X-Message-Number: 5124
Date: 06 Nov 95 18:03:52 EST
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: CRYONICS: Nanotech Saves Socialism!
I have to say something about Dr. Stodolsky's remarks about
economics (uninterested readers can tune out now):
Stodolsky: >>The Soviet system was known for massive
inequalities in different fields. It was remarkably efficient in
weapons production. How else, could a third world economy compete
militarily with the USA?<<
Answer: by starving their citizens to do it, as is well
known. Whether or not the Soviets were "efficient" at doing this
(building weapons, not starving citizens-- no question about the
last), this is open to debate. They didn't spend as much as we
did on their military, although they came close. On the other
hand, over the entire cold war, Soviet weapons in general *never*
stood up to the U.S. standards in any conflict where there was an
opportunity to test one directly against the other, from Korea to
the Persian Gulf. So did the Soviet system get good bang for the
buck, even in military matters? It's not clear.
Stodolsky: >>It is precisely in "mathematics" that the Soviet
system excelled, because their economy was too unbalanced to
support application of theoretical knowledge. If the USSR had not
collapsed, it would have eclipsed the West, because of an educa-
tion system which was producing scientists at a much greater rate
in virtually all hard science areas.<<
If the USSR hadn't collapsed, they would have eclipsed the
West??? <g>. An opaque point, to be sure. This reminds me of
the story of the mother at the piano recital, who was overheard
saying "Well, MY daughter would have played that piece much
better, if she'd ever decided to take up the piano." The problem
with communist systems is exactly that they steal needed resour-
ces from one area in order to overproduce in another, and then
they (and their apologists) ask us to imagine what things would
be like if they'd been communists, BUT done it right. The answer
is that this, by its very nature, could not have happened.
Castro, for example, brags that if we're short of doctors in
inner-cities, he'll send us some. I'm sure he'd be glad to. His
own doctors are having a hard time treating diseases in starving
people. Socialism is great at robbing everybody to build little
Potemkin village-like works of wonder, to which its apologists
always point, as with an Egyptian pyramid or Mayan temple. But
you always have to look at the whole thing, because in socialist
societies, most parts ALWAYS suffer terribly to pay for the bit
of wonder. That's the PROBLEM with communism-- always a few
shining dams or turbines or show-hospitals, but no middle class.
And no, it's not likely that the problem of bad information
processing in centralized economies can be fixed in the near
future, or by David Stodolsky. As von Hayek notes, the power of
the free market to solve economic problems results from the
parallel or net processing power of hundreds of millions of human
brains working hard (several hours a day) to process economic
information for their own direct self-interests-- with critical
information about supply and demand for goods and services passed
*between* minds (and businesses) by the incredibly simple and
relatively efficient mechanism of free-market prices. As we saw
with the USSR competing with the US, there is a vast difference
between the capability of hundreds of millions of brains loaded
with critical information about wants, needs, values, and
resources; and that of a few thousands of planners or commissars
who are missing that individual information (and not working so
directly for themselves, to boot).
Nor is that difference in power going to be supplied by
computers any time soon (since all the computer power in the
world doesn't help when the computers don't have the personal
information to crunch). I don't know what David Stodolsky's
ideas are to use computers at the personal level in order to
tweak government policy, but if such plans are intended to use
computers to make up for the quality of thinking that goes on
when people think about their own interests, VERSUS the quality
of thinking that happens when they think about the "public in-
terest" (whatever that is), then Stodolsky is being tremendously
naive.
But that's Cryonet. I suppose this sort of thing is one
variant of the idea that with enough computers you can fix
anything, even death. Even taxes. Even socialism. In other
words, now we face the idea that Nanotechnology with capital N
may finally be the salvation of Communism with capital C (every-
body needs a God).
And yes, I'm willing to admit that perhaps it's possible that
when computers get to be a smart as people, and we can assign one
"machine" ("implant"?) per person, and load this implant automa-
tically with that person's desires and values, and get it to
interface subconsciously in a net with all other people's
computer-implants, THEN we'll get some kind of system in which
"government" or "public" or "democratic" decision-making will
approximate the power and effectiveness of free market individual
decision-making as we see it operate in the world today. But
that world will be one in which we also will have re-created the
market-place in cyberspace, in a sense, and it will be then be
very hard to tell the difference between socialism and individua-
list free-enterprise, because we'll all be interconnected in ways
that make that future world unfathomable in today's terms. In
other words, that future world is so different from the one we
inhabit now, that debating about appropriate system(s) of
government for it is likely a waste of time.
In the meantime, let us avoid collective decision-making
(i.e., where everyone gets what only the majority deserve)
wherever possible. Collective decisions (see your voting choices
at election-time) are invariably horribly simplified when
compared with the richness of individual choice-making. There
are good reasons for that, and let us not forget them. They are
rooted in our biological relative lack of connectedness, and in
our relative mechanical ineptitude at this time. These things
won't change soon. Our mechanical computers and all of our
planning institutions are crude things when compared with our
brains, and will be for many decades. Meanwhile, let us use the
political system which maximizes use of our brains, given the
connections we have possible now. Centrally planned economies
don't fill the bill.
Steve Harris
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