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Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

on the left posted:

People bring up Friedman a lot, but Hayek is rarely mentioned by anyone. Hayek is not a popular economist outside of his cult following.

Hayek is enormously influential to Friedman, so you're making an argument against yourself. It's akin to saying 'That Marx guy, he's really popular these days, but nobody talks about that Hegel guy so he must be small fry!'. OK then. Even if we ignore Hayek, Friedman is still regarded as something of a Libertarian.

quote:

You don't need to be libertarian to dislike the welfare state and paying taxes to support it. You can be a conservative rear end in a top hat without jerking off to austrian economists.

Of course.

Cingulate posted:

VitalSigns: If you caricature Nozick's ideology as "no coercion, ever", you're not adequately capturing it - you're burning a straw man. It's "minimal coercion".
In the context of reparations to native americans, there's always someone whose liberty is going to be infringed upon. So it'd be about minimizing just this coercion, and that would then be just. That'd actually be an interesting game to play, because you'd see what the ideology has as a consequence. Maybe a consequent application of e.g. Nozick's principles of transaction will lead to quite massive redistributions. That might be enlightening for some libertarians. But for that, you'd need to take it serious first.

Somebody who takes this serious is Nozick, and he discusses reparations (rectifications). He understandably doesn't reach a specific rectification of how to deal with colonization and slavery, but he's trying to establish a philosophical guideline for how to judge on the issue.

Contractarian theory tends to play out this way, because in the end the validity of contractarian ideas of the state still require the contract to be universally enforced in a polity. Contractarianism always has problems with edge cases, children etc. unless you go down the original, Hobbesian path that is much more authoritarian - e.g. 'If the state offers you either the opportunity to follow the law laid down by the sovereign or be put to death, that is a free choice'.

It might be worth me digging up some of the liberal debates in Victorian England on the American Civil War to see how the Liberals at the time handled the question of 'do individuals / communities have a right to remove themselves from the state'.

Disinterested fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jan 7, 2015

# ? Jan 7, 2015 16:23

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:46

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Okay. What are Nozick's standards for minimal coercion? Are lead atoms entering my body without my express permission from your tetraethyl-leaded gas car coercion? Are environmental laws the ideal minimal coercion in this situation?

Generally when I read Libertarians (like Rothbard), they narrowly-narrowly define coercion as "agents of some government requiring you to do something" and also usually "but it's only coercion if it's against white people" (since Libertarians were huge supporters of South African Apartheid as a bulwark against communism, and Rothbard specifically advocated racial separation in America as the solution to the disturbances of those uppity Civil Rights protestors). If we can define other social goods and ask how to achieve them with "minimal" coercion then Nozick sounds a lot less like a right-Libertarian and a lot more like someone doing a cost-benefit analysis on some pre-conceived idea of the good. I mean, few people advocate using more coercion than necessary.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 16:34

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

on the left posted:

Why do people focus so much effort on debating libertarians? They are a minute part of the political landscape, and a good portion of them can't even vote. Is the disproportionate response because they are "free agents" politically speaking?

You should treat libertarians the same way you treat anarchists: acknowledge that they are just 2edgy4me teenagers who discovered politics and move on. You don't need to worry about forming responses to the kind of people you'll never encounter in real life.

People here are young(ish) so they know a lot of young people and those people are more likely to be libertarian.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 16:41

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Cingulate posted:

I wrote most of this on the train and by Disinterested's last posts, it's a bit anachronistic. I'm still posting it as-is cause ... hey, I almost missed my station writing it!

I don't have any libertarian friends. I barely have any political friends at all, but it's mostly, let's say, emotional leftists; people who strongly feel we should protect the weak and disenfranchised, and distrust the powerful, and with more outrage than arguments. I have, I think, one truly rightist friend. So I rarely talk to people whose core fundamental beliefs strongly clash with mine (besides for some very unpopular beliefs about e.g. nuclear power I hold). So maybe I just haven't met enough of the true sociopaths. But still, I have learned that when talking to people with differing political views, the debates become productive only when one assumes they're not
- simply empirically wrong, or unaware of some important facts
- amoral or sociopathic
But that instead, disagreements can usually be traced back to some fundamental disagreement in the core value system. I think Lakoff gives an interesting picture of this - to me, the club I've voluntarily signed up with to help everyone fulfil their human potential stops collecting its minimal membership fees and possibly has to stop feeding those in need. To the libertarian, it's a tax relief - it's something that's inherently a burden being decreased. But this means that we need to actually figure out how a regular, decent person can hold such a value system.

We can easily go wrong here and do e.g. utilitarian arguments in response to humanist values; for example, it's an empirical question in what society the median standard of living would be the highest (or the lowest, if you're a Rawlsian), but it's a value question if that should be our standard. Maybe we have less liberty in that system; to some, it would mean it would not be the best system, because they are not utilitarian, but humanists.
Most people you'll end up debating are not conscious of this, so they'll play utilitarian games with you, and act as if they were utilitarians, even when they're not. So while your friends might argue with you about what the total welfare and total productivity of a libertarian society would be, that is probably not actually why they favour it. They probably favour it because they're idealistic humanists, whose core values are only slightly different from yours.

