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Comment by baddox | Hacker News Reader

> You want to know what officers are working under cover in the police force?

I don't think that there need to be undercover police officers.

> Who are informants on terrorist organizations working against the state?

I don't think there need to be informants on terrorist organizations.

> The home phone numbers and addresses of all public employees? Their emergency contact numbers? Medical histories relevant to their jobs?

I wouldn't classify (teehee) this as "government secrets." If they're public employees, then obviously their names should be public, but I don't see their personal information as a "government secret."

> crippling the capacity of government to do kinds of work that it has to do does not.

People disagree about which kinds of work have to be done by government.

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I generally agree with you, but to be Devil's Advocate for a moment, what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense?

Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state.

Would not having planes invisible to radar (B-2), or those that could fly faster than missiles (SR-71) be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you?

> Even some of the most staunch anarcho-capitalists I know believe in centralized national defense as one of the very few legitimate functions of the state.

Really? You or they must be using the term "anarcho-capitalism" in a non-standard way. In the standard usage of the term, the whole point is to be distinguished from pro-government libertarians and minarchists who believe that there are a few legitimate functions of the state. I've never heard anyone use the term to refer to an ideology that accepts any legitimate functions of the state.

I think that the capitalist part of anarcho-capitalist implies minarchism, as how can you have capitalism without private property?

The "anarcho" part means no government. The fundamental thesis of anarcho-capitalism is that private enterprise can solve all the problems that government currently is tasked with solving, including private property, defense, law enforcement, punishment of wrong-doers, consumer safety, charity/welfare, etc.

I'm not claiming any authority over the term "anarcho-capitalism," and you can use it however you like, but I have read a lot of works by people who are widely considered to be pivotal to anarcho-capitalism, and I've been somewhat active in several online communities that call themselves anarcho-capitalist, and I am reasonably confident that your usage is incredibly non-standard, and that very few people who are aware of the term would use it to describe minarchists.

>what do you think about secret R&D for purposes of defense?

I'm strongly against it. A lot of our breakthroughs are too expensive for dangerous countries to copy in any case.

> be nice secrets to keep from everyone who's thinking about invading you?

When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US? If all your justifications are about nightmare scenarios that haven't occurred in centuries they're probably not very good justifications.

> When is the last time the US was invaded by anyone? When is the last time any country even tried to invade the US?

Why do you think those answers are what they are?

Could it be that the latest public data we have is that we were building planes FIFTY YEARS AGO that could effortlessly outrun SAMs? Can you possibly imagine the shit that is flying out of Groom Lake these days?

Haha, I think you watch too much Hollywood. No one has invaded the US because there was no value in doing so. Germany taking over most of Europe made sense. Taking over the US? Not so much. At least not until they had a much larger land holding.

The US' geographical position has had more to do with their safety than any secret they've ever had. But don't let me disrupt your "G.I. Joe" comic book fantasies.

We seem to have created many of the problems that we now need the Defense industry to bail us out of.

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