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Permissionless innovation

learnliberty.org

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Re: Permissionless innovation

#21

Post by Mz »

It reminds me of an article I read years ago in a magazine about solar power. A guy decided to go off grid with solar panels and battery back up. He was living in Chicago. He called around to find out who regulated this sort of thing, where he needed to apply for permits or whatever.

He learned that there wasn't a governing body. So he realized that as long as he didn't do anything stupid (a la burn the building down), he was pretty much free to do as he pleased.

If you are responsible, freedom of that sort is empowering. If you are not, you wind up being the jerk that causes regulations to be written and permitting processes to be created, ruining it for everyone.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#22

Post by titzer »

hawkice wrote: post #11
maxxxxx wrote: post #8

Is this actually saying anything other than that government should get out of the way?

It's more specific. It's saying regulation should be largely post-hoc or with clearly defined before-hand rules. Instead, many people need permits (&c) for things where they're already following the rules. That creates a procedural barrier to change of any kind, and therefore is a massive handout to incumbents and crushes the most valuable part of a competitive market.

While the libertarian agrees with you in principle, the rest of me has been mugged by reality and has seen more than a few environmental disasters that have resulted from essential zero protection from bad actors dumping in the commons. E.g. ocean microplastic is a huge problem and has a lot to do with absolutely zero oversight from regulators on what can be used as packaging material. This is a big problem that we need to come to terms with, sooner rather than later.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#23

Post by KODeKarnage »

evanlivingston wrote: post #12
merpnderp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare anyone promote the most successful anti-poverty economic tool ever invented - letting people freely exchange labor and goods in a system of laws and contracts. Don't believe me? Look at when China implemented free market reforms then look at when their economy began decades of massive growth. China used to have 500 million people who had never owned a toothbrush. Now all the toothbrushes in the world are mad…

I don't think the availability of toothbrushes offers a real defense of capitalism. Do I get to freely exchange my labor? Isn't it more like I'm required to exchange it in order to stay alive. And, in most cases arn't I required to exchange a whole lot of my available labor in order to make ends meet? I would expect the most powerful anti-poverty economic tool to have clear and demonstrable gains against poverty, obv…

"And, in most cases arn't I required to exchange a whole lot of my available labor in order to make ends meet?"

Yes. You need to do things that make other peoples lives better if you want other people to do things that make your life better.

What has lead you people to think the opposite of this is the more moral position?

"I would expect the most powerful anti-poverty economic tool to have clear and demonstrable gains against poverty..."

Scoreboard. Seriously, the story of the 20th (and 21st) century eradication of poverty is told over and over again. How have you not seen any of it? You need to honestly answer that to yourself. How. Have. You. Not. Seen. ANY. Of. It?

"...obvious implementation..." What you mean here is that you want to see the control board that is used to dial up capitalism with a resulting reduction in poverty. That's how anti-capitalists do things. They command and control. That is not how capitalism and emergent order works. It is a system that cannot be fully realised within any individual person's brain.

Market capitalism is akin to a neural network with a billion features, a billion hidden layers with a billion modes in each, a billion output nodes, which is constantly training on new and old data. Anyone who claims to be able to control the result with any sort of precision should be laughed off the planet.

"... and very few detractors." Ha! Would you ever place that same requirement on your own preferred economic system? No way! The people who are against your system are blinded by ideology, right?

Re: Permissionless innovation

#24

Post by maxxxxx »

titzer wrote: post #22
hawkice wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more specific. It's saying regulation should be largely post-hoc or with clearly defined before-hand rules. Instead, many people need permits (&c) for things where they're already following the rules. That creates a procedural barrier to change of any kind, and therefore is a massive handout to incumbents and crushes the most valuable part of a competitive market.

