Mister Mister

I was scrolling through the comments, saw an argument between Austrians and Keynesians, and found this gem. "Nah. Currency backed by gold is actually quite limited." Limited...yea that's the fucking point!!!

The answer is that no one knows. "Optimal" is not really a philosophical term, especially when weighing costs and benefits, different peoples conflicting and diverse values and interests, and the unknowns of future technology. The energy standard thing is interesting, I've actually had the same idea myself. How would you see it working? Like there are central power stations/banks, and/or people have the capacity to generate electrical power in their homes, and people can exchange electricity in and out of the grid, and somehow physically exchange credits which can be redeemed for electricity? Interesting food for thought. Such a beautiful future seems farther away than it once did to me however, given what's happened the last several years.

I mean like for example being pro-circumcision because he doesn't like to suck cocks with foreskins. Or being pro-police, pro-military, anti-whistle blower, without any discrimination.

He's certainly an important and interesting and entertaining voice, but also says some horrible things.

There are two definitions to inflation. The classical definition is a rise in prices. The Austrian definition is an increase in the money supply. A lot of politicians who say they are going to cut government, end up cutting taxes without cutting spending; usually they increase spending. GW Bush is of course one of the worst examples of this. It's frustrating because if you talk about reducