[ QUOTE ]
Backtrack a second, partner. You're the one claiming that companies won't imprison innocent people because of economic incentives. That's YOUR claim.
[/ QUOTE ]
When did I say they'd never do such a thing,
partner? People do all sorts of things. I'm merely claiming that the instance of "rich/powerful man gets innocent little man imprisoned" (which was someone else's example) is more plausible in the instance of a state than in the absence of one.
I'm not sure I even understand your line of reasoning. You have a habit of assuming the direction of someone's argument and tossing out a lot of (misguided) attacks on the general theory rather than any specific point. Do you disagree that private security firms who imprison innocent people would tend to die out in favor of firms that do not do this? Explain that reasoning please, because I really don't get it.
[ QUOTE ]
Of course, but you're using freshman logic with a heap of assumptions to answer this very question. I offer a reasonable challenge to your argument and your offer no reasonable response.
[/ QUOTE ]
What "reasonable challenge" are you referring to? All you did was point out that not everyone is capable of correctly assessing risk. My response was that this does not matter, since the mistakes will tend to die out and the result will be better than the average of all the people who try to enter.
Borodog posted this link a few days ago:
http://karmatics.com/docs/evolution-...of-crowds.html
Give that a gander. Your reasoning here is the type of reasoning that would suggest wikipedia would not work. "Since people will contribute nonsense, it must add up to be nonsense" is the impression I get from your argument here.