For example, imagine your libertarian friends on that island, and the starving fugitive arrives and so on. I know my right-wing friend would give them food, and help them, and he possibly would do more for them than I would, in part because he has more to give than I do. It's just that he disagrees with me on how far the state, or anyone, would be justified to force him to do so, and more general, to force him to work for others.
Being forced to work for others is literally slavery, and Nozick, in following Kant, seemingly comes not from an anti-Humanist, but very much Humanist background here. He's not saying you shouldn't give people food and shelter; if he said that, only sociopaths would follow him. He's taking for granted you'd do that, and saying, any political system wherein you'd be forced to do so would be an unjust one, basically reducing you, for some time of your life, to a slave.
Remember what Marx, of all people, uses in his philosophical justifications; just this example of a worker being alienated from the fruits of his labor, of him working and somebody else profiting.

It really depends on what examples you choose. Take an oil rig worker making a bunch of money by doing a hard, dangerous job; now you tax him sensibly; to the libertarian, you're forcing him to do a hard, dangerous task for the sake of others. You're making him risk his life so that somebody who does not do any of that may live in comfort. That doesn't sound just to us. Now take a rich trust fund kind who just watches their money work for them; taking some of that money feels much less bad. And I think underlying the libertarian idea is that you cannot design a system where you adequately get the second kind, but not also infringe upon the 1st kind. It would be impossible to enforce the morality in regards to the "island question" without also enforcing amoral coercion somewhere else.

Try to make the most honest contrast of your own humanist or possibly utilitarian values, with these values. For me, I'd have to say: yes, I do value the integrity of the subject, of their right to self-determination, less than the commonwealth. I do think it is okay to force people to support those born unlucky, but also those born dumb, and even those simply born lazy. I do believe it's okay to force smart, hard-working people to work to support others. I have my reasons for thinking so, but getting to the core of it, I must simply say, I do not value the integrity of their choices and their self-determination as highly as the greater good. I do believe I know better how to distribute stuff than the people who have that stuff, and I do believe I have the moral right to take their stuff (to take the fruits of their labor, their life time) and distribute them to those in need. They don't think so, and that doesn't make them monsters.
I also have an utilitarian argument here - the less inequality and poverty and lack of education, the less crime, so the more productive the society. But it wouldn't be appropriate to debate a libertarian, who is not an utilitarian, but like me, a humanist, on utilitarian grounds; we'd never convince each other, since at the heart of it, we're both humanists.

So how do we debate libertarians? I don't know; if I knew, I wouldn't be sitting here debate non-libertarians, but travel around the world convincing libertarians. But I think as a first step, we must understand them as moral people who disagree with us only on some small, specific part of how our similar humanist core should be emphasised.
Certainly, there are exceptions. When someone truly is about nothing than making sure those filthy niggers don't get free stuff, I think it's fair to just leave and find new friends, and maybe take note of where they live so you can rat them out once the revolution happens and the death squads fix society.

This is possibly the best post I have ever read on SA.

It is definitely the best political / philosophical post.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 16:46

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

You especially have to admire how he brought it back around to death squads at the end.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 16:50

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

Okay. What are Nozick's standards for minimal coercion?

How an ideology or an ethical imperative plays out n reality is different from what it is. We currently haven't managed a way to guarantee the basic human rights for everyone, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. All people are obviously not created equal; for example, I'm a tall white guy, and a lot of people aren't. But still, all men are created equal.

But basically, minimal coercion literally means as little coercion as possible, which to Nozick means a government that restricts itself to enforcing contracts and rectification (e.g. reparation).

VitalSigns posted:

Generally when I read Libertarians (like Rothbard)

Who sees like an outright sociopath. Now I don't know about you, but I think Marxism is an interesting platform even though Stalin used it to prop up his poo poo.

VitalSigns posted:

few people advocate using more coercion than necessary.

Well, me. I'm all for higher taxes, which is, if I accept the libertarian terminology, and to speak to them, I should, coercion.

Cingulate fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jan 7, 2015

# ? Jan 7, 2015 17:16

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Disinterested posted:

'If the state offers you either the opportunity to follow the law laid down by the sovereign or be put to death, that is a free choice'.

It might be worth me digging up some of the liberal debates in Victorian England on the American Civil War to see how the Liberals at the time handled the question of 'do individuals / communities have a right to remove themselves from the state'.

Nozick invests some time in discussing the "independents" (who do not accept even the minimal state), but I honestly forgot what position he reaches. I think that basically, coercing them is still just as it's required for minimal coercion.

