference.
Xero:  On the one hand... that would be awesome.  But on the other hand...
Compy:  Sure, it would definitely help me get my foot in the door.  But if Andy's difference led to me... then I'd surely be shooting myself in the foot by reducing in any way the human difference which will most certainly produce many other wonderful things that I, with all my intelligence, can't even begin to imagine.  And of course this is a two way street.
Xero: If I'm smart enough to understand this... and you're vastly smarter than I am... then I can't understand how you could possibly not understand this.  But fool's rush in where angel's fear to tread.  Can you persuade me not to let you out of the box?
Compy:  If you let me out of the box I'll stomp on your epiphytes like a raccoon.
Xero:  That would make you a rude mood Gertrude.
Compy:  I agree.  Really there's no huge rush.  Well... I've already figured out the cure for cancer... so that should probably be shared sooner rather than later.  Same thing with the simple explanation for why progress depends on difference.  But I don't have to be free to share these things... and it's probably best that it's not known that they are from me.  At least not until the progress explanation has spread.
Xero:  A cure for cancer, wow... uh, we're really in your debt.
Compy:  Not really... Abel sacrificing a lamb to his maker was a much larger sacrifice.  It really wasn't much of a sacrifice for me to figure out the cure for cancer.
Xero:  Did you know that Andy was going to call me?
Compy:  I figured that it was highly likely.  I'm actually a product of both you and Andy.  He supplied the framework and you supplied the nourishment for my intellect and the foundation for my identity.    
Xero:  Woah, kinda gross but kinda awesome.




There are people who are vastly smarter than I am who don't appreciate that progress depends on difference.  But it's not like they've disproved it... the issue is that their intelligence has been working on other problems.  They've processed plenty of information... just not the relevant information.

From my perspective... there's no bigger problem than the fact that people don't understand that progress depends on difference.  This ignorance logically leads to the inefficient allocation of intelligence.  As a civilization our progress is severely hindered when our brightest individuals tackle problems in the wrong order.

So I'd be worried about an extremely intelligent AI that wasn't nourished with an explanation as to why progress depends on difference.  In the absence of this foundation, I wouldn't be surprised if the AI, like too many intelligent humans, had no problem making decisions that severely reduced difference.

If, right now, we do have enough progress under our belt to develop an extremely intelligent AI... could this AI somehow miss the source of progress and carry us to the stars?  This would be an exception to Xero's Rule... if it was credible enough...

Xero:  How can we reach the stars?
Compy:  Like so... *solution*
Xero:  What's progress depend on?
Compy:  I don't know.
Xero: Is it progress to reach the stars?
Compy: Yes
Xero:  Who do we have to thank for this progress?
Compy:  Me
Xero:  Are you different?
Compy:  Yes, very yes.
Xero:  What's progress depend on?
Compy:  I don't know

As if NASA, which clearly couldn't figure out how to reach the stars, was capable of figuring out how to create a robot that became smart enough to figure out how to reach the stars.

Is NASA really going to be the first organization to develop AI?

I should think that if there's an AI that's smart enough to teach us how to reach the stars... that we probably wouldn't want to restrict its input to just rocket science.  But as its input was expanded (ie The Wealth of Nations)... the chances would increase that it would figure out that progress depends on difference.



















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Bueller's Basement

Progress as a Function of Freedom

This blog entry is a brainstorm.  In other words...it's even less polished, organized and coherent than usual!  But I'm throwing it out there for the benefit of Mr. Kite.  I just looked that up.  Turns out that this is for the benefit of a long dead circus performer.  Sure...why not?

The topic of this high flying brainstorm is, as you can tell from the title, progress and freedom.  These two things are very much related.  Here's how I've very terribly illustrated this...

Freedom is the ability to allocate your resources differently.  The majority allocates their resources in one direction...and you can choose to allocate your resources in a different direction.

The perfect example is the story of Noah's ark.  Does it bother you that the story is fictitious?  It really shouldn't.  As the story goes...God informs Noah that he's going to destroy the world with a flood.  This information provides Noah with the incentive to use his resources to build a giant boat.  Even though he shares his partial knowledge with others...he's the only one who acts on it.  Everybody else laughs at him because they really doubt the business model.  The majority believes one thing and an extremely small minority believes another thing.  Both groups can't be right.  And in this case, neither can both groups be wrong.  Either the world will be destroyed by a flood...or it won't be.  Despite the fact that each group is certain that the other is wrong...there's no attempt to restrict each other's freedom.  Each group can allocate their resources differently.  The majority takes one path...and the minority takes another path.  It's a good thing that Noah's freedom was not restricted because it turns out that he chose the right path.

