The Future of Knowledge
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day when the thought struck me — with all the revolution in devices that help us gain information quickly, would there ever be a time where we wouldn’t need to learn anything at all? Or, to phrase this idea better, the process of learning would become automatic and instantaneous.
In fact, people have already imagined it before, and it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch at all. For instance, we saw the guys in The Matrix learn stuff by merely downloading the relevant program straight to their brain while they were plugged into the Matrix. Thanks to nano technology, this is something that the scientists can actually aspire to implement in real life.
Nano particles are so tiny that they are lighter than air and can move through our body cells. While reading up the concept of “superhuman” or as referred to in transhumanist literature, “posthuman,” I found out that it may be possible to use nano machines as a substitute for our immune system, to aid tissue regeneration, or for any other such super abilities. One of those abilities could also be to interface with the relevant areas of our brain to help us “download” — for lack of a better word — knowledge of certain things as and when we needed it.
In an age like that, the only thing people would have to do is to learn how to learn; in other words, learn how to download data to their brain. Once they learn that, all the knowledge of the world would be at their disposal. If this is the “Information Age,” the next one could be the “Application Age” — yes, I just coined this phrase. Once our civilization has matured enough to make the traditional process of acquiring knowledge obsolete, the only thing that will differentiate one man’s ability from another is the ways in which each chooses to apply the knowledge.
Of course, you might say “no matter how much knowledge we collect, there will always be things about the universe that we don’t know, therefore, we will always have the need to acquire new knowledge.” To that I’d say, you’ve misunderstood my idea. Even though we call this an “Information Age,” it doesn’t mean that we have perfected the means of sharing information or that we’ve uncovered all the information the universe has to offer. It only means that the industry has been changed such that today we find information as far more important than it ever was in the past. In this age, we’ve far more access to information than we ever had before. However, the process of storing it in our brains is still the same — we either read it, see it, hear it, or work on it, and that’s how we learn. This will change in the Application Age. Then, we will have perfected the means of storing information in our brains to the point where it becomes as simple as clicking a button or sending a simple neurosignal to begin the process of download.
Imagine the kind of changes this will bring about in the structure of our society. For example, issues like:
- What will government-funded public schools teach?
- While politicians create issues related to reservation in schools and government jobs at the moment, will they will start lobbying for granting everyone the “right” to obtain this brain equipment for free in the future?
- What will the Pope say? Of course, we probably know the answer to that. Just like how Christians aren’t supposed to use condoms, I guess they’ll have to stay dumber than the rest of us too
Anyway, this topic is too exhaustive to cover in the space of one post. If you have something to add to this, please feel free to write a comment or send me an email.
Interesting thoughts on learning, knowledge and nano particles. I’ll come back to hear more in future.
I think we’re already there. I operate largely using this principle of instant knowledge. However, it is superficial. Information may be a more appropriate term. With an understanding of the basic syntax, anyone can call themselves a php programmer as long as they’re able to access php.net/manual. The same can be applied to languages, medicine & most empirical disciplines.
We’re lucky to have almost all the information in the world available in an instant. Internet & search engines are truly revolutionary in that aspect. However; application of this instant information is also just that- instant. Understanding and experience is forfeited. Such powerful & near omniscient ability also raises huge questions of the intent of application, as well as morality.
Nanotech is indeed an interesting field and the possibilities are very exciting.
@ Paul: Thanks! I look forward to more comments from you.
@Srinivasan: Yes, I absolutely agree with you that acquiring information and applying it are becoming instantaneous, however, what I meant was to focus on the way in which we take that information in and turn it into the knowledge we possess in our brain. That method still involves one of these: reading, hearing, seeing, or working on it. Imagine not just being able to acquire information, but actually download it to your brain just as easily without having to read through all the pages on php.net/manual… Just like how we read in “Raju and the Tundra” story where the boy sleeps with the book and wakes up with all its content stored in his brain. Which brings us to an important question: how would recollection of that information work? Since we didn’t go through the process of learning it as such, would we realize that we know it until we actually see someone say it out loud? Weird huh! Kinda like how in Bourne Identity, Bourne knows the language of the cops who wake him up on that bench but he doesn’t realize it until he actually speaks it.