Disinterested posted:

You especially have to admire how he brought it back around to death squads at the end.

Yes, I hope you could see me channeling my favourite slovenian post-Stalinist!

# ? Jan 7, 2015 17:18

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

I will see you in hell, or in communism.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 17:51

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Cingulate posted:

Well, me. I'm all for higher taxes, which is, if I accept the libertarian terminology, and to speak to them, I should, coercion.

Well sure, but that's not more coercion than is necessary to achieve your pragmatic goal of education/infrastructure/socially just wealth distribution/whatever. You're advocating the right amount of coercion to accomplish whatever other goal you have, presumably you don't also advocate beating the kids of the rich just for fun or something.

Much like Nozick apparently advocates tolerating an acceptable amount of coercion to achieve some pragmatic goal of "well hey let's not try too hard to find the people who really own Manhattan, that might be inconvenient for me personally". Which is fine and all, I agree that there are other solutions that make more practical sense, but in order to do so, you have to reject "minimal coercion" as the ultimate principle for organizing society.

There's also the open question of how to handle someone who gets stuff by killing the owner and his entire family and any possible heirs. Does minimal coercion mean we let him keep the stuff since he's the possessor and no one has a better claim?

# ? Jan 7, 2015 17:55

Bob le Moche: Jul 10, 2011; I AM A HORRIBLE TANKIE MORON
WHO LONGS TO SUCK CHAVISTA COCK !

I SUGGEST YOU IGNORE ANY POSTS MADE BY THIS PERSON ABOUT VENEZUELA, POLITICS, OR ANYTHING ACTUALLY !

(This title paid for by money stolen from PDVSA)

It's TYRANNY for the government to tax my profits because that would be the same as slavery, but it's totally OK for me to offer you the FREE choice between starving or letting me take everything that you produce in exchange for a subsistence wage.

Sorry there's no coercion happening here at all I just happen to own all the means of production somehow (how did that happen huh) and you can only use them on my terms because private property is the fundamental basis of all morality or something

# ? Jan 7, 2015 19:18

Bob le Moche: Jul 10, 2011; I AM A HORRIBLE TANKIE MORON
WHO LONGS TO SUCK CHAVISTA COCK !

I SUGGEST YOU IGNORE ANY POSTS MADE BY THIS PERSON ABOUT VENEZUELA, POLITICS, OR ANYTHING ACTUALLY !

(This title paid for by money stolen from PDVSA)

It's OK you guys the young woman I paid to have sex with gave me her CONSENT everything is fine

# ? Jan 7, 2015 19:21

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Bob le Moche posted:

It's OK you guys the young woman I paid to have sex with gave me her CONSENT everything is fine

If she's my daughter or if I purchased her in one of the flourishing child markets, then the fact that she hasn't successfully escaped is all the proof of consent you need!

# ? Jan 7, 2015 19:28

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

Well sure, but that's not more coercion than is necessary to achieve your pragmatic goal of education/infrastructure/socially just wealth distribution/whatever. You're advocating the right amount of coercion to accomplish whatever other goal you have, presumably you don't also advocate beating the kids of the rich just for fun or something.

Much like Nozick apparently advocates tolerating an acceptable amount of coercion to achieve some pragmatic goal of "well hey let's not try too hard to find the people who really own Manhattan, that might be inconvenient for me personally". Which is fine and all, I agree that there are other solutions that make more practical sense, but in order to do so, you have to reject "minimal coercion" as the ultimate principle for organizing society.

No, this is not taking liberty as the criterion for justice.

Nozick does not say we can coerce to some extent in order to achieve some other goal. No; we may only ever coerce when any other course of action would mean more coercion. Minimisation of total coercion is that goal.

You're acting as if "minimal coercion" was some fixed amount of coercion which we could then "spend" to construct a society in order to satisfy some other criterion, such as welfare. To Nozick, coercion is the thing that has to be minimised, and when it's minimised, society is just, regardless of e.g. welfare.
To me, coercion in the sense of exploiting other's goods and work is I guess not good, but I'm not focusing on minimising it. I think what must be minimised is suffering and disenfranchisement; for example, I think before all of this liberty stuff, free choice blah blah, can be meaningfully engaged, we must first get people on a level where they can make self-determined decisions, and that requires them being fed, healthy, and of course well-educated. I don't particularly care for how much of my coercion budget I spend, I just want as many people as possible to grow up to their full genetic potential, to have the education required to deal with our world and recognise their own place in it, to, fundamentally, meaningfully participate in an democratic, open society.