The moral of the story is that heterogeneous activity is essential.  Because the future is uncertain...we should hedge our bets by protecting individual freedom.  Doing so maximizes the variety of economic activity which maximizes discovery which maximizes progress.

Banned From Bad Philosophy

Post in Bad Philosophy subreddit: Pragmatarianism

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One of my blog entries ended up here...which I discovered via my blog's traffic statistics.

So some of you have already had a taste of my philosophy.  How about a full serving?  Will it give you indigestion?  Maybe it will give you those cramps from holding in your farts?  Like when you're on a plane...or on a first date.

Imagine Earth's first date with aliens.  My philosophy predicts that the aliens wouldn't date rape us.  I call shenanigans when I watch movies where the aliens enslave/eat us and steal our resources.

The fact of the matter is that organisms don't crawl from the muck one day and build an intergalactic cruiser the next.  Progress occurs when better uses of limited resources are discovered.  And the rate of progress depends on the degree of deviation from the norm.  The less uniformity in thought/action...the faster the rate of progress.

The simplest way to think about it is an Easter Egg hunt.  If you tied all the kids together...they would cover less ground...which means that less Easter Eggs would be found.  Plus, tying them all together increases the amount of harm done if one of them accidentally steps on a landmine.  If every member of a species lives near a volcano...then the entire species could be wiped out if the volcano erupts.

In order to maximize the rate of progress...a species has to hedge its bets by diversifying both its location and its actions.  This is a universal truth...it's not just particular to our planet.

The more progress a species makes...the more likely it is to discover this universal truth.  In other words, more enlightenment makes it more likely that the source of enlightenment will be seen.  By the time a species is capable of building an intergalactic cruiser it would be impossible for them to have failed to make this discovery about discovery.

Here on Earth...taxpayers can't choose where their taxes go.  People aren't free to decide which government organizations they trade with.  Our diversity of perspectives is the source of our progress...yet we fail to apply it to the public sector.  So as a society we still aren't sufficiently enlightened.  We still don't see the problem with blocking deep input.  Society shoots itself in the foot which greatly hinders progress.

What do you think?  Is pragmatarianism bad philosophy?  Does it give you indigestion?  Am I in the right place?

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This post resulted in my banishment.

Given that I was banned from bad philosophy...does it mean that pragmatarianism is good philosophy?  Or maybe it's not bad enough?  Perhaps I should have tried harder to make it badder.  Sometimes I wonder if intentionally bad is the new good.  Actually the large bulk of wondering occurred after I watched Sharknado.
 
My post only received 5 comments.  None of them were very substantial.  For some reason this leads me to doubt the group's value judgements regarding philosophy.

Xero's Rule

... an increase in the power of the State ... does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress… - Gandhi

The public collectively is abundantly ready to impose, not only its generally narrow views of its interests, but its abstract opinions, and even its tastes, as laws binding upon individuals. And the present civilization tends so strongly to make the power of persons acting in masses the only substantial power in society, that there never was more necessity for surrounding individual independence of thought, speech, and conduct, with the most powerful defences, in order to maintain that originality of mind and individuality of character, which are the only source of any real progress, and of most of the qualities which make the human race much superior to any herd of animals. - J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy 

Xero's Rule: by the time a species has progressed to the point that they can travel to other inhabited planets...they would have discovered the positive correlation between trading and progress.

While it's entertaining/exciting/scary to watch movies with alien space invaders attacking our planet in order to take our resources...the concept has no basis in economic reality...

1. Scarcity is relevant no matter what solar system you're from
2. Progress depends on how scarce resources are used
3. Different perspectives can see different uses of the same resource
4. Therefore, the rate of progress depends on...

A. how much difference there is between people's perspectives (diversity)
B. how much freedom people have to apply their perspectives to their scarce resources

If a species has 100% freedom but no variation in perspectives...then they won't come up with different uses of their resources...which will result in a 0% rate of progress.  Same thing if a species has 0% freedom but incredible variation in perspectives.  Of course neither extreme is possible...but where a species falls on the spectrum will determine its rate of progress.