Your point about the intent of application is brilliant. Since everyone would be able to have almost all of the knowledge in their minds, there would be no such thing as scarcity power. How will people behave when they realize that no one else around them knows any more than what they do? In that case, will they EVER take someone else’s moral code more seriously than their own — even if it so happened that the other person’s code is better than theirs?
That’s an awesome proposition; instantaneous understanding. Perhaps recollection can also be made spontaneous & natural, by editing human memory? There’s a long way to go but just the fact that it’s possible is mind boggling.
Slightly off topic & fantastical, but maybe neuroscience & nanotechnology can some day bring about a real collective consciousness? Similar to the internet of today, except that human minds are directly linked to each other as well as computers. And if the mind could be quantified as data (which would actually be a very abstract task taking into account hormones, personalities etc) as how TCP/IP has quantified data as a packet – we could effectively have immortality.
Back to the morality issue, I believe that the natural inclination of the human mind is selfish personal gain & pleasure & therefore by necessity; immorality. Morality and order can only prevail to a certain extent if people need to co-operate with each other & there are effective deterrents. Of course doing bad things is unpleasant but everyone has a tipping point where they will choose to do a bad thing they perceive to be less important than their own personal gain. With everyone having access to so much information another “wild west” era is inevitable, in fact it’s already happening. Identity theft is a great example. Information despite it’s abundance is the most powerful commodity today IMO. Anyone curious enough to do some reading & acquire tools is able to spy on & manipulate entire corporations & other sensitive, wealthy & powerful entities. Then it just becomes a question of how far one is willing to go.
It is quite awesome indeed! I guess recollection could be made spontaneous — like perhaps each memory download comes with its own set of markers that will set our parities in order corresponding to the data we just acquired. You know, something akin to how when we install a new application, the installer also adds a relevant variable on the system’s path, so that the next time when you type “firefox” in your terminal window, the browser automatically opens up, meaning the system has a recollection of the application it just acquired.
I did think about the whole “collective consciousness” thing too when every brain in the world will be able to interface with another brain directly, although the term itself scares me out of my wits. I mean, if you can share it, it also means someone can hack it and make you do whatever they want. Of course, people smart enough to create such a system would also be smart enough to install fail safes so that our main biological brain remains immune to damage; still, you never know.
Coming back to the morality part, I agree with you pretty much all the way except with your equation of selfish personal gain & pleasure with immorality. I don’t think we should equate these things because selfish personal gain and pleasure are something everyone SHOULD seek, precisely because that’s our natural inclination — the way we have evolved — and that they’re probably the only things that can lead to true morality. You see, when you accept this as human nature and do not run from it, you’re never at conflict with yourself. Moreover, as you’ve said, people do always need to cooperate with one another, therefore, being selfish but in a rational manner where you do not attack another person’s life, liberty, or property is the ONLY way to ensure the longevity of human race. Every other form of morality — altruism, sacrifice, or whatever bullshit exists in the world of literature — is self destructive as it goes against the fundamental human nature.
I agree with you when you say that people will choose to do a bad thing they perceive to be less important than their own personal gain, and that’s when having strong deterrents in the society will come in handy. In fact, even before the person is made to fear the law, they should be made to realize the long-term consequences of their actions even without such a law in place — in that age, our brain will definitely be capable of grasping how every one else has the same kind of knowledge to defraud us too, and therefore, a bad deed from our end will only beget bad deeds from others, even those others who we haven’t harmed; because by harming another innocent person, we’ve encouraged everyone else to become like us.
But as you’ve said, it will probably take a while for people to understand this principle, and until then, “wild wests” are inevitable.
Perhaps this could be one of the most important changes the education system will have to incorporate in order to guide the society in the right direction.
I think there’s a big if as to whether cooperation between all people is necessary. There is practically no need for a small business proprietor to cooperate with the income tax department despite enjoying state facilities (unsurprisingly most of us don’t fully do so). Solipsists & sociopaths aren’t really concerned with the future of the human race or anything at all other than their own selfish gain & pleasure during their personal lifespans.
Of course it’s effectively impossible that law/order cease to exist- because every sociopath has a worthy opponent (some may say modern governments are full of such people LOL) which will trigger a battle for power & order. I recall reading (and agree) that no matter how good an individual is at something, there are several people out there who are capable of being better at it.