While the libertarian agrees with you in principle, the rest of me has been mugged by reality and has seen more than a few environmental disasters that have resulted from essential zero protection from bad actors dumping in the commons. E.g. ocean microplastic is a huge problem and has a lot to do with absolutely zero oversight from regulators on what can be used as packaging material. This is a big problem that we n…

Libertarians never have a concrete answer for that.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#25

Post by [deleted] »

evanlivingston wrote: post #12
merpnderp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare anyone promote the most successful anti-poverty economic tool ever invented - letting people freely exchange labor and goods in a system of laws and contracts. Don't believe me? Look at when China implemented free market reforms then look at when their economy began decades of massive growth. China used to have 500 million people who had never owned a toothbrush. Now all the toothbrushes in the world are mad…

I don't think the availability of toothbrushes offers a real defense of capitalism. Do I get to freely exchange my labor? Isn't it more like I'm required to exchange it in order to stay alive. And, in most cases arn't I required to exchange a whole lot of my available labor in order to make ends meet? I would expect the most powerful anti-poverty economic tool to have clear and demonstrable gains against poverty, obv…

[deleted]

Re: Permissionless innovation

#26

Post by KODeKarnage »

maxxxxx wrote: post #20
KODeKarnage wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound very open-minded. How many great arguments are you ignoring because they don't support larger, more intrusive governments? The point is, you don't know.

I don't support larger, more intrusive governments. But I think his Twitter example is bad. Twitter has no externalities so it shouldn't need government approval which it actually didn't need. So there was no problem. The only permission needed was from investors who had to cough up the money. Instead of railing against solar power maybe he should also rail against the massive subsidies the oil industry gets through…

"The only permission [Twitter] needed was from investors who had to cough up the money."

That was his point.

"Instead of railing against solar power..."

Irrelevant what-about-ism.

"Is it OK for everybody to do "Permissionless Innovation" on reactor designs ..."

I will tell you that you don't really understand what the author is saying. But you won't believe that. You will continue to believe the author must be stupid.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#27

Post by lend000 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #24
titzer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the libertarian agrees with you in principle, the rest of me has been mugged by reality and has seen more than a few environmental disasters that have resulted from essential zero protection from bad actors dumping in the commons. E.g. ocean microplastic is a huge problem and has a lot to do with absolutely zero oversight from regulators on what can be used as packaging material. This is a big problem that we n…

Libertarians never have a concrete answer for that.

You must find the easy libertarians to debate. The answer is that maximizing liberty involves minimizing net aggressions, and externalities are aggressions. Therefore, a society is more free if the government proactively prevents/taxes/regulates certain types of externalities that are impractical to deal with in individual lawsuits (non-localized pollution fits this bill perfectly). In the case of smog, the most common interpretation is levying a carbon/pollutant tax such that the tax generates sufficient revenue to offset the damage. For something like mercury that has extreme, more localized effects, it would be perfectly reasonable and in-line with non-aggression-based philosophy to outright criminalize certain types of disposal.

Compare this to progressives, who want to protect the environment but have no metric or process for measuring how much environment to protect and how/why, other than what appeals to their emotions, so they deal with everything case-by-case and inconsistently. In general, this leads to broad, draconian regulations in some domains (like not allowing people to create ponds on their property) and a lack of progress in other domains (CO2 emissions and waste disposal, for example).

And yes, the carbon tax is a libertarian concept.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#28

Post by maxxxxx »

KODeKarnage wrote: post #26
maxxxxx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't support larger, more intrusive governments. But I think his Twitter example is bad. Twitter has no externalities so it shouldn't need government approval which it actually didn't need. So there was no problem. The only permission needed was from investors who had to cough up the money. Instead of railing against solar power maybe he should also rail against the massive subsidies the oil industry gets through…

"The only permission [Twitter] needed was from investors who had to cough up the money." That was his point. "Instead of railing against solar power..." Irrelevant what-about-ism. "Is it OK for everybody to do "Permissionless Innovation" on reactor designs ..." I will tell you that you don't really understand what the author is saying. But you won't believe that. You will continue to believe the author must be stupid…

How about you explain it? Obviously I don't understand what he's saying.

Re: Permissionless innovation

#29

Post by titzer »

lend000 wrote: post #27
maxxxxx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libertarians never have a concrete answer for that.

You must find the easy libertarians to debate. The answer is that maximizing liberty involves minimizing net aggressions, and externalities are aggressions. Therefore, a society is more free if the government proactively prevents/taxes/regulates certain types of externalities that are impractical to deal with in individual lawsuits (non-localized pollution fits this bill perfectly). In the case of smog, the most comm…

I've literally never heard a libertarian argue that before.
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