Ye Olde Libertarian Pub

[MacFall]

Rand was remarkably inconsistent on a few things, considering how much she prided herself on being the champion of perfect rationalism.

 

[Nilloc]

If she really wasn't a non-interventionist, why is that libertarians like her so much? Not as much as Rothbard and the rest, but Stefan Molyneux, Walter Block, and Wendy McElroy seem to really like her stuff.

 

[zoink]

Rand was remarkably inconsistent on a few things, considering how much she prided herself on being the champion of perfect rationalism.

You don't know what you don't know. Which reminds me. Have I posted on that subject? It's one of my favorites.

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think
Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
You Have No Idea How Wrong You Are

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If she really wasn't a non-interventionist, why is that libertarians like her so much? Not as much as Rothbard and the rest, but Stefan Molyneux, Walter Block, and Wendy McElroy seem to really like her stuff.

I think Rand was a big factor that started them down the path of libertarianism. I don't know that for sure though.

 

[MacFall]

You don't know what you don't know. Which reminds me. Have I posted on that subject? It's one of my favorites.

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think
Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong
Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
You Have No Idea How Wrong You Are

None of that excuses blatant self-contradiction.

 

[zoink]

But it's not blatant to most people. They don't even realize their doing it. The vast majority of Republicans and Democrats (probably Libertarians too) I have encountered combine deontological and consequentialist philosophies creating all sorts of contradictions. I think it's particularly bad with Republicans and statist Libertarians with there "We need government out of X, but definitely need government here."

 

[MacFall]

Most people don't set very high standards for themselves. Most people don't even know what a logical contradiction is. But Rand wasn't most people. In her philosophy she turned self-contradiction into a sin. The only sin, in fact. And then she says "racism is the lowest and ugliest form of collectivism" out of one side of her mouth, and then that Arabs are inherently inferior to Europeans out of the other.

 

[Nilloc]

Given my recent experience, I went and looked up the actual performance of "Mozart was a Red" that they did for Rothbard's birthday. Is that a young Jeff Tucker on stage? Someone in the comments said they should make a sequel satirizing Stefan Molyneux. I've heard he can be kind of weird with people he disagrees with too.

Mozart Was A Red (by Murray N. Rothbard) - YouTube

 

[PROPAIN]

although I don't there there are many takers here for the extreme form of libertarianism that seeks to abolish the state (anarchism)

And why shouldn't there be many anarchists here?

 

[MacFall]

And why shouldn't there be many anarchists here?

Well I'd say there should be. But in fact, there aren't many.

 

[zoink]

And why shouldn't there be many anarchists here?

That's post is from like 3 years ago...
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Well I'd say there should be. But in fact, there aren't many.

THey do their fair share of talking though.
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I was unaware that this was such a volatile premise but apparently there's more disagreement on odor and noise aggression than I thought. I found quite a few ancaps that don't seem to think building a big pig farm next to someone and washing them in odor is a problem. This reminded me of this quoted from Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution:

Excessive noise can be considered a form of aggression but in this case the airport has already homesteaded X decibels worth of noise. By its prior claim, the airport now "owns the right" to emit X decibels of noise in the surrounding area. In legal terms, we can then say that the airport, through homesteading, has earned an easement right to creating X decibels of noise. This homesteaded easement is an example of the ancient legal concept of "prescription," in which a certain activity earns a prescriptive property right to the person engaging in the action.

>On the other hand, if the airport starts to increase noise levels, then the homeowners could sue or enjoin the airport from its noise aggression for the extra decibels, which had not been homesteaded. Of course if a new airport is built and begins to send out noise of X decibels onto the existing surrounding homes, the airport becomes fully liable for the noise invasion.

 

[Nilloc]

I was unaware that this was such a volatile premise but apparently there's more disagreement on odor and noise aggression than I thought. I found quite a few ancaps that don't seem to think building a big pig farm next to someone and washing them in odor is a problem. This reminded me of this quoted from Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution:

Makes sense to me. I still haven't come to terms with rivers and streams though.

Btw, you could probably safely say I'm AnCap now.

 

[MacFall]

Welcome to the Dark Side. >=}

 

[Nilloc]

I guess I have to say the Statist's Prayer now.

 

[zoink]

Water is a tough one, but I think it is important to view it similar to air. The issue is it straddles the property concerns of land and air. Water moves and flows like air but is much more scarce than air.

One important thing that I think many deontological libertarians kind of forget about is polycentric law. Polycentric law kicks in for the moral issues that aren't as clear cut as one may like. David Friedman briefly hits on water rights in this talk. I saw him give this talk in person, and probably linked to it but if you haven't watched the talk it's worth it IMO.

Also I think I've linked to this debate before but the libertarian response doesn't answer the question perfectly (not sure anyone can) but it got me thinking and made me more comfortable with the water problem.

I think it's important to take these concepts of polycentric law, homesteading, and easements. I think how people interact with water could be quite a bit different. There would be fewer dams, the dams that were constructed would not destroy fisheries or have as large an impact on the environment. I think their would have been a much faster movement to aquaculture if it weren't for how the government manages fisheries.

 

[Nilloc]

Polycentric law is the best answer I’ve heard on this. Gives me something to think about. Thanks.


Last night I was talking to my liberal cousin online. We hadn’t talked in years and when politics came up, I just assumed he’d be your standard, progressive Democrat. But like the cute Christian objectivist girl, I was surprised. I’m not entirely sure how to describe his view, but it seemed like a kind left-wing anarchism. He said he thinks the world is naturally moving towards Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trekkian style of society. The big thing he kept harping on was that we need to abolish all money, because money causes people to accumulate wealth instead of working for “the good of society.” Rather than wanting to abolish all private property (as if such a thing were possible), he thought we should have direct barter.

I tried to explain that money is only a medium of exchange and that eliminating it won’t stop people from accumulating wealth, because wealth isn’t just money. He didn’t seem to get that. What he described was basically a New Socialist Man that would work only for the good of society. I asked what to do with those that don’t want to work for the good of society (and I asked who determines what that is). He didn’t have a detailed answer to that, but thankfully it didn’t involve violence.

Would any of you know what he’s describing here, and did I respond correctly?

 

[zoink]

Anarcho communists often want to abolish money.

 

[MacFall]

I've gone on for hours trying to convince someone who believes that money is actually the root of all evil that money and wealth aren't the same thing, to no avail. I think you probably did about as well as you could.

 

[Nilloc]

Anarcho communists often want to abolish money.

I asked him if he was an AnCom but he said he wasn’t sure. He said there would be government in his ideal world, but the way he described it, it sounded voluntary. I told him that if he was AnCom, that there’d be a lot we can agree on, at least on politics. For example, I shared this article on Facebook and he liked it. At first I thought he may have been toying with me, because why would a liberal want to audit the Fed? Then when he said he wanted to abolish money, it made sense he’d want to end the Fed just like libertarians do.

I've gone on for hours trying to convince someone who believes that money is actually the root of all evil that money and wealth aren't the same thing, to no avail. I think you probably did about as well as you could.

Yeah, he didn’t seem to grasp what I was saying at all and just ignored it. To be fair though, he was very humble about it all saying that it’s just his personal ideas and that I’d probably consider him a crazy liberal for it. I told him if he knew some of the things I believe, he’d consider me a crazy libertarian.


Also, at VBS last night a little girl in my group had a red, white, and blue donkey Benie Baby, and the tag said his name was Lefty. I mean, really? We have to make the two big political mascots into Benie Babies? Gotta indoctrinate the kids early I guess. Hopefully they’ll make a black and yellow porcupine, but what could his name be? Since libertarians are at the top of the Nolan chart, it could be Topy, but that sounds stupid.

 

[Nilloc]

This whole debate was really good, but the best moment was from 24:26-25:20. Make sure to at least give that part a watch.

PoliPop All-Girl Throwdown! - YouTube

 

[zoink]

MMmmm cognitive dissonance and double think for breakfast.