So in my view, it’s competition that will ultimately restore order, more so than a concern for fellow human beings. Case in point again, everyone doing PPC is perfectly capable of perpetuating large scale click fraud against competitors in the same niche and getting away with it, but we refrain from doing this due to fear of retaliation.
This is in line with your bad deed will beget bad deed from others rationale- but most people need to experience this firsthand until there is a widespread understanding of the principle. A “morality” derived from such cold reasoning & lack of empathy for others will always sought to be overcome.
Yeah, well cooperation between all people is not necessary at all, but there is NO one who can survive without cooperating with another individual at some point or another. But I’ll get to this in a bit.
Your point about income tax goes a long way to prove that self-destructive systems or moralities never work. A government has absolutely no business collecting income tax at all. The only proper job of a government is limited to these things: police force, courts, and military. Governments in the earlier days of the US earned their income by charging “fees” to individuals and corporations who wanted the government to safeguard their contracts. Governments can also charge money to corporations who wish to register themselves as limited companies and protect the personal assets of individual directors should a misfortune befall the company. This money is more than enough for the government to run all its operations. Therefore, it has no business collecting individual income tax — it goes against basic human nature (a sense of private property), and therefore, it doesn’t work in so many cases. Whether or not a government can do a good job with that money is irrelevant. It just has no business forcing people to “buy” its services by means of an income tax.
Coming back to the law and order point. Yes, there will always be some form of law, whether or not its enforced by a government. In fact, the basis of a government is entirely to create a safe environment where this competition, which you rightly say can restore order, can thrive. When people realize that what they do to others can happen to them too, they naturally don’t want to do it. They institute a government to ensure that no one does it to them either, because even if they could take revenge, it’s just a waste of time and energy to get into this kind of stupid exchange at the cost of disrupting a productive life routine.
This cold logic is the only right basis of morality. It’s not a result of empathy or good intentions. It’s simply the only thing that works best. The only reason things go bad is because people leave this logic outside the door and push in emotions in place of logic when defining morality — things like, ban smoking cause people are killing themselves, ban drugs, they destroy lives, etc. etc.
My point about informing people about the long-term good was not that it automatically works or that people can care about it all of a sudden. What I meant was that if it’s inculcated at the time of learning in schools, it would go a long way in helping reduce the burden on our law enforcement. Sure, there will always be sociopaths who do not think of this or do not care. They will seek to overthrow this morality, but then that’s why we want those courts and laws
.
I want a cat, provided that it barks…
“Suppose, for example, that we were all suddenly dropped down on the earth de novo and that we were all then confronted with the question of what societal arrangements to adopt. And suppose then that someone suggested: ‘We are all bound to suffer from those of us who wish to aggress against their fellow men. Let us then solve this problem of crime by handing all of our weapons to the Jones family, over there, by giving all of our ultimate power to settle disputes to that family. In that way, with their monopoly of coercion and of ultimate decision making, the Jones family will be able to protect each of us from each other.’ I submit that this proposal would get very short shrift, except perhaps from the Jones family themselves. And yet this is precisely the common argument for the existence of the state.”
– Murray Rothbard
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard133.html
@ Alex: I don’t see why you would have to give your weapons to the Jones family. You’d just agree that those weapons would be used only for retaliation against someone who initiates force. And in cases where retaliatory force is not necessary — where there is no immediate danger to your life — the Jones family would use its own force to get those bad guy off your back.
Of course, what the Jones family thinks is right or wrong would not be their own personal thoughts; they would be a code of ethics we all agree upon and name as our constitution. Moreover, the Jones family will not always have the right to be called government. If the screw around with the code of ethics, we’ll remove them and nominate someone else.
I guess the only point of a government is not that citizens can’t do it themselves. Rather that it’s just not worth the waste of time and effort. Just like not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, etc. not everyone can be a politician or a judge either. Therefore, this job has to be awarded to those who can do it better. Of course, we choose them to represent us, but we do have to choose.
I haven’t given much thought to the Libertarian agenda of having competing governments, but I do kinda remember Ayn Rand’s argument against it. What’s your take?
Apologies; for some reason, the system didn’t notify me of your response. Here goes:
Only that we all cannot agree on one code of ethics, and that under popular government even the best constitution will be twisted by the mindless majority into a tool to loot for crusades for their god (right half) or their progressive causes (left half).
