Dealing with ultra-libertarian idiocy?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-10-16 02:24am

Ender wrote:Not really, only that it doesn't corrode much. It's electrical properties are surpassed by other more common materials and it's shielding, while outstanding, is negated by it's weight. A composite shield will provide better protection for equal weight.

Er, gold has been used in computers for quite some time.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2007-10-16 02:46am

lPeregrine wrote:
Ender wrote:By the way fucker, I hope you are not going to a state school, or making use of any tuition assistance or scholarships. That would be contrary to your little creed. As would having your parents pay for it, you are over 18 and thus an independent adult, I hope you are paying your own way because if they are kicking in some then you are infringing on their property.
State school (NC State University) of course. So even if he's not here on scholarships, he's getting quite a bit of benefit from the government.

My idiot libertarian brother had no problems taking a Pell grant to pay for his education.

MartianHoplite · Post by **MartianHoplite** » 2007-10-16 04:52am

By the way fucker, I hope you are not going to a state school, or making use of any tuition assistance or scholarships. That would be contrary to your little creed.

So long as I pay taxes, I don't see any problem with using the services they pay for. If I didn't I might as well have flushed all that money down the toilet. It's not like I'm forcing you to pay for the government services I use.

How far should I take your logic? Should I stop driving on public roads? Should I stop buying utilities from government protected monopolies? Should I stop going to restaurants that are inspected by government health inspectors? The government does all sorts of things. Barring a complete disengagement with society, I can't simply cut off all dealings with them.

As would having your parents pay for it, you are over 18 and thus an independent adult, I hope you are paying your own way because if they are kicking in some then you are infringing on their property.

You are obviously too stupid to even understand the meaning of simple concepts like property. As it happens, I am paying my own way. However, your point is utterly retarded. Who but a shrill, brain-dead asshole like you would suggest that a voluntary gift from one person to another is an "infringement" of anyone's property?

Furthermore, all this foolishness about libertarians letting diabetics die in elevators is nothing more than gross and sensational misrepresentation. The fact that libertarians value property rights in no way suggests that a libertarian would be opposed to one person giving property to another. Nor does it prove anything about whether or not a libertarian would render aid to another, should the need arise.

Like I said before. Between work and school, I have precious little time to waste on (admittedly pointless) internet debate. However I am trying to put together some further responses (including something about Katrina) that I'll hopefully be able to post tomorrow.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-16 05:21am

It's not like I'm forcing you to pay for the government services I use.

You are, moron, by becoming a passport citizen of the country.

Don't like the government? Travel to an anarcho-capitalist paradise and do NOT waste the money others spend on a social contract to cover your sorry ass when you need education or healthcare.

Socialists are often told to migrate to socialist countries to prove how they really like socialism - well, the same can be said for you.

Who but a shrill, brain-dead asshole like you would suggest that a voluntary gift from one person to another is an "infringement" of anyone's property?

You're a fucking moron. Human emotions can be used for coercion. Some rather vicious children from yuppie families suck millions of dollars from their father and mothers on luxurious consumption, high-grade education, etc. The bias of the relative and a common instinct FORCE parents to care for the child, regardless of their economic considerations. Humans are not "absolute economic agents" who see only their self-interest - parents investing in you is an example of altruism and cooperation. Economic theory does not deal with it, it's human biology. In fact, a perfect economic agent, were he your parent, would leave you to die since you're too lengthy and costly an investment - before he can squeeze any real profits from your sorry ass, 20+ years will come.

Between work and school, I have precious little time to waste on (admittedly pointless) internet debate

DON'T YOU FUCKING WHINE, YOU WHORE. There are people here from Russia and Eastern Europe, moron. I earn just 500 USD per month for both me and my fiancee, whereas housing rent costs around 200 USD per monts and food costs another 300 if you waste at least 3 dollars each day. Limitless interternet costs me 30 dollars. I'm on a tight budget and I work 10 hours a day, sometimes even at night. I had two 5 hour jobs just recently with 1 hour lunch and night overtime, and you're just a fucking student.

FUCK YOU and your time. If you chose to debate, DO IT. You can mention time constraints once or twice, when you quit the debate, but you actually take care to WHINE about it, being a First World country student.

Just SHUT THE FUCK UP.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-10-16 05:45am

So it's admittedly pointless, but you're wasting time on it? The whining call of the loser, to cover your own beaten ass. What year are you, you punk? Do you have any idea how many people are busy with their lives are doing things more important and time consuming than you with families and difficult majors?