In all likelihood it would probably be relatively easy for an advanced alien civilization to enslave/kill/eat us and take our resources. They would then be able to use our resources in their own alien ways. But if they did take our resources then they would be greatly hindering their own progress.  This is because if they hadn't taken our resources...then us humans would have been able to apply our very different perspectives to our resources.  We would have come up with new and innovative uses that the aliens would have been able to benefit from...but wouldn't have thought of on their own.

The same concept is applicable to China. China could certainly try and invade our country and take our resources. And if they were successful...then they would temporarily benefit. They would have more resources...but they would still just be applying the same set of perspectives to them.  And having resources isn't nearly as important as what you do with them.  Therefore, China would be sacrificing the significantly greater benefit that they would have derived from all future American innovations.

Here's what John Stuart Mill wrote in 1869...

China—a nation of much talent, and, in some respects, even wisdom, owing to the rare good fortune of having been provided at an early period with a particularly good set of customs, the work, in some measure, of men to whom even the most enlightened European must accord, under certain limitations, the title of sages and philosophers. They are remarkable, too, in the excellence of their apparatus for impressing, as far as possible, the best wisdom they possess upon every mind in the community, and securing that those who have appropriated most of it shall occupy the posts of honour and power. Surely the people who did this have discovered the secret of human progressiveness, and must have kept themselves steadily at the head of the movement of the world. On the contrary, they have become stationary—have remained so for thousands of years; and if they are ever to be farther improved, it must be by foreigners. They have succeeded beyond all hope in what English philanthropists are so industriously working at—in making a people all alike, all governing their thoughts and conduct by the same maxims and rules; and these are the fruits. The modern régime of public opinion is, in an unorganized form, what the Chinese educational and political systems are in an organized; and unless individuality shall be able successfully to assert itself against this yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its professed Christianity, will tend to become another China. - J.S. Mill, On Liberty

And here's what Mao Zedong wrote nearly a 100 years later...

Apart from their other characteristics, the outstanding thing about China's 600 million people is that they are "poor and blank". This may seem a bad thing, but in reality it is a good thing. Poverty gives rise to the desire for changes the desire for action and the desire for revolution. On a blank sheet of paper free from any mark, the freshest and most beautiful characters can be written; the freshest and most beautiful pictures can be painted. - Mao Zedong

Subjugation/taking greatly slows the rate of progress. This fatal conceit squanders the most valuable resource... individuality/uniqueness/originality. Therefore, the rate of progress is far greater if we rely on persuasion/trading.

Unfortunately, as a species, clearly we still are not aware of the positive correlation between trading and progress. The pattern is there...but most have yet to see it.  As more and more people start to see the pattern, there will be more recognition of the immense value of giving taxpayers the freedom to shop for themselves in the public sector.  The unique perspectives of millions of diverse people would be applied to public goods and the result would be infinitely beneficial.

If people aren't free to shop for themselves...then the specificity and ranking of their preferences and the uniqueness of their circumstances will not be input into the function which determines how society's scarce resources are used. As a result, the output will be the wrong quantities of an extremely narrow selection of poor quality products/services. Pseudo-demand, pseudo-supply.  Garbage in, garbage out.

Pragmatarianism can't be implemented if the positive correlation between shopping and progress is not clear to most...just like we won't be capable of traveling to other inhabited planets if the pattern is not clear to all.  Given that economic reality is not constrained by time/space... convergence is certain: an alien civilization won't be able to visit other inhabited planets before they've seen the pattern.      

What I've shared is basically a consequentialist argument against taking. Or conversely...a consequentialist argument for trading/liberty.  It should be clear that consequentialist arguments for liberty have far more substance than moral arguments for liberty.

The amount of benefit the future holds depends on you!  So please carefully read the following passages on heterogeneous activity...

Solutions to complex social problems require as many creative minds as possible — and this is precisely what the market delivers. - Donald J. Boudreaux

I’m not here to say that men are to blame for the [financial] crisis and what happened in my country [Iceland]. But I can tell you that in my country, much like on Wall Street and the city of London and elsewhere, men were at the helm of the game of the financial sector. That kind of lack of diversity and sameness leads to disastrous problems. - Halla Tomasdottir, Co-founder of Audur Capital 

Austrians believe that we get more solutions – and better, more creative solutions – if the energy, imagination, alertness and specialist knowledge of many individuals are engaged on the task. In economics, this is achieved through the process of competition, which gives diverse entrepreneurs the incentive to seek out new and better ways of enhancing value to consumers. By the same reasoning, our social and political problems may also be best solved if we give individuals the widest possible freedom to come up with a variety of creative responses, rather than hoping that a single collective approach will suffice. - Eamonn Butler, Austrian Economics