The problem is that once the Jones family has the weapons, they cannot be removed anymore. Conversely, if the Jones family does not have a monopoly on military-grade weapons, so it can be removed, it is no longer a government.
Right, defense should be left mostly to specialists (and thus, to businesses corporations specializing in it), but just as we don’t have a popular vote on who should be a doctor or a lawyer, we shouldn’t have a popular vote on who can be a judge, or on anything else, and for the same reason.
Rand’s arguments in this respect were so far below her usual intellectual standard that it’s hard for me to understand how she could arrive at them. I can only imagine that living through the chaos of the Russian revolution put such a fear of anarchy (as in disorder) in her that she could not rationally consider anarchy (as in absence of government).
I think her favorite argument on this was, “What would happen if a criminal protected by government A was wanted by government B?” Her implied answer, “Civil war would break out.”
Of course, that would happen as little as war broke out between the US and France (or Switzerland) over the extradition of Roman Polanski. Both sides would understand that war is too costly for the extradition of one criminal and negotiate instead.
As I see it, the only difference between today’s world and anarcho-capitalism is that anarcho-capitalism does away with the two problems that make liberty impossible: (A) democracy and (B) the oligopoly of the existing looters’ states in the realm of force.
(A) If defense is supplied by capitalist corporations, decisions are made by businessmen, who are less than perfect, but heads and shoulders above the brain-dead Palin and Obama voting rabble. In a corporation, there too are votes, but not every moron gets an equal vote. The more productive one is, the more shares one can buy, the more votes one gets.
(Hint: As for the problem of worthless heirs, they can be taken care of by defining fraud narrowly. Thus, anyone who’s dumb enough to lose their money to a confidence artist is automatically disenfranchised.)
(B) Setting up a free society is impossible today, as established governments will not permit it (they would lose all their slaves). Any Free State Project, if successful, will perish in the bullets of the federal government. All land is claimed by some looters’ state, and none would allow any land to a free society (as it would bury the looters states).
Given the fact that reasonable and freedom-loving people are vastly outnumbered by the looters left and right, freedom, at least in this millennium, will not come via the ballot box, but only by force of arms, once the people intelligent enough to manufacture weapons stop turning them over to the Jones family but use them to enforce peace, reason, and freedom through superior firepower.
But if we claim the right to set up a free society on our properties without being aggressed against by a looting government that claims overlordship over our properties, we cannot deny that same right to others who might set up an even better society on their properties.
“Here are my three treasures. Guard and keep them! The first is pity [benevolence]; the second, frugality[economy]; the third, refusal to be foremost of all things under heaven [refusal to assert active authority]. For only he that pities is truly able to be brave; only he that is frugal is able to be profuse. Only he that refuses to be foremost of all things is truly able to become chief of all ministers.”
— Lao Tse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Treasures_(Taoism)
There can never be any final court of appeals that has authority (that everybody must obey). Any court of appeals can only be an expedient obeyed by anyone to the degree of importance the matter has to him.
If a final court of appeals sentenced a loved one of yours who you know but cannot prove to be innocent to death, and you had the chance to break her out of jail, would you do it or watch the murder take place? (No, this is not a lifeboat situation, given the proven number of innocent people on death row.)
Objectivists would say that sacrificing the loved one is the price of living in civilization.
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
Translation: I would rather live in a cave than in such a “civilization.”
No man is omniscient; thus, no man and no group of men can claim any monopoly on judging right and wrong.
So it’s not “competing governments”: a government claims a coercive monopoly on the use of force on properties of people who never wanted to do business with that government in the first place. It’s corporations of free men whose business is defense, who do not claim any jurisdiction but on their customers’ properties and who do not forcibly assert any authority but in matters vital to their shareholders and customers.
Well, all that’ll be the subject of my next book, “Mystic Triangle.”
@ Alex: Very interesting take. For now, I have one question: what do we do when all five free market governments collude to hold all the citizens as hostage and do what the government does at the moment — force their citizens to give up arms and live under their tyranny?
Of course, you have your valid points supporting your stand, which goes against what I’ve always thought to be correct. So I am going to do a lot more study on this subject now.
