We all just do the best we are able to sort out the truth from the bullshit.

As long as no central authority tries to force people to believe something (or to act as though they do) free communication and individual action/reaction based on personal belief and self-interest produces a market solution that is, in the average case, as close to optimal as we can get. This approaches being actually optimal as information flow approaches being perfect.

Yet the focus of the article is the merit of perfect information with which I wholeheartedly concur. i view your examples on vaccination as unfortunate, as in my view, they detract from the validity of your argument (or perhaps are a good example of?). For the very reason, that I view them as an example, of the potentially viral nature of imperfect information.

There are many types of ‘experimental evidence out there’ both for and against. e.g. some would argue that reduction in infectious diseases is more to do with cleanliness and hygene in modern societies than vaccinations. and there is lots of research to match this view point. In a world of imperfect information (because of vested interests) How do we choose between competing explanations and guide ourselves? .

The question of how helpful these techniques are with any given virus versus the potential damage they might cause is certainly an open question and would vary from virus to virus based on such issues as how likely infection is, how dangerous the virus is, how effective the specific vaccination is, and how dangerous the vaccination is. But that is exactly the point of my article - showing how more efficient economic balance for personal/community risk choices can be achieved through greater information flow and social feedback, without government mandates. In an ideal world, everyone would have their own opinions about how effective and necessary a specific vaccination is, and would act accordingly - and the opinions of other people would exert only social pressure on them - never enforcement through threat of violence.

The issue of chlorine and fluoride is not a part of the overall argument, but was merely included to show how, when an effective technique for controlling a problem is used for a time, people often forget why it was needed in the first place. The fact that fluoride is a poison does not reduce the effectiveness of this analogy - chlorine and fluoride are both poisons - that is why they kill bacteria. Thus it is quite analogous to the situation of the small risk of vaccination for a potential greater good.

A small quantity of poison is good for you, if the only alternative is something worse.

Fluoride may not, in fact, have any specific effect on the cholera bacteria - so perhaps I should not have included it in the analogy - which would have stood just as well on its own by just mentioning chlorine. However, having two different poisons at work reduces the chance of bacteria developing resistance to the single poison, so I would guess (but am certainly not certain) that fluoride has some effect beyond just fighting the bacteria that causes tooth decay. I think we can be pretty sure that cholera bacteria is not overly fond of fluoride, even if chlorine happens to be the far greater agent of its destruction.

The second weak argument was your linking chlorine and fluoride together as a control of cholera. Again there is lots of on line research that fluoride not only does not help with cholera control but is a damaging poison.

Clearly your idea of a perfect information is sound. Adquiring perfect information ‘is’ the problem. Earth would truly be heaven like and we would truly love our neighbours. In our present world Imperfect information is the tool of governments institutions, businesses, that wish to mold public perception.

You have two sets. One set is immune and one set is not. The immune set has taken what they think is a very small risk to gain immunity, and once achieve will not get ill. The other group rejects the benefit of immunity because they see the risk of gaining immunity too a cost.

Your supposition is that those who are not immunized have taken something from those who are, but this is reverse of the truth. The immunized are secure and happy with their condition and with very few exceptions can’t fathom why anyone wouldn’t be. The un-immunized pose no threat to the immunized and therefore you can’t use PD or TOC. This opt out situation is one where the government is forcing a medical procedure on the population for the “common good”. That a marginal amount opt-out doesn’t change the protection of those that opt-in.

You’re article would be more interesting and evocative if the government wasn’t allowing people to get immunized when they wanted to be because of a limit supply of a vaccine.

Each vaccinated person reduces risk to every other person in the population - vaccinated or not. Each un-vaccinated person increases risk to ever other person in the population - vaccinated or not. Each of these statements would be only partially true if vaccination equated to 100% immunity - but this is not the case. In a transparent society, the degree that a vaccination was perceived to approach 100% immunity would act to reduce the social price one would pay for choosing not to vaccinate.

I referred to both “tragedy of the commons” and “prisoner’s dilemma” as well known examples of this type of economic problem. Do you disagree that the issue of vaccination is a problem of this category? Are you just saying that it is more like PD than TOTC? Or are you simply pointing out that it is its own distinct example of this sort of problem that does not exactly match either case?

As for the issue of whether what I have to say is new - most of it usually isn’t - but that doesn’t make it not worth saying. :-)

Tragedy of the commons relates to an opt-in resource that is hoarded and would fit if people were using up all the vaccines before others could use it. In this situation it’s opt-out and doesn’t affect the resource. In fact the brunt of the risk is borne by those who opt out.

Your main point regarding the balance between freedom and privacy speaks directly to open-societies where the actions of any individual (or group of individuals as they will likely be viewed as a whole.) Debated in detail on separate discussion on various times and place exhaustively. I don’t think this article brings anything new to that discussion except using the example of vaccinations as an example. I think a better example would serve your purposes.

I know this post goes against the normal Libertarian dogma, but if you find yourself wanting to reject what I have written because you want to remain a faithful Libertarian, please try to keep in mind what one of my very favorite authors once wrote:

“You don’t know anything aright until you have favorably considered its opposite.” — Paul Rosenberg

Additionally, It has already occurred to me that the choice being presented: “Freedom or Privacy - Pick One” is a false dichotomy, and it has been deliberately presented that way to provoke thought on the topic. We can not individually choose either complete freedom or complete privacy without others cooperating with our choice. Physical coercion exists in the world, and while it is being used, privacy offers an excellent shield against those who would use force to dictate the behavior required by the idea-organisms they host.

But the main idea behind the article - that there exists a freedom/privacy trade off - is a truth worthy of understanding clearly. It is important to note that we seek privacy only because we fear both judgment and coercion based on the wants of various parasitic idea-organisms. Without the coercion part, the natural trend is for market judgment to enforce behavior that approaches the greatest overall good for replicators generally - and with the elimination of parasitic replicators this becomes the greatest overall good for individual human beings.