tend to subscribe to the idea that the best hope for improving politics is to change incentives, not minds but periodically I get drawn into political debates despite myself. I’ll try to leave the topic for a while.
Incentives (or incentive structures, like markets [1]) are the result of human decisions.
Perhaps you mean changing the minds of the people who set the incentives.
[1] A market’s incentives aren’t set in detail, but permitting the market to operate in public or not is the result of a relatively small number of decisions.
Perhaps you mean changing the minds of the people who set the incentives.
Part of the thinking behind competitive government is that we are the people who set the incentives.
Seasteading is explicitly designed to create alternative social systems that operate somewhat outside the boundaries of existing states. An analogy is trying to introduce revolutionary technologies by convincing a democratic majority to vote for your idea vs. founding a startup and taking the ‘if you build it they will come’ route. The latter approach generally appears to have a better track record.
Charter cities were born out of a slightly different agenda but embody similar principles.
A simple step that individuals can take is to move to a jurisdiction in line with their values rather than trying to change their current jurisdiction through the political process. Competition works to improve products in ordinary markets because customers take their business to the companies that best satisfy their preferences. Migration is one of the few forces that applies some level of competitive pressure to governments.
Other potential approaches are to support secession or devolution movements, things like the free state project, supporting the sovereignty of tax havens, ‘starving the beast’ by structuring your affairs to minimize the amount of tax you pay, personal offshoring and other direct individual action that creates competitive pressure on jurisdictions.
I think he’s talking from a government perspective or a perspective of power.
Obviously, you can educate people yjat malaria is bad and beg people to solve the problem of malaria. It is, however, possible to know a lot about and not do anything about it.
Or you could pay people a lot of money if they would show work that might help the problem of malaria. I tend to think this method would be more effective, although there are other effective incentives than money.
Incentives (or incentive structures, like markets [1]) are the result of human decisions.
Perhaps you mean changing the minds of the people who set the incentives.
[1] A market’s incentives aren’t set in detail, but permitting the market to operate in public or not is the result of a relatively small number of decisions.
Part of the thinking behind competitive government is that we are the people who set the incentives.
Seasteading is explicitly designed to create alternative social systems that operate somewhat outside the boundaries of existing states. An analogy is trying to introduce revolutionary technologies by convincing a democratic majority to vote for your idea vs. founding a startup and taking the ‘if you build it they will come’ route. The latter approach generally appears to have a better track record.
Charter cities were born out of a slightly different agenda but embody similar principles.
A simple step that individuals can take is to move to a jurisdiction in line with their values rather than trying to change their current jurisdiction through the political process. Competition works to improve products in ordinary markets because customers take their business to the companies that best satisfy their preferences. Migration is one of the few forces that applies some level of competitive pressure to governments.
Other potential approaches are to support secession or devolution movements, things like the free state project, supporting the sovereignty of tax havens, ‘starving the beast’ by structuring your affairs to minimize the amount of tax you pay, personal offshoring and other direct individual action that creates competitive pressure on jurisdictions.
I think he’s talking from a government perspective or a perspective of power.
Obviously, you can educate people yjat malaria is bad and beg people to solve the problem of malaria. It is, however, possible to know a lot about and not do anything about it.
Or you could pay people a lot of money if they would show work that might help the problem of malaria. I tend to think this method would be more effective, although there are other effective incentives than money.