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Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️ on X: "Only Law Can Prevent Extinction" / X

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To view keyboard shortcuts, press question mark View keyboard shortcuts Home Explore 20+ Notifications Follow Chat Grok Bookmarks Creator Studio Premium 50% off Profile More Post Dillon Nguyen @dillon_kn_ Article See new posts Conversation Eliezer Yudkowsky @ESYudkowsky Only Law Can Prevent Extinction 52 116 613 97K There's a quote I read as a kid that stuck with me my whole life: "Remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot." -- P. J. O'Rourke. At first I took away the libertarian lesson: Government is violence. It may, in some cases, be rightful violence. But it all rests on violence; never forget that. Today I do think there's an important distinction between two different shapes of violence. It's a distinction that may make my fellow old-school classical Heinlein liberalt

There's a quote I read as a kid that stuck with me my whole life: "Remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody’s head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined. If you don’t pay the fine, you’ll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you’ll be shot." -- P. J. O'Rourke. At first I took away the libertarian lesson: Government is violence. It may, in some cases, be rightful violence. But it all rests on violence; never forget that. Today I do think there's an important distinction between two different shapes of violence.…

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