I guess you sympathise more with a position such as mine than with one such as Nozicks, but we must be clear that Nozick's is not obviously wrong because his society may not live up to the standards I prefer as well as my society might. To Nozick, I am in the first place not in a position where it is justified for me to make all of these decisions about other people - I'm not God. I'm not allowed to judge how others should be used, since others should never be means in my plans. And so since I'm not speaking from some objective standard of morality, since I don't have golden plates brought down from Mt. Sinai that say everyone needs omega-3 fatty acids during childhood and access to the internet so they can visit Khan academy and somebody who encourages them when they feel depressed and can't study because society sucks, he doesn't think I am justified in taking money from some hispanic oil rig worker and spending it on iPads for lazy parent's children.
"But if we don't do something like that, some people will receive inadequate childhood nutrition, education and iPads!" - Yes, but while in my value system, inadequate childhood nutrition and education and so on are the ills to be minimised, in Nozick's, they're not, but coercion is. And to him, a society with inadequate childhood nutrition is not inherently unjust, assuming in this society, each individual's self-determination regarding their work, time and property is violated as little as possible.

I think it's a much stronger position to say "I understand that Libertarianism is largely coherent, but I disagree with the underlying value" than to say "Libertarianism is inherently incoherent". Think of it like this: if you go the latter route, you might come across some future explanation of why Libertarianism is actually coherent because of some aspect you hadn't thought of. In the former route, you won't face that situation. You just say: I simply do not assume coercion is what is to be minimised; I assume the disenfranchisement of the least well-off is to be minimised, or whatever you think is the biggest problem. So the value-based rejection is much stronger, and much firmer.
It's also the admission that you're not objectively correct, which I guess some people can't live with. Well, I can.

Needless to say, it's also a stronger position than ridicule based on misunderstandings.

VitalSigns posted:

There's also the open question of how to handle someone who gets stuff by killing the owner and his entire family and any possible heirs. Does minimal coercion mean we let him keep the stuff since he's the possessor and no one has a better claim?

I don't know who gets the stuff in this case, but the thief does not own it, as ownership results from a chain of consensual transactions. I guess it goes to the state and everyone gets a tax break?

# ? Jan 7, 2015 21:05

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

But he's not interested in minimizing coercion, because that would mean tracing back every land claim, no matter how inconvenient, and giving everything back to the nearest relative of whoever originally gained legitimate ownership. Instead he's trying to strike some kind of balance between actually minimizing coercion (by returning stolen property) and minimizing inconvenience to the possessors of stolen property.

It's also all dependent on how you define coercion, which is completely arbitrary. For Georgist Libertarians, land ownership is coercive since earth's resources are available to all and excluding people from "your" land requires coercion. Is it coercion if I landed on a desert island first and demand any future shipwreck survivors "consent" to work as my slaves or I exercise my right to drive trespassers back into the sea? Is pollution coercion, or are environmental laws coercion?

Humans don't live in some vaccuum bubble in which we can exist without affecting one another unless we consciously choose to engage in something bad called "coercion". Trying to minimize something called "coercion" as the key to the best possible society doesn't make any sense. Right-Libertarianism consists in defining the depredations of the rich as "not-coercion", and any aid to or remedy by the poor as "coercion".

Cingulate posted:

I don't know who gets the stuff in this case, but the thief does not own it, as ownership results from a chain of consensual transactions. I guess it goes to the state and everyone gets a tax break?

Well, since we know land in America was stolen, then I agree, consistent Libertarianism requires an immediate transition to full communism.

# ? Jan 7, 2015 21:29

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

But he's not interested in minimizing coercion, because that would mean tracing back every land claim, no matter how inconvenient, and giving everything back to the nearest relative of whoever originally gained legitimate ownership. Instead he's trying to strike some kind of balance between actually minimizing coercion (by returning stolen property) and minimizing inconvenience to the possessors of stolen property.

You're making two claims about Nozick and I don't think you can easily justify either of them in his writings.
Again, I think it would be much more productive to figure out what the underlying value system is, and where, if properly thought through, it leads to as well as where it would never lead to.

But it seems to me you're not interested in fairly debating a libertarian position. I take this from you simply assuming Nozick is insincere, or arbitrary in his terms, or that negative externalities show he is incoherent or ignorant or whatever.

VitalSigns posted:

Is pollution coercion, or are environmental laws coercion?

There is in fact a lengthy discussion on this in Anarchy, Utopia and the State (chapter �THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPENSATION"). To me, it's not entirely satisfying, as Nozick's answer seems to be more utilitarian rather than falling out of his framework when he discusses under which conditions pollution would be justifiable (basically, a "greater good" story); but he does make an argument about compensation, and he does claim that extensive redistribution are justified.
Does this surprise you?
Do you think it would surprise the libertarians you know?

VitalSigns posted:

It's also all dependent on how you define coercion

Indeed, and Nozick has literally written a book* on that it seems: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/coercion/#NozNewAppCoe
So within his libertarian framework, that's probably the reference definition.

