Here are some of the most exciting developments in digital properties that are changing the way we work and live, and making the world a freer place — all without divisive public debates and legislation.
Comment on the extent to which you agree that the services he touts are effective and liberty-promoting.
Interesting picks. I somewhat agree with his including LinkedIn. I get messages from recruiters every few months, and I’m never active on the site.
I guess he wanted to mention the lesser-known sites and not just Uber and AirBnB.
I don’t see tools to avoid state control (OpenBazaar, Ethereum) as necessarily “liberating” in a meaningful human sense. They are only inherently liberating to the extent that a state is oppressive, and states don’t have to be that way. For example, are states being oppressive when they do things like ban trafficking of child pornography? I wouldn’t characterize it that way. This is probably aligned with the oppressor-oppressed mode of thinking – if the state works against oppression, then tools that undermine the state can actually work as tools of oppression. Similarly, on the conservative-barbarism axis, undermining the state can be seen as a tool to enhance the spread of evil around the world. Libertarians should acknowledge that these are reasonable positions. If someone told me that Ethereum/OpenBazaar could support a worldwide, anonymous, and secure market for child pornography, I’d wonder if the technology is worth unleashing. I hope they are thinking about those kinds of problems.
The other technologies don’t have those implications, but they do have the potential to exacerbate the digital divide – something I am generally concerned about
Those same people find Uber and AirBNB repulsive and dangerous too. So, if they hold reasonable positions sometimes, it’s mostly by accident!
“Libertarians should acknowledge that these are reasonable positions. If someone told me that Ethereum/OpenBazaar could support a worldwide, anonymous, and secure market for child pornography, I’d wonder if the technology is worth unleashing. I hope they are thinking about those kinds of problems.”
You know what I’d give good odds on? That you haven’t thought about whether child pornography reduces child molestation.
That is more of an argument for allowing simulated child pornography than actual child pornography
It is a question. But yes, sure.
Depends what you mean by ‘liberating’. There are two types of definition that start with “Makes it technically possible and feasible to do desirable things which …”
1. … were always legal but otherwise uneconomical or otherwise impractical. Example: Facebook.
2. … have long been illegal but which, for the moment, have a very low perceived risk of detection and prosecution on both the supply and demand side. Example: Uber.
I mean, technically, if someone builds a device to disable those automated traffic-violation cameras, that’s probably ‘liberating’ too in the second sense, in that lots of people are going to realize they suddenly have improved chances of getting away with breaking the law.
So, you are asking “what is liberty?” By when do you need the answer?
So, most of Web 2.x seems to be about lowering transaction costs and barriers to unleashing residual energies. So, one bias would be that anything that taps residual energy will be net liberating because it seems most of the things they can think of to decrease liberty are already fully funded (deficits notwithstanding). So, it depends on your definition of liberty is and what the impact on lowering transaction costs does, if we can predict it or even fully account for it. Does one person avoiding taxes increase liberty, or does it increase taxes on the remaining tax base? Does making the drug war almost unenforceable simply force the government to double-down and ramp up the digital surveillance? Does the democratization of terrorist methods and coordination make us victims of both terrorists and tyrants? I don’t know.
I think Tucker is right with all his examples to varying degrees. If sexual slaves start being trafficked on the dark net, and you don’t think that is liberating, we can presume another killer app will pop up to lower the transaction costs of protecting victims and investigating and prosecuting suspects. So, does an app help the defense more than it helps the offense? We can’t even agree on who is who. What is the market penetration? LinkedIn may be less liberating than Upwork, but it will have greater net impact. So, I’m always left to ponder the net results, pardon the pun. I’ll let you know in 20 years.
OpenBazaar 7/10, Ethereum 8/10, Slack 5/10, LinkedIn 7/10, Upwork 6/10
OTOH, hospitals being held hostage by ransomware via bitcoin-demanding hackers isn’t something I’d expect libertarians to draw attention to.
Never heard of it. So, are you drawing attention to it in order to blow it out of proportion? I’ve noticed a conservative goto is to blow speculative risks out of proportion.
But see above. I JUST talked about this in general terms.
These examples strike me as “Small Steps Toward a Much Better World” more than “Liberated by Digital Technology”
I’m inclined to think LinkedIn has the most immediate possibility for disruptive net impact since its primary functions apply to pretty serious labor market frictions that have a long way to go before they’re efficient.
I’m sure Slack is nice, but what’s the difference between a world without Slack and just the other project management software programs out there? I’m guessing it’s pretty small. Basecamp works just fine.
Ethereum and OpenBazaar are potentially liberating, but potentially not since their use cases have not been established and they can be used for evil as well as good. In fact for the time being the former probably have the best incentives for adopting it over existing options (like Bitcoin).
I think UpWork is very useful, but its effect is similar to that of CrowdFunding. They both add unique dimensions to sectors that are very important, but they lack the horsepower to challenge the dominant forms of economic organization in either since they’re best used for smaller, boutique projects. So their overall role is more complimentary than liberating.