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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Social Order and Mayhem : Re to Cramer
Message-ID: <382@spar.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Jul-85 17:21:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.382
Posted: Fri Jul  5 17:21:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 20:12:36 EDT
References: <674@whuxl.UUCP> <2380080@acf4.UUCP>
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 31

> >Although I cannot predict that *this particular speeder* will crash
> >by exceeding the speed limit or by going as fast as he might given
> >no speed limit, statistics can predict with a fair amount of certainty
> >that when the average speed of *many people* is increased, there will
> >be XX greater accidents and deaths.
> >
> >		tim sevener
> 
> Does this mean that we should make the speed limit 0, thereby eliminating all
> traffic accidents?  Of course not.  But where do you draw the line?
> Why 55?
>						Mike Sykora

If an arbitrary speed limit of 55 is empirically superior to no speed limit 
in terms of aggregate fuel burned, aggregate accidental damage, and aggregate 
time spent by people in transit (once accidents and jams are taken into 
account), then it seems pretty clear that from a pragmatic point of view
the arbitrary speed limit produces more satisfactory results than no speed
limit, regardless of whether it was arrived at by science or chance.

> >Everyone is told that "anyone can become a millionaire".
> 
> This Alger Hiss mentality is not what libertarianism is about, at least for
> me.  
> 						Mike Sykora

No one, not even Tim Sevener, has accused libertarians of commie treason.
So why are you so hasty to distance yourself from it?  Are you *sure* you
haven't got something to hide? ;-)

						Baba