I think you're also still confused in your means. You're trying to demonstrate Libertarianism as incoherent by demonstrating that it would lead to situations you deem unacceptable. But arguments like that don't convince people, in my experience. Your libertarian neighbour does not see himself as in danger of enslaving people, so he does not see the force of that argument. He is probably a more or less moral person, who would behave more or less moral in such extreme situations. But generally, this does not demonstrate that libertarianism is incoherent; just that it could lead to situations you don't wish to accept. Okay; but maybe there is no alternative that is to the libertarian value system clearly superior.
Then, you're trying to demonstrate that libertarianism is bad because real-life libertarians are assholes. The latter may be true and definitely important, but that does not impact the philosophy.

*article

# ? Jan 8, 2015 00:22

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Cingulate posted:

You're trying to demonstrate Libertarianism as incoherent by demonstrating that it would lead to situations you deem unacceptable. But arguments like that don't convince people, in my experience. Your libertarian neighbour does not see himself as in danger of enslaving people, so he does not see the force of that argument. He is probably a more or less moral person, who would behave more or less moral in such extreme situations.

Actually, taking a principle and showing how a consistent application of it leads naturally to horrible results is in fact a pretty great argument against that principle!

And I'd reconsider your description of the desert island thought experiment, in which a small group of people owns the resources and means of production, through which they're able to compel everyone else to work on their terms or die, because I wouldn't exactly call that an "extreme" situation.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 01:50

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

Actually, taking a principle and showing how a consistent application of it leads naturally to horrible results is in fact a pretty great argument against that principle!

Democracy, the greatest principle, led to the Holocaust, the worst result. Much worse than the slave island.
You'd have to show that libertarianism reliably leads to situations universally considered bad, and that there is a superior system. You have done neither.

But I've argued that while finding a situation libertarianism does not exclude that you personally find extremely reprehensible might reaffirm you in your personal disapproval, I don't think it will be as convincing to actual libertarians. I think the intuitive libertarian response to that would be: well, I wouldn't actually sell babies, I just don't want my liberty infringed upon, and I don't see how the fact that I would be allowed to, but never actually would sell babies under liberalism justifies the continued institutionalised slavery by the state I and Miguel the hispanic oil rig worker actually, in reality, do have to suffer.

I'm generally not sure you know what you're going for. It still feels as if you're trying to demonstrate to me that libertarianism is false or bad. This is not a good goal, considering I don't like libertarianism at all. I'm a massive statist, and you can't even convince me. I don't think you'd convince a libertarian, especially not before you start taking their points seriously, and actually show some sensitivity to their arguments and inquiries.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 02:55

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

See I don't think engaging with libertarianism on logical terms will help convince any real world libertarians at all. They're not engaging with it on logical terms. Like I said earlier, most self-identified libertarians are at best dimly aware of the inner workings of libertarian philosophy, and almost all of them are subscribers simply because it arrives at a conclusion they already held. It's a justification for what they already thought, nothing more. At best you can get them to agree that the justification is bullshit, but they'll still hold their final positions.

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Jan 8, 2015

# ? Jan 8, 2015 02:58

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

icantfindaname posted:

See I don't think engaging with libertarianism on logical terms will help convince any real world libertarians at all.

I've actually tried to point out that empathy, in the sense of allowing yourself to recognise the other as a moral human being, not a sociopath, is required. I'm not asking anybody to be more logical, I'm asking to be less naive about how dumb and amoral others can and should be expected to be.

I'm sure you're when saying logical arguments won't convince libertarians, but you'd also be right when talking about socialists, fascists, or all kinds of moderates. I know I'm not open to logical arguments in my basic values, as no ought can be derived from an is anyways. You got a logical argument against my egalitarianism? I don't care if you can prove black people are genetically inferior, I still believe all men are created equal (that is, with equal rights).

icantfindaname posted:

Like I said earlier, most self-identified libertarians are at best dimly aware of the inner workings of libertarian philosophy, and almost all of them are subscribers simply because it arrives at a conclusion they already held. It's a justification for what they already thought, nothing more. At best you can get them to agree that the justification is bullshit, but they'll still hold their final positions.

If you believe your opponent is an idiot who can't be reasoned with, you'll almost always find yourself proved right - it won't be possible for you to reason with them.

Either way, there aren't even any libertarians posting here right now.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 03:11

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Cingulate posted:

Democracy, the greatest principle, led to the Holocaust, the worst result. Much worse than the slave island.

This is a poor parallel for many reasons. I'm going to list two (1) the Nazi party never received a majority in national elections, and Hitler was chosen as chancellor by conservative oligarchs who thought he and his rabble could be controlled and used, and (2) the Enabling Act was only passed after all KPD members of the Reichstag were illegally arrested and then elections were never held ever again. That's why the "democracy gave us the holocaust" argument is only used by the same kind of dictatorship-loving oligarchs who thought they were so smart by putting Hitler in charge.

And the slave island is not an extreme thought experiment. It's the actual real world, by the way.

