Imagine that you lived in a world where medical implants and augmented cybernetics were so cheap that even the poorest people in society had access to them. In this world, people learn skills by inserting a flash drive into their neck and installing the knowledge directly. Humans have replaced their arms with chromed fashion pieces, and the more extravagant people have replaced their whole bodies with cybernetics.
You’re going about your daily business, perhaps on a walk through your neighborhood. During this walk, you come across two children at a lemonade stand. “Lemonade $0.50” The signage says. Not the price you paid in years past, but you’ve worked up a thirst. You ask to buy a cup from the children. They reply “For $5 you get a special cup that will give you 50% off our lemonade all summer.
I’d like to ask you to look back on your childhood memories and try to think of a show, movie, or book that was meant for children that you were shown or read to as a child. There has been a large swath of children’s media produced throughout the years, from Schoolhouse Rock and Barney to Paw Patrol and My Little Pony.
To put it frankly, libertarianism is an ideology that has a relatively high cost of entry. I don’t necessarily mean monetarily either, I’m also talking about time cost.
Gresham’s Law states that in a competition between currency, bad money will win out over good money over time, in other words, the average person will be more likely to use their US Dollars to purchase goods and services over their Goldbacks because the gold will maintain value, while the US Dollar won’t. Shaffer gave his answer to the dilemma of Gresham’s Law.
As an individual from Wisconsin, I was intrigued. The idea of many states simply removing themselves from the grasp of the vampires we call congressmen seemed like an interesting idea, though I have my reservations, which will be noted later.