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Author Topic: The transition to AnCap  (Read 6749 times)
fornit
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September 06, 2012, 09:32:44 AM
 #81

If the government ran all the supermarkets, you'd say the exact same thing about food. You would worry that all the grocery stores would close and you would starve. But, the thing is, in an AnCap world, there's money to be made by solving real problems. If the problem you've identified is a real one, then someone will find a way to solve it and charge you for that solution. And then someone else will find a better way to solve it and charge you less. And before you know it, the problem's gone. Problems are opportunities.

You might think it sucks to have to pay for everything. But the fact is, you're paying for everything now. It's just being done by an inherently inefficient government with little to no incentive to innovate and facing no competition.

you are always paying for everything, in any possible scenario. however i dont see any indication that companies solve every problem better than governments do. for many services, there is very little competition or incentive to provide the cheapest or best possible service.  in some markets, there are so few players so that price agreements are very easy. in other markets its very hard for a layman to jugde the overall quality of the service, so the best marketing wins.
in the end, the assumption that companies solve all problems better is just a dogma. you will always find examples in which governments handled something ridiculously ineffecient. but that doesnt prove anything. or if it does, what does fukushiima say about the ability of companies to handle critical infrastructure? companies have scenarios where they fail really badly just as governments do. mostly those that require long term reliability and viability, minimizing risks, minimizing external costs. a company can always just cut their losses and run, or go broke.

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As for the land ownership issue, there's a more specific response. Land ownership includes some bundle of rights. And society, if it's going to have property, has to work out what that bundle of rights is. It may be that preventing people from reasonably crossing your land to access other people's land isn't in that bundle of rights. It may be that shooting anyone who accidentally stumbles onto your land isn't in that bundle of rights. Just as, for example, taxing satellites that pass over your land likely wouldn't be.

i like the thought that absolute property rights might actually lead to having less rights regarding your property  Grin
in practice though, that might be impossible. for example, would you still be allowed to build very high walls around your property? or have dangerous stuff lie around in the open?

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Also, covenants can run with land and can specifically exclude some rights for the benefit of nearby land owners. A society has to come up with rules for how those covenants can be enforced, whether they can be valid in perpetuity, and so on.

i agree that can solve many possible problems. but sometimes you just run into problems you coudnt foresee. or could but didnt. for example the necessity for land expropriation can be the result of bad planning. the property could have been aquired much earlier. or the infrastructure could have been built elsewhere. but when there really just one place left to build something or use property in a specific way, there is no existing contract and the owner is completely unreasonable, what do you do in ancap? yes, land expropriation sucks and should be kept to an absolute minimum. but you cant always avoid all situations in which honoring property rights of a single person will be to the detriment of a whole society.
JoelKatz
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September 06, 2012, 01:53:51 PM
 #82

however i dont see any indication that companies solve every problem better than governments do. for many services, there is very little competition or incentive to provide the cheapest or best possible service.  in some markets, there are so few players so that price agreements are very easy. in other markets its very hard for a layman to jugde the overall quality of the service, so the best marketing wins.
in the end, the assumption that companies solve all problems better is just a dogma. you will always find examples in which governments handled something ridiculously ineffecient. but that doesnt prove anything. or if it does, what does fukushiima say about the ability of companies to handle critical infrastructure? companies have scenarios where they fail really badly just as governments do. mostly those that require long term reliability and viability, minimizing risks, minimizing external costs. a company can always just cut their losses and run, or go broke.
That would be a good response if anyone was arguing that companies would necessarily do everything significantly better than governments.

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FirstAscent
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September 06, 2012, 03:26:09 PM
Last edit: September 06, 2012, 04:32:46 PM by FirstAscent
 #83

Companies can look at a particular project and simply pass because it won't be profitable. In fact, they're guaranteed to do so. A government has a more unifying plan (or is supposed to) and will look at a particular project and often do it because it works in a larger grand unifying plan.

It's not unlike the concept of insurance, as insurance is designed to work, not how some think insurance is supposed to work. Some individuals actually mistakenly believe insurance claims by an individual should roughly equate to insurance premiums paid in by that individual minus operating costs and some profit allowed to the insurance company. But that's not how insurance is designed. Insurance is designed to collect premiums from all whom are insured such that the unluckiest will be able to weather through monster sized claims, while everyone else has the peace of mind that comes with paying a premium, in the event that they become one of the unlucky.
bb113
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September 06, 2012, 03:45:42 PM
 #84

Companies can look at a particular project and simply pass because it won't be profitable. In fact, they're guaranteed to do so. A government has a more unifying plan (or is supposed to) and will look at a particular project and often do it because it works in a larger grand unifying plan.