Cingulate posted:

But I've argued that while finding a situation libertarianism does not exclude that you personally find extremely reprehensible might reaffirm you in your personal disapproval, I don't think it will be as convincing to actual libertarians. I think the intuitive libertarian response to that would be: well, I wouldn't actually sell babies, I just don't want my liberty infringed upon, and I don't see how the fact that I would be allowed to, but never actually would sell babies under liberalism justifies the continued institutionalised slavery by the state I and Miguel the hispanic oil rig worker actually, in reality, do have to suffer.

Yeah okay I guess a Libertarian could argue "well I wouldn't personally sell babies, therefore re-legalizing child slavery would have no bad consequences, so let's do it for freedom", but I don't think this is the slam-dunk argument on their side that you seem to think it is. I mean yeah, I get it, in any argument the other person can just stubbornly retreat into maximum stupidity, but that's fine too because it exposes observers to the full dull-witted intentional obtuseness that more sophisticated Libertarian arguments attempt to cover up.

Cingulate posted:

I'm generally not sure you know what you're going for. It still feels as if you're trying to demonstrate to me that libertarianism is false or bad. This is not a good goal, considering I don't like libertarianism at all. I'm a massive statist, and you can't even convince me. I don't think you'd convince a libertarian, especially not before you start taking their points seriously, and actually show some sensitivity to their arguments and inquiries.

Okay, I'm sure you can find one or two Libertarian thinkers who are fine with total reparations, but most Libertarians are not, the Libertarian Party is not, Libertarian-influenced conservatives are not, and this contradiction is an absolutely valid criticism of most Libertarians, especially of the kind that are actually influential in politics.

VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Jan 8, 2015

# ? Jan 8, 2015 13:57

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

This is dumb for many reasons. I'm going to list two (1) the Nazi party never received a majority in national elections, and Hitler was chosen as chancellor by conservative oligarchs who thought he and his rabble could be controlled and used, and (2) the Enabling Act was only passed after all KPD members of the Reichstag were illegally arrested and then elections were never held ever again. That's why the "democracy gave us the holocaust" argument is only used by the same kind of dictatorship-loving oligarchs who thought they were so smart by putting Hitler in charge.

Now consider the following statement: democracy led to the Holocaust.

This sentence will do exactly as much to disencourage you from supporting democracy as slave island will do from persuading libertarians from libertarianism. Just like your libertarian straw man couldn't prevent slave island, democracy couldn't prevent the Holocaust, and both observations are missing the point of their respective targets.

VitalSigns posted:

Okay, I'm sure you can find one or two Libertarian thinkers who are fine with total reparations, but most Libertarians are not, the Libertarian Party is not, Libertarian-influenced conservatives are not, and this contradiction is an absolutely valid criticism of most Libertarians, especially of the kind that are actually influential in politics.

The only actual libertarian I've brought up is Nozick, and he argues for reparations and environmentalist redistributions.
You've been largely uninterested in what he has to say so far, possibly because you consider him an extreme case. Consider: slave island is an extreme case.

That there is an interesting disconnect between the intentional, logical consequences of libertarian political philosophy, and the politics of actual libertarians is certainly an interesting fact, but I don't think it discredits libertarianism. To me, recognising that libertarianism leads to carbon taxes actually made the thing look a bit more appealing; it'd be interesting to see how an actual libertarian would respond to that.

Basically I think we need to treat every ideology with respect, as long as it's not literally fascism. Kill fascists.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 18:52

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Surely the only pure arguments needed against libertarianism philosophy are either the impossibility of accurately defining property rights in all circumstances to ensure absolute liberty meets with observably positive outcomes or pragmatically the ridiculous carrying costs of constantly defining all property rights in all circumstances. At some point you've just got to see that absolute definition of this kind is nothing more than an idle dream, an attempt to turn economics into a physical science which physical reality repels on the spot and even if it would yield to total classification the costs of such would render such a society suboptimal except for those who only concern is the libertarian concept of liberty.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 19:03

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

namesake posted:

Surely the only pure arguments needed against libertarianism philosophy are either the impossibility of accurately defining property rights in all circumstances to ensure absolute liberty meets with observably positive outcomes or pragmatically the ridiculous carrying costs of constantly defining all property rights in all circumstances. At some point you've just got to see that absolute definition of this kind is nothing more than an idle dream, an attempt to turn economics into a physical science which physical reality repels on the spot and even if it would yield to total classification the costs of such would render such a society suboptimal except for those who only concern is the libertarian concept of liberty.

What? This all seems dumb. If there's no conflict to be resolved everyone goes on about their merry way and there is no need to invoke property rights at all. If there is a conflict for whatever reason you use more or less the same mechanisms we use now to figure out who owns what, who has right of way, or whatever else. Like slave island this seems like an argument designed to convince no one.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:31

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

wateroverfire posted:

Like slave island this seems like an argument designed to convince no one.

