Re: poly: The singleton hypothesis

 Robin Hanson writes:

> Nick writes:
> >I don't think it's useful to consider the singleton discussion as a
> >continuation of the traditional debate between the merits of markets
> >vs. government. First, the singleton could very well use market
> >mechanisms internally to produce its output.
>
> But that is exactly one of the strongest standard arguments usually
> invoked for good government.

What I meant was that if the traditional debate was about whether
there should be a large government or a small government (--should
the government own the railroad companies?), then that debate seems
irrelevant to whether a singleton is desirable, since a singleton is
equally compatible with both positions.

_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
Received on Tue May 5 22:32:03 1998