It's not unlike the concept of insurance, as insurance insurance is designed to work, not how some think insurance is supposed to work. Some individuals actually mistakenly believe insurance claims by an individual should roughly equate to insurance premiums paid in by that individual minus operating costs and some profit allowed to the insurance company. But that's not how insurance is designed. Insurance is designed to collect premiums from all whom are insured such that the unluckiest will be able to weather through monster sized claims, while everyone else has the peace of mind that comes with paying a premium, in the event that they become one of the unlucky.

Slightly OT but we've talked about this before and I want to pimp my chart. Insurance is set up to trick young (under 45) people into overestimating their risk and subsidizing the healthcare of the elderly, while providing predictable revenue to the insurance companies. The monster claims you speak of are exceedingly rare and the majority of those are actually due to predictable chronic conditions that people get in old age. Keep in mind the chart below only includes people who did have medical bills greater than zero.




If it was designed the way you claim then there would be more people on plans paying a couple hundred a year with $10-20k deductibles but covered up to $1 mil or so.
FirstAscent
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September 06, 2012, 04:28:31 PM
 #85

You're conflating strategies within a particular insurance industry with the general premise of insurance. Insurance is designed to function exactly as I explained it.
FirstAscent
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September 06, 2012, 04:30:40 PM
 #86

Slightly OT but we've talked about this before and I want to pimp my chart. Insurance is set up to trick young (under 45) people into overestimating their risk and subsidizing the healthcare of the elderly, while providing predictable revenue to the insurance companies. The monster claims you speak of are exceedingly rare and the majority of those are actually due to predictable chronic conditions that people get in old age. Keep in mind the chart below only includes people who did have medical bills greater than zero.

Furthermore, we already know those monster claims are rare. Duh. That's why insurance can pay for them even though your premiums would never add up to their totals. That's the whole point.

You might have a monster claim next week.
bb113
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September 06, 2012, 07:03:18 PM
 #87

Slightly OT but we've talked about this before and I want to pimp my chart. Insurance is set up to trick young (under 45) people into overestimating their risk and subsidizing the healthcare of the elderly, while providing predictable revenue to the insurance companies. The monster claims you speak of are exceedingly rare and the majority of those are actually due to predictable chronic conditions that people get in old age. Keep in mind the chart below only includes people who did have medical bills greater than zero.

Furthermore, we already know those monster claims are rare. Duh. That's why insurance can pay for them even though your premiums would never add up to their totals. That's the whole point.

You might have a monster claim next week.

I suspect very, very few people's premiums + deductables + copays add up over their lifetime to less than their claims. People basically pay for any bills less than $2.5k per year, and are putting in ~$2k per year regardless of if they receive healthcare or not. If the average 30 yr old and their parents had invested that money in something that matched inflation there would be some asset worth ~$50k waiting for them in case of emergency. If any of it went unused this could then be inherited by their children, unlike the premiums which are just spent.

The general premise of insurance is fine but the current system is not designed that way.
FirstAscent
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September 06, 2012, 07:21:44 PM
 #88

I suspect very, very few people's premiums + deductables + copays add up over their lifetime to less than their claims.

No shit! That's the way insurance works. Most people over pay so that the unlucky can get paid for their monster claim. It's a smoothing of risk. You may be that next unlucky person next week. What do you think I've been saying for the past few posts?
bb113
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September 06, 2012, 07:35:45 PM
 #89

I suspect very, very few people's premiums + deductables + copays add up over their lifetime to less than their claims.

No shit! That's the way insurance works. Most people over pay so that the unlucky can get paid for their monster claim. It's a smoothing of risk. You may be that next unlucky person next week. What do you think I've been saying for the past few posts?

Yes, I agree, the problem is that people drastically overestimate the risk of such events leading to drastically overpaying and draining their savings. Rather than just saying I "may" be that unlucky person next week/year, attach some numbers to it. My bitcoins may be worth $1 million dollars next week too. Is this more or less likely to occur than having a monster medical bill? Anyway this is OT so lets just save it for future relevant conversations.
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September 06, 2012, 08:07:22 PM
 #90

Actually on further thought the current system is somewhat similar to how I imagine biomed research would be funded in an ancap society. You pay a subscription to some healthcare company for access to discounted care, etc. Then some portion of that money goes into paying for experimental drugs and equipment, which then goes on to fund the development of new biomed technologies. Really that is where alot of the money from these monster claims ends up anyway. From that perspective it doesn't look like such a bad price. Add on the extra $250 per taxpayer that goes to fund NIH and there you go, a decent business model for healthcare researchers.
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