I like how you focus on "all this foolishness of libertarians letting diabetics die in elevators" as if that was the entire argument. That is about the weakest point in this entire debate, the strongest point being empirical evidence in situations like Katrina. Which by the way when challenged, you have yet to refute as libertarian even though it's been pointed out that the chaos period was short and afterwards exchange of property for services and goods occured, exactly as it would in a libertarian society. Your Fran example was also shot to the ground.

The whining about nobody forcing anybody to help you reminds me of my spoiled brother. When he's told his family provides for him, he whines about how it's not anybody's obligation to provide shit for him and therefore he's not responsible. You take full advantage of other people providing services for altruistic reasons yet say you've got no responsibility at all to reciprocate. You are dangerously close to human scum. If I were you I would rethink my position entirely.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2007-10-16 05:54am

brianeyci wrote: I like how you focus on "all this foolishness of libertarians letting diabetics die in elevators" as if that was the entire argument.

He doesn't even understand that the point of this hypothetical situation isn't to show how a libertarian society would work, but why the libertarian ethical system is broken as fuck. Even if the libertarian turns out to be a good man and helps the diabetic, the point is that a system which puts property rights above the right to life is fundamentally broken.

His claim how a libertarian court would rule that the diabetic should compensate the owner of the insulin if he took it forcibly shows it beautifully. It's just a horrible ethical system.

MartianHoplite · Post by **MartianHoplite** » 2007-10-16 12:58pm

His claim how a libertarian court would rule that the diabetic should compensate the owner of the insulin if he took it forcibly shows it beautifully. It's just a horrible ethical system.

Libertarianism is not a theory of ethics per se. It is a theory of justice. Ethics deals with right and wrong. Justice deals with the much smaller subset of ethics which one person may justifiably force another to abide by under threat of violence. Some specific strains of libertarianism, like Randian Objectivism, do include a theory of ethics. Outside of this small minority, libertarians run nearly the full gamut of ethical theories present in society at large.

The purpose of courts and law is not to rule on whether or not you are an asshole. The purpose of courts and law is to enforce simple rules that insure basic protections for everybody.

As regards property in specific, it is simply wrong to assert that libertarians value property above life. Libertarians believe in self-ownership, so your life is literally your property, and you have the right to expect and demand that your life, along with all your other property, be safeguarded from aggression by others.

We believe it is far better to have simple, mechanical, rules governing the assignment of property rights, which everyone can understand (and which have the added benefit of equating ability to consume with productivity, a valuable incentive.) It would only create a bureaucratic nightmare to add a "need"-based dimension to the assessment of conflicting property claims. Need is largely subjective. You will hardly ever find agreement between two people over who "needs" some contested item more. It would be hard, in most cases, for a third party to decide whose "need" is greater. Any such decision would, in the vast majority of cases, necessarily be arbitrary. Nor is there any clear dividing line between "need" and "want". It's more of a continuum. How far along that continuum towards "want" are we going to go when deciding how to distribute scare resources? Nobody can have everything they want.

If people have needs and wants let them negotiate and trade with one another to provide them for themselves. Individuals are in the best positions to asses and prioritize their own needs and their own wants.

When these simple property rules are too inflexible to deal with an extreme situation that arises, the worst penalty that a libertarian court would assess for breaking them is some proportional amount of monetary restitution. That's the built-in flexibility. Break the law, pay the restitution, move on with your life. No libertarian would send someone to prison for stealing bread to feed their children, whereas our current system might. We simply expect that everything will be paid for at some point.

DON'T YOU FUCKING WHINE, YOU WHORE.

I'm not whining. Some of the criticisms raised by various posters in this thread are non-trivial, some are quite fundamental. Trivial answers, the kind that I can fire off when I have a few spare moments, are not going to satisfy anyone. I'm simply explaining why non-trivial answers, the kind that take a few hours to research and compose, haven't yet been forthcoming from me and re-affirming my intention to provide some when I have the time to do so.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-10-16 01:14pm

What if the person can't pay Martian?

You refuse to answer that point, possibly because you have limited experience people who are not well off. If the person can't pay, then a libertarian court would do nothing? Please, what a joke. If property rights are the most important then a libertarian court would incarcerate on violation of property (have you heard of debtor's prisons in the turn of the 18th Century?) Pay at some point means at the very least staggering interest rates and debt load and eternal serfdom. You refuse to answer the question of what happens if a person can't pay. The so-called "extreme" situation is not so extreme as you put it, because millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare and millions more would not be able to afford private security, education, and other things. Extreme my ass. We're not talking about one or two guys suffering in a pie in the sky scenario under libertaranism but millions of citizens.

