Schelling points and political isolationism

[Tim May]

On Wednesday, October 24, 2001, at 12:01 PM, David Honig wrote:

Many excellent points...

...

> If you look up "Schelling points" you find Tim's
> http://www.inet-
> one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1996.07.25-1996.07.31/msg00032.html
> metaphor about interfering with another family because you disapprove of
> how they raise their children.  Basically the Soviet Union "died and 
> left
> US boss" of the neighborhood.  But the US, playing self-appointed cop,
> has made lots of enemies; and even cops must sleep.  The sleeping giant
> finds that someone has tried to burn his house down while he sleeps.
> The giant needs to hit back, then stop accumulating enemies.


And my meta-Schelling point was actually that the concept of a Schelling 
point is itself a Schelling point: many people, even animals, come to 
the independent conclusion that figuring out where the Schelling points 
are is a good survival strategy. (Or something like this....you get the 
drift.)

Free societies operate mainly on the basis of local, mutually 
agreed-upon transactions. Organized crime usually pops up when some 
bunch of distant thugs sets up rules which distort these mutually 
agreed-upon transactions. The rise of the Mob during Prohibititon is a 
perfect example, oft-discussed. The rise of many crime units, including 
government crime operations, during the War on Some Drugs in the past 35 
years is another perfect example.
> ...
> To those who gripe we need the oil (or other resources): ask the 
> families of
> the WTC corpses if doubled gas prices (for a few years until a safer 
> supply
> rises)
> are worth it.

Even the Gulf War is a good example of this. There is no reason to 
believe Saddam Hussein would have "cut off the oil." Just the opposite, 
in fact. There is every reason to believe that a mostly modern society 
like Iraq (as of 1990) would have had far more pressures to pump oil 
than a small clique of Bedouin thieves would have to do so.

Evidence is strong that Iraq would have flooded the markets with oil.

I'm not defending Saddam as a Good Guy, just saying vital national 
interests were not involved. By getting into these "foreign 
entanglements," things have gotten much worse.



--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.