You see, I always believed that a code of ethics wasn’t to be subject to the “will” of any majority. It was to be formulated based on the three basic principles of life, liberty, and property. Just like you wouldn’t tell a doctor how to treat your body, you wouldn’t question someone skilled as a lawmaker when they work on this code — indeed this is what happened when constitutions were made in the first place. If any code does injustice to a single individual — not general welfare of the population — but if you see that there’s a chance of injustice to a single individual, you employ a better lawmaker to make it perfect.
Sure, those lawmakers could be found on the free market — no monopoly there. But even if you want governments to compete (more on that later), they have to follow a common code of ethics — as ethics aren’t supposed to be subjective.
What do you think?
Good point. Of course, anarcho-capitalism is not perfect, just like anything else manmade. There can never be a guarantee for anything. (Except for the facts of existence and consciousness; even the law of identity is not quite on par with the former two.)
Private corporations might conspire to enslave us or they might not; governments already do. So it’s a question of a good chance at liberty versus virtually assured eternal slavery.
BTW, it’s an attitude thing, too. If people see government as something special, deserving of obedience and a monopoly, they will come to see it as something holy, and from that state worship comes fascism.
Private corporations might turn criminal, but the only thing the victims have to grapple with then is physical force. Under archy, people do not even dare to revolt easily, as they believe they owe allegiance to the authority of the state and fear being branded as a traitor.
Both under archy and in anarchy, you have to fight for your rights, but at least anarchists will not happily rush to their deaths for their masters if conscripted as cannon fodder, nor will they voluntarily board cattle cars if their masters want to take them to their concentration camps. In anarchy, a defense corporation is nothing sacred, but a utility like an ISP. No one will go on a suicide mission for their ISP.
As people have free will, they can decide to reject the best code of ethics or twist it all out of logical sense to fit their mindless short-term goals. People can decide to live by death, slavery, and looting, and they can do so and call the death, slavery, and looting life, liberty, and property. Of course, reality does not permit them to get away with it, but they can fake reality long enough to take us all along with them.
If you notice the doctor is poisoning you, you will have to second-guess him if you want to live, no matter who is the pro. This point is precisely the archic attitude; don’t second-guess authorities, even if they’re obviously nothing but a bunch of criminals.
The bad lawmakers won’t go away voluntarily, and the majority that elects them does reelect them or their clones from the other party because the majority wants them to rule by death, slavery, and looting (while calling it life, liberty, and property). The right wants nonconformists kidnapped and murdered by the state as a gift to their god, so he will admit them to heaven. The left wants to loot goodies for the poor they have enshrined after kicking out god.
Currently, all existing governments refuse any halfway tolerable, much less perfect, code of ethics. They and their electorates refuse being reformed. So the only way is setting up a private corporation that does follow better ethics. But it must be a non-monopoly private corporation because no one is perfect and thus no one has a right to keep someone else from setting up another corporation based on even better ethics.
Reality is objectives, but man is not perfect, thus nothing manmade can be perfect, and no one and no organization has a right to prohibit someone else from setting up an organization where reality is being understood more objectively than at the former.
Besides, even if we assume an ethically perfect organization for the sake of the argument, even that must make mistakes of fact every so often. And then it goes back to the fight about the loved one described above.
An anarchic organization would recognize that the fight is inevitable: To them, the loved one is a dangerous criminal that must be stopped, but to her relatives she is an innocent that must be saved. If neither side is convinced by the evidence, settling the case by force is the only honorable and reasonable alternative: The former cannot release a perceived dangerous criminal, and the latter cannot sacrifice a perceived innocent.
But an anarchic organization would use force only if it sees itself physically threatened; it would not use force for insulting its authority. It would, so to speak, not have any hard feelings. It would incarcerate what is regards criminals; it would not punish anyone for resisting arrest or for breaking out of jail.
That may look like a slight distinction, but it has far-reaching practical consequences. To go back to my Polanski example, the archic ruler that wants to be foremost of all things under heaven says, “That pervert Polanski must be persecuted until he surrenders to the authority of the state.” An anarchic leader who refuses to be foremost of all things under heaven would say, “Regarding Polanski, even the alleged victim doesn’t want revenge anymore, he has fled our jurisdiction and thus poses no threat to our customers, and the evidence was contradictory anyway. So, as long as he stays away, we leave him alone.”