You keep going on about how need is subjective, but big fucking deal. Just because you can't perfectly assess need that doesn't mean that you can't assess need at all retard. The right to own one's own property is subjective, an a priori assumption on your part. I suppose you're against wealth redistribution of any shape or form, against universal healthcare and against universal... anything that anybody can't pay for. What a joke.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-16 01:15pm

Some of the criticisms raised by various posters in this thread are non-trivial, some are quite fundamental

Did you expect to come across a board of kids whom you could bombard with your "standard" textbites?

Libertarians believe in self-ownership, so your life is literally your property, and you have the right to expect and demand that your life, along with all your other property, be safeguarded from aggression by others.

Agression is an active action. But there can be passive deed in a world of limited resources. If one aquires property X which constituted, say, 50% of resource Z which is finite, where 50% of X are not enough to satisfy the life demand of, say, 25% of the remaining society, those 25% are victims of deadly callousness.

Of course, libertarianism would not punish "criminal neglience leading to death or suffering of people"! Why should it? People only answer for their property and not infringing on the property of others, after all - idly sitting while others die is a perfectly viable solution and not illegal! Withholding a crucial resource from dying people is protecting your property, not killing them, right?

If people have needs and wants let them negotiate and trade with one another to provide them for themselves.

If I'm starving right now, but the grain seller decides to sell additional tons of grain to the rich guy across the street since he can pay more than me (I can pay nothing since I have nothing), so that this guy can overconsume while I die being in the lower end of the demand curve - I'm sure that a knowledgeable economist should understand that - I'm not going to "negotiate" or "trade" with either grain producer or the rich fuck who bought additional grain and thus by his demand put me out of the curve. If I'm desperate enough, I'll kill either him or the rich guy and take his "property".

Ooooh, I'm evil! I took their property! Well tough luck - since the trade system prefers the highest bidder and fucks me, it's only natural for me to fuck the trade system and loot.

Need is subjective? Fuck that; basic needs are biological, moron. Until those are satisfied, a person will murder, loot, fight in a war against your "property rights" and be totally correct about it - this is about his very survival.

MartianHoplite · Post by **MartianHoplite** » 2007-10-16 01:15pm

In fact, a perfect economic agent, were he your parent, would leave you to die

You're an idiot. Natural selection weeds these people out. The fact is, through instinct or otherwise, people perceive a need to help their children achieve success. Economics doesn't have anything to say about what people's priorities are or ought to be, it just explains the behavior that they undertake to fulfill their objectives (whatever those might be.)

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2007-10-16 01:17pm

MartianHoplite wrote:I'm simply explaining why non-trivial answers, the kind that take a few hours to research and compose, haven't yet been forthcoming from me and re-affirming my intention to provide some when I have the time to do so.

What research dumbass? Where are your citations, your sources, your quotes? You have done no research at all and you're just stewing in your own thoughts trying to think of a way to find a "silver bullet" to knock down an ironclad rebuttal.

By merely mentioning lack of time in the presence of those with less time and more work you are whining. Either shut the fuck up or put the fuck up, don't whine about how it's impossible to do it or how it's taking a long time. You choose to be here.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-16 01:24pm

You're an idiot. Natural selection weeds these people out. The fact is, through instinct or otherwise, people perceive a need to help their children achieve success. Economics doesn't have anything to say about what people's priorities are or ought to be, it just explains the behavior that they undertake to fulfill their objectives (whatever those might be.)

Economics doesn't explain that, moron. It's biology. Which you used to explain it to me, re-iterating my point - perfect economic agents are an abstract. Since economic agents are imperfect, a lot of suffering is avoided.

But for a libertarian, suffering is subjective. So are needs. Well, tough shit, moron - suffering is psychological and biological, and universal needs are biological. They're objective.

Oh, and "biology weeds people out"? I see that libertarianism relies on biological altruism at least not to make children counted as "property found unfavourable for investment". But other people can be treated as unfavourable investments and thus left to rot, right, dick? The degree of callousness towards your child cannot be so extreme through biology; however, it's possible to make a human to act like a PEA to another human. This is how callous fucks like you are born into existence - they would value their property above human suffering and death. After all, human is nothing but a GOOD in your system - self-owning GOOD. If that self-owning GOOD is not good enough for investment, why not let it die? Moron. Your logic defeats yourself.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2007-10-16 02:49pm

MartianHoplite wrote: Furthermore, all this foolishness about libertarians letting diabetics die in elevators is nothing more than gross and sensational misrepresentation. The fact that libertarians value property rights in no way suggests that a libertarian would be opposed to one person giving property to another. Nor does it prove anything about whether or not a libertarian would render aid to another, should the need arise.

It's an accurate description of a conversation with a friend who advertises himself as a dedicated Libertarian, and represents his particular interpretation of Libertarianism, and how he feels he should act upon it; not that he would necessarily deny the diabetic the insulin, but that he would be absolutely morally and ethically correct in doing so, if he so chose.

If you're saying that he is unrepresentative of Libertarians in general, that's fine; maybe others wouldn't interpret the philosophy the way he does.

But I don't see any reason to lie about it; that's the conversation we had, he was clear, I understood him perfectly well and if I wanted to misrepresent Libertarians (with whom I used to identify) I could certainly have invented something stranger and more outrageous to attribute to one.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2007-10-16 02:52pm

PeZook wrote:
brianeyci wrote: I like how you focus on "all this foolishness of libertarians letting diabetics die in elevators" as if that was the entire argument.
He doesn't even understand that the point of this hypothetical situation isn't to show how a libertarian society would work, but why the libertarian ethical system is broken as fuck.

Yes, thank you, if I were on the ball today I would have pointed that out, myself.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2007-10-16 03:01pm

MartianHoplite wrote:You will hardly ever find agreement between two people over who "needs" some contested item more. It would be hard, in most cases, for a third party to decide whose "need" is greater. Any such decision would, in the vast majority of cases, necessarily be arbitrary.

Anyone who is dehydrated needs water. Anyone who is starving needs food. Anyone who hopes to live a life beyond bare subsistence, needs education. Anyone with a serious or potentially serious injury needs medical attention. Anyone living in a region of inclement climate, needs shelter.

Does your philosophy really find that sort of thing an overwhelmingly complex or arbitrary set of decisions?

MartianHoplite wrote:Nor is there any clear dividing line between "need" and "want". It's more of a continuum.

Well...at risk of belaboring an example to death, why don't you find yourself a person sliding into hyperglycemic shock, and ask him if he needs that insulin, or merely wants it. Or ask the same question of the dehydrated re: water, the starving re: food, etc.

MartianHoplite wrote:How far along that continuum towards "want" are we going to go when deciding how to distribute scare resources?

Up to the point of survival, at the very least.

MartianHoplite wrote:Nobody can have everything they want.

A meaningless observation in the context of what people need.

MartianHoplite wrote:If people have needs and wants let them negotiate and trade with one another to provide them for themselves. Individuals are in the best positions to asses and prioritize their own needs and their own wants.

And Gods help you if you are not in the position to make those negotiations or tradeoffs. Then you can just lie down and die, I guess.

MartianHoplite · Post by **MartianHoplite** » 2007-10-16 03:02pm

I see that libertarianism relies on biological altruism at least not to make children counted as "property found unfavorable for investment".

Again, you're either an idiot or an out-and-out lier. A business ought to be run at a profit because the converse, running at a loss, is a foolish, unsustainable absurdity. To assert however, that economists or libertarians believe that people, in the conduct of their daily lives, ought to concern themselves only with monetary gain is either the stupidest claim ever made or an outright lie. Why would anyone even bother to go out and earn any money if it weren't for the utility of money in satisfying other, non-monetary, desires and achieving, other, non-monetary, objectives?

Economics is a science that seeks to explain observable human behavior. It is not a normative doctrine that claims people ought to act one way or another.

Libertarianism is a theory of justice dealing with the question of when violence is legitimate and when it isn't. It is not a theory of what priorities and desires people ought to have.

The priorities and desires people have can be attributed to a number of factors, biology, upbringing, education, rational inquiry, experience, arbitrary whim, etc...

Given that people have these desires and goals, economics attempts to explain the behavior they engage in to satisfy these desires and achieve these objectives.

Libertarianism posits that they will be more successful in the satisfaction of these desires and the achievement of these objectives if they are given freedom to provide for themselves.

Stop misrepresenting libertarianism. Stop misrepresenting the science of economics.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2007-10-16 03:03pm

Stas Bush wrote:Oh, and "biology weeds people out"? I see that libertarianism relies on biological altruism at least not to make children counted as "property found unfavourable for investment".

That isn't really (necessarily) altruism, that's just selfishness expressed at the genetic level (of which nepotism is also an expression).

This is how callous fucks like you are born into existence - they would value their property above human suffering and death.

Generally market fundamentalists are also social darwinists (explicitly or implicitly); it's very difficult to have the former without the latter.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2007-10-16 03:16pm

A business ought to be run at a profit because the converse, running at a loss, is a foolish, unsustainable absurdity.

Really?

Interaction between parent and child is not profit. It's loss. On the part of the parent.

To assert however, that economists or libertarians believe that people, in the conduct of their daily lives, ought to concern themselves only with monetary gain is either the stupidest claim ever made or an outright lie.

It's not a lie, moron. It's the theoretical model on which libertarianism is built. Human is a property. A self-owning property. Welcome to reality, boy.

Why would anyone even bother to go out and earn any money if it weren't for the utility of money in satisfying other, non-monetary, desires and achieving, other, non-monetary, objectives?

Why did you start talking about "money", moron? People either compete for use of resources, or cooperate in use of resources. The resource can be money, food, whatever. It does not matter. Resources satisfy needs of various order.

Libertarianism is a theory of justice dealing with the question of when violence is legitimate and when it isn't.

If I'm hungry and I need food but none is available for me, robbing is logical. Property will be violated to sustain my life.

Stop misrepresenting libertarianism. Stop misrepresenting the science of economics.

I never misrepresented either of them. A PEA is a theoretic economic model which is an approximation of how agents in a capitalist theoretical 100% free market act. You're a moron if you fail to understand that this model is excluding any non-market behaviour for simplification, not because this model is normative. But any ATTEMPTS to make this model normative, such as libertarianism, should be frowned upon. Actually, I have a BSc in economics, but what have you got?

As for libertarianism, it enforces rights to property above else; human is a self-property, essentially he can trade himself and there's nothing wrong with that in libertarianism. Since a human is property, an economic unit, it might or might not be profitable to invest in a human to support his life.

For example, if the costs of supporting the life of human A are more than the possible gain from human A, a business would resolve not to invest in human A. Since human A needs investment (read: salary) to continue life, human A either starves or works for a slave wage.

Don't you fucking try to kid me that libertarianism has any mechanism whatsoever preventing human death because someone isn't sharing except the violence by the disenfranchised against someone's property. It doesn't. Moreover, it encourages those with large resource properties to create artificial deficite - not as to linger in suffering, but to get the maximum revenue possible through the optimal market price, cutting off the lowest bidders and sentencing them to suffering and possible death.

Terralthra · Post by **Terralthra** » 2007-10-16 03:16pm

MartianHoplite wrote:As regards property in specific, it is simply wrong to assert that libertarians value property above life. Libertarians believe in self-ownership, so your life is literally your property, and you have the right to expect and demand that your life, along with all your other property, be safeguarded from aggression by others.

Do you read what you wrote here?

Allow me to summarize:

Prima: Libertarians value property rights over the right to life, and that is fundamentally broken.
Secunda: No, they don't! One's life is a form of property, and is therefore protected just as much as one's cache of midget porn!
Prima: ...

If you have to classify life as property (which it isn't, as you can't "own" an abstract process) in order to protect it under the aegis of property rights, you are effectively ceding Prima's point.

In other words, your own post proves that Ender is entirely right, that (Radical) Libertarians do favor property rights over the right to life.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2007-10-16 05:15pm

He made a nice post on libertarian law, but still has yet to solidly answer on how his libertopia would avoid degenerating into Gangland USA/Neo-feudalism.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2007-10-16 05:16pm

ADD: " . . . Gangland USA/Neo-Feudalism, with the private militias deciding to carve up the areas they are supposed to be protecting for their customers, or simply extorting their "customers" since they can get away with it."

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2007-10-16 05:35pm

I'd like to know what happens to the people who can't afford these private security companies?

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2007-10-16 05:38pm

Why, they leave to an area where they CAN afford them!!!

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2007-10-16 05:39pm

Seriously, though, the people who can't afford anything resembling top knotch protection get boned. Maybe they get some kind of trickle-down effect, wherein in the act of protecting a rich person, the private militias accidently protect poor people.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-10-16 05:41pm

General Schatten wrote:I'd like to know what happens to the people who can't afford these private security companies?

But you're not being taxed, so you have more money! What do you mean there are people with income so low they don't get taxed?! Er.... charity police?