To me it doesn't feel as if these arguments are truly intended to convince libertarians. Are they intended to convince anyone - maybe signaling solidarity within non-libertarians? What is the goal here? I'm not acting cute here, I honestly don't see what's the intention.

But I do not believe it's an honest attempt to convince libertarians.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:35

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Cingulate posted:

To me it doesn't feel as if these arguments are truly intended to convince libertarians. Are they intended to convince anyone - maybe signaling solidarity within non-libertarians? What is the goal here? I'm not acting cute here, I honestly don't see what's the intention.

But I do not believe it's an honest attempt to convince libertarians.

It often feels like people are trying to score points with posters who already agree with them. So it's signalling a person's affiliation, I guess? I don't know.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:43

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Yelling at people who you think are stupid is a proud and honest tradition, but you have to do it under the guise of being better informed because otherwise you feel stupid.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:44

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cingulate posted:

To me it doesn't feel as if these arguments are truly intended to convince libertarians. Are they intended to convince anyone - maybe signaling solidarity within non-libertarians? What is the goal here? I'm not acting cute here, I honestly don't see what's the intention.

But I do not believe it's an honest attempt to convince libertarians.

No one makes an honest attempt to convince monkeys either.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:47

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Nintendo Kid posted:

No one makes an honest attempt to convince monkeys either.

Actually, speaking as a linguist here, you're wrong.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:49

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

Cingulate posted:

Actually, speaking as a linguist here, you're wrong.

Pretty neat.

What is this referring to, do you know?

Article posted:

The validity of the study is disputed, as Terrace argued that all ape-language studies, including Project Nim, were based on misinformation from the chimps.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 20:53

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

Cingulate posted:

Actually, speaking as a linguist here, you're wrong.

Chimps are apes, Mr. :airquote:

Linguist

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:00

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

wateroverfire posted:

What? This all seems dumb. If there's no conflict to be resolved everyone goes on about their merry way and there is no need to invoke property rights at all. If there is a conflict for whatever reason you use more or less the same mechanisms we use now to figure out who owns what, who has right of way, or whatever else. Like slave island this seems like an argument designed to convince no one.

But how can you know what your way is without a firm grasp of what you can do without creating conflict and then a clear process of responsibility to end that conflict? Whose land you're on might be very obvious but whose air are you breathing? If you're smoking in a smoking area and breathing the smoke out into a non-smoking area owned by someone else who is responsible here? How does that work on an industrial scale? Can you ever conclusively prove who caused this acid rain?

Society avoids that now because we're allowed to pro-actively stop people from doing things on and with their property based on general conclusions based on science, public opinion and carried out by the state. Removing this possibility means society only functions by being rigidly defined down to the very last detail and a surveillance system set up capable of monitoring everything down to that last detail or else peoples rights are being violated and they don't even know about it. Vague contracts will necessarily result in coercion as there becomes no defined and agreed resolution to a disagreement, failure to monitor might well be a matter of 'personal responsibility' but that's what I mean by the extreme cost of the system; everyone their own FDA and EPA.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:07

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

wateroverfire posted:

Pretty neat.

What is this referring to, do you know?

I don't know, it looks like an in-joke about typologists (ie., there are a few famous cases where linguists return from some understudied culture and report they have such and such crazy word in their language, and later it is learned that the guys were just making up poo poo to please the linguist, because they knew he liked far-out stuff).

Basically, the Nim Chimpsky study resulted in a chimp who could communicate on a basic level, but largely failed at doing what Noam Chomsky claimed was genuine to human language: syntax.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:15

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

namesake posted:

But how can you know what your way is without a firm grasp of what you can do without creating conflict and then a clear process of responsibility to end that conflict? Whose land you're on might be very obvious but whose air are you breathing? If you're smoking in a smoking area and breathing the smoke out into a non-smoking area owned by someone else who is responsible here? How does that work on an industrial scale? Can you ever conclusively prove who caused this acid rain?

Society avoids that now because we're allowed to pro-actively stop people from doing things on and with their property based on general conclusions based on science, public opinion and carried out by the state. Removing this possibility means society only functions by being rigidly defined down to the very last detail and a surveillance system set up capable of monitoring everything down to that last detail or else peoples rights are being violated and they don't even know about it. Vague contracts will necessarily result in coercion as there becomes no defined and agreed resolution to a disagreement, failure to monitor might well be a matter of 'personal responsibility' but that's what I mean by the extreme cost of the system; everyone their own FDA and EPA.

And there are libertarians engaging in similar reasonings, and redefining their libertarianism in response to that: http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/six-reasons-libertarians-should-reject-non-aggression-principle

Basically, every criticism of an idea you can come up with in a 5-line post on the internet, the actual prophets of that idea will probably have discussed to death 30 years ago. If the movement still exists, it probably has an answer to that somewhere.
It's simply very naive to assume you can easily discredit any living political theory.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:19

namesake: Jun 19, 2006; "When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

Cingulate posted:

And there are libertarians engaging in similar reasonings, and redefining their libertarianism in response to that: http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/six-reasons-libertarians-should-reject-non-aggression-principle

Basically, every criticism of an idea you can come up with in a 5-line post on the internet, the actual prophets of that idea will probably have discussed to death 30 years ago. If the movement still exists, it probably has an answer to that somewhere.
It's simply very naive to assume you can easily discredit any living political theory.