Okay, I agree with your premise. Here’s another question:
What do we do when a man from one jurisdiction messes around with a man from another jurisdiction? Obviously, in our anarchic system, the entity in charge of one jurisdiction wouldn’t bother someone from another jurisdiction. Therefore, the best the victim’s court can do it outlaw the culprit and ban them from entering their jurisdiction. But that still doesn’t make up for the loss of the victim.
I believe this is the reason why the FBI was created in the first place: criminals would commit a crime in one state and then run away to another where the former state’s police had not authority.
Of course, I’m not saying that there should be a federal authority; what I’m trying to emphasize on is that even with competing governments, they would HAVE to have some set of rules based on which they’d extradite their citizen to another jurisdiction if they are so requested. Otherwise, it would be like inviting frauds to come into their territory, rob and pillage and then go back to their home without a worry in the world. Like you said, this will eventually cause trouble everywhere, but people would do it anyway due to their shortsightedness.
If you agree with me, the only difference between the anarchic system you espouse and the limited government system I had in mind is that in your case, even the law changes when the government changes.
A few more points to go over your system:
How does a government get its jurisdiction?
If I don’t like the current government that works in my area, do I have a choice to follow the code of its rival government without having to leave my area of residence? If not, then how do I and my neighbor who belongs to a different government resolve our conflict?
I am assuming that governments will also advertise to gain more followers in such a system. However, what do you do if the government you’re with has better code of ethics but is less powerful than the one with shittier ethics but a lot of money donated by special interest groups? Meaning, if you’re with them, they’ll protect you even if you’re on the grayer side of the issue — because they have more force on their side
I’ll think about this more. Perhaps this provides you some fodder for your next book?
“What do we do when a man from one jurisdiction messes around with a man from another jurisdiction?”
This would probably work out pretty much the same way like when a Frenchman commits a crime in the US and flees back to France. The French might refuse to extradite their customer, but offer to try him in their own court and to indemnify the victim if he is found guilty. If the Americans stand on principle and refuse that offer, one of two things can happen: Depending on how important the matter is to them, there might be a stalemate or war. Additionally, in an anarcho-capitalist system, both parties might subject the matter to third-party arbitration.
“If you agree with me, the only difference between the anarchic system you espouse and the limited government system I had in mind is that in your case, even the law changes when the government changes.”
No, the important differences are that in a capitalist system it is easier to change security providers, that there is no democracy with an equal vote for every moron, and that security providers are utilities, not mystical, sacred entities people are willing to sacrifice themselves for.
“How does a government get its jurisdiction?”
Every individual is sovereign on his property and decides whether he wants to be a one-man army or whether he wants to buy security services, and from whom. If you and your neighbor both are sovereign landowners and buy defense services from different companies, the situation would be the same as that of an enclave or an embassy. As defending or not defending enclaves is difficult (but not, as the archists claim, impossible), it stands to reason that for efficiency reasons most land would be consolidated by developers into company towns, and most people would be tenants rather than landowners and one-man countries. The difference from today is, however, that if you don’t like your landlord or the way he runs things, moving into another jurisdiction will be about as easy as changing utilities, without all that “If you weren’t born here, you can be glad if we take you at all” crap. And of course, you have an absolute right to remain sovereign on your land and buy nothing from no one (though that may be difficult, defending yourself against any stray comer), while today declaring your sovereignty is considered a crime per se (try to stay on your property and not use any government services and refuse to pay taxes).
Of course, the problem of might and right does not go away. If a criminal gang is more powerful than your security provider, it’s the same problem like if the Soviet Union is more powerful than the US. However, history shows that the freest countries tend to become the most the powerful countries (e.g., The Netherlands, Britain, the US) with the best weapons, as weapons, like all tools, are products of the mind, and the mind requires freedom to work, and force controlled by the mind will win over brute force. I do not expect that law of nature to change in an even freer, capitalist system.
But of course that does not guarantee that justice will win every time. No system can guarantee that, as nothing manmade is perfect, as man is not omniscient or omnipotent. It’s a question of which system gives you the best chances.
“Perhaps this provides you some fodder for your next book?”
Yes, thank you. These questions I had already worked out (or many of them, Rothbard and others already had), but it never hurts to have another opinion. Maybe you come up with something I haven’t thought of.