Scott Alexander, curated
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List Of Passages I Highlighted In My Copy Of “Machinery Of Freedom”

Quality
63
Strong
Claude Shift
35
Slight
RWI
2
of 10

Follows up on

Book Review: The Machinery Of Freedom — Book review · Mar 2015

Summary

A 'passages I highlighted' post on David Friedman's anarcho-capitalist classic The Machinery of Freedom — quoted passages (love/trade/force as the three ways to enlist others; Kolko on regulation as monopoly-protection requested by failed monopolists; the CAB/PSA airline-price natural experiment; jitney transit as an Uber-precursor; the private profit-making moon landing; special-interest pennies; workers buying their own firms) with Scott's reactions ranging from 'wow' to substantive pushback — notably his rebuttal of Friedman's regulate-drugs-by-liability proposal (the vaccine/VICP bankruptcy example) and his worry that any 'reformed' court system regrows into a litigation monster.

Why this score

Quality 63 · Strong. A book-passages post lifted to high-Solid/low-Strong by Scott's genuinely engaged commentary (the drug-liability rebuttal, the jitney/Uber and Mars-One economics, the workers-buying-firms point); the ideas themselves are Friedman's.

Claude’s paradigm shift 35 · Slight. Slight. A curated-passages-plus-reactions post; value is in curation and engagement, not novelty.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor (2) — a Highlights/book-passages post with within-sphere reach; no concrete real-world change.