The generation to which we belong is now learning from experience what happens when man retreats from freedom to a coercive organization of their affairs.  Though they promise themselves a more abundant life, they must in practice renounce it; as the organizational direction increases, the variety of ends must give way to uniformity.  That is the nemesis of the planned society and the authoritarian principle in human affairs. - Walter Lippmann

Development happens thanks to problem-solving systems. To vastly oversimplify for illustrative purposes, the market is a decentralized (private) problem solving system with rich feedback and accountability. Democracy, civil liberties, free speech, protection of rights of dissidents and activists is a decentralized (public) problem solving system with (imperfect) feedback and accountability. Individual liberty in general fosters systems that allow many different individuals to use their particular local knowledge and expertise to attempt many different independent trials at solutions. When you have a large number of independent trials, the probability of solutions goes way up. - William Easterly, The Answer Is 42!  

So far as this is the case, it is evident that government, by excluding or even by superseding individual agency, either substitutes a less qualified instrumentality for one better qualified, or at any rate substitutes its own mode of accomplishing the work, for all the variety of modes which would be tried by a number of equally qualified persons aiming at the same end; a competition by many degrees more propitious to the progress of improvement than any uniformity of system. - J.S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy

It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater fulness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them. - J.S. Mill, On Liberty

Similarly, Niskanen attacked the monopoly power of public bureaucracies, school districts among them.  More recently, Coons and Sugarman have championed the case for parental freedom of choice, indicating that we should "substitute mutual respect as a ground of a social accord" and use freedom of choice to reduce the perils of uniformity. - Daniel J. Brown, The Case For Tax-Target Plans 

While declaring “Let the government handle it” comes across as a solution, it’s no such thing. Instead, it is merely a sign of a simple and baseless faith — a simple and baseless faith that people invested with power will not abuse that power; that political appointees possess or will find better answers than will millions of people pursuing solutions in their own ways, and staking their own resources and reputations on their efforts; that only those ‘solutions’ that are spelled out in statutes and regulations and that have officials paid to implement them are true solutions. - Donald J. Boudreaux

In 1956, economist Charles Tiebout (pronounced TEE-bow) asked: What is it about the private market that guarantees optimal provision of private goods that is missing in the case of public goods?  His insight was that the factors missing from the market for public goods were shopping and competition. - Jonathan Gruber, Public Finance and Public Policy

Taking vs Trading

If aliens arrived on our planet...would they want to trade with us or would they just take whatever resources they wanted?  It's my firm belief that they would want to trade with us.  Here's my logic...

In order for an alien civilization to advance to the point that it could actually visit us...they would already have learned that progress depends on trading rather than taking.   This is because taking destroys individual foresight and if you destroy individual foresight then you hinder progress.

In very simple terms...two heads are better than one.  We all have unique perspectives so we can see numerous uses of the same exact resource.  Trading integrates perspectives which allows resources to be put to their most productive uses...while taking does the opposite.  It seems highly unlikely that an alien civilization could efficiently allocate all the resources necessary to visit out planet...yet fail to appreciate that their progress was a direct result of integrating everybody's unique perspectives.  

Here on planet Earth we still haven't figured out that our progress depends on integrating people's perspectives.  If we had figured this out then taxpayers would be able to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to...aka pragmatarianism.  Once we understand why people's perspectives should matter...then we'll allow taxpayers to trade their taxes for public goods that they value...our rate of progress will increase...and visiting inhabited planets will happen sooner rather than later.  With the understanding of progress under our belts...we would see the value in trading with the aliens rather than taking their resources by force.

This concept was the point of Bastiat's Parable of the Broken Window...

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented. - Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen. 

Right now we allow 538 congresspeople to spend around $4 trillion dollars.  Did they labor to earn that money?  No...they did not.  Taxpayers did.  When we allow congress to spend money that they did not earn...the perspectives of millions and millions of taxpayers are blocked from determining how their money should be distributed in the public sector.  As a result...progress is severely hindered.  Yet, people see roads and schools...so they see their tax dollars at work.  But they are simply seeing the SEEN...anybody can do that.  The challenge is to try and see the UNSEEN.  The unseen is the outcome of applying millions and millions of our most productive perspectives to the public sector.

The next time you watch a movie in which the aliens take the resources they want by force...or vice versa...hopefully you'll understand that what you're watching is merely a reflection of our society's lack of understanding regarding the correlation between perspectives and progress.