Mice eat their own poop. They have to. Their digestive systems are somewhat maladapted to their diets.

I only mention this to introduce the concept of a fitness landscape. They're a way to visualize why it is that a species will settle on adaptations which are not optimal but will get the job done. In broad strokes, the fitness landscape is not just a simple, smooth mountain where every evolutionary step-up can be followed by another. Sometimes you'll hit a minor peak of fitness which is not the regional maximum, and in order to evolve in any direction, you'll have to sacrifice fitness.

I mention this because I think it's a good analogue to the problem I'm seeing with this idea that anarcho-libertarianism is a good direction to head in. As the world segways from how it is today to how you imagine it to be, it may have to occupy less than ideal configurations. If ever anyone finds a way to raise an army and threaten progress, a counter army will need to be raised, and once the fighting is settled, an army will need to stand to protect against future threats to progress. And that army would somehow need to be private and valued only against the rare and disasterous threats and not as a mode toward conquest and coin. Or somehow everyone would need to be properly incentivized not to have an army. So when you say that you're arguing for less government, I'm wondering where you trim and where you grow and how you think you might get from Here to There because less isn't enough.

Anyway, did a quick search on youtube and Bob Murphey said that Prudential will defend your property because they'll sell insurance against a foreign army carpet bombing your stuff. Prudential would then have an incentive to spend on defense. That's incredibly fun to think about. (Even just how they figure out the competitive and profitable rates to charge) He then says that people wouldn't have huge standing armies because of their expense and this circles right back to my initial point. The inherent assumption is that everyone sees the world through an accountant's eyes. People are a bit less rigorous than that. How do you whittle down the world's armies and boost up the insurers?