Er ok but the link you've posted there is just saying 'yeah come to think of it the NAP is dumb as poo poo' but having done that aren't you just a liberal? Thinking private property is awesome and a great basis of society but you've got to have the state actively doing stuff too is pretty much liberalism.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:26

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

Cingulate posted:

That there is an interesting disconnect between the intentional, logical consequences of libertarian political philosophy, and the politics of actual libertarians is certainly an interesting fact, but I don't think it discredits libertarianism. To me, recognising that libertarianism leads to carbon taxes actually made the thing look a bit more appealing; it'd be interesting to see how an actual libertarian would respond to that.

I agree that there are more consistent flavors of Libertarianism (Georgism, for instance) that do have interesting implications and can't be dismissed out of hand.

But those flavors of Libertarianism aren't popular or influential in American politics, and are rarely encountered outside of academic settings.

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:27

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

namesake posted:

Er ok but the link you've posted there is just saying 'yeah come to think of it the NAP is dumb as poo poo' but having done that aren't you just a liberal? Thinking private property is awesome and a great basis of society but you've got to have the state actively doing stuff too is pretty much liberalism.

Have you checked out Nozick's solution?

Have you checked out the libertarian responses to that piece, or the author's further works?

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:27

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

namesake posted:

But how can you know what your way is without a firm grasp of what you can do without creating conflict and then a clear process of responsibility to end that conflict? Whose land you're on might be very obvious but whose air are you breathing? If you're smoking in a smoking area and breathing the smoke out into a non-smoking area owned by someone else who is responsible here? How does that work on an industrial scale? Can you ever conclusively prove who caused this acid rain?

Society avoids that now because we're allowed to pro-actively stop people from doing things on and with their property based on general conclusions based on science, public opinion and carried out by the state. Removing this possibility means society only functions by being rigidly defined down to the very last detail and a surveillance system set up capable of monitoring everything down to that last detail or else peoples rights are being violated and they don't even know about it. Vague contracts will necessarily result in coercion as there becomes no defined and agreed resolution to a disagreement, failure to monitor might well be a matter of 'personal responsibility' but that's what I mean by the extreme cost of the system; everyone their own FDA and EPA.

Cingulate posted:

And there are libertarians engaging in similar reasonings, and redefining their libertarianism in response to that: http://www.libertarianism.org/blog/six-reasons-libertarians-should-reject-non-aggression-principle

Basically, every criticism of an idea you can come up with in a 5-line post on the internet, the actual prophets of that idea will probably have discussed to death 30 years ago. If the movement still exists, it probably has an answer to that somewhere.
It's simply very naive to assume you can easily discredit any living political theory.

Indeed. Also, the time-honored strategy of "muddle through relying on social convention while constructing ad-hoc solutions that no one exactly likes but everyone can live with, when necessary" works as well for libertarianism as it does for everyone else. If it really seemed like society couldn't function without one you could create a Libertarian EPA that, idk, just did certain pollution controls and nothing else.

Justification:

*shrugs*
*is a human, not a robot bound to pure, consistent axioms*
*gets on with it*

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:33

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011

wateroverfire posted:

*shrugs*
*is a human, not a robot bound to pure, consistent axioms*
*gets on with it*

Yeah this is pretty much exactly how the non-aggression principle is invoked to attack anything inconvenient for the rich (taxes, the SEC, environmental regulations, etc) and then is abandoned the second the rich need a subsidy or a bailout, because I mean "we're not robots, so give us $700 billion to save the economy. But don't attach any strings or regulate what we can do with the money, that's aggression!"

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:36

wateroverfire: Jul 3, 2010

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah this is pretty much exactly how the non-aggression principle is invoked to attack anything inconvenient for the rich (taxes, the SEC, environmental regulations, etc) and then is abandoned the second the rich need a subsidy or a bailout, because I mean "we're not robots, so give us $700 billion to save the economy. But don't attach any strings or regulate what we can do with the money, that's aggression!"

Dude, what?

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:39

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:46

Cingulate: Oct 23, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah this is pretty much exactly how the non-aggression principle is invoked to attack anything inconvenient for the rich (taxes, the SEC, environmental regulations, etc) and then is abandoned the second the rich need a subsidy or a bailout, because I mean "we're not robots, so give us $700 billion to save the economy. But don't attach any strings or regulate what we can do with the money, that's aggression!"

Weren't libertarians aggressively anti-bailouts?

# ? Jan 8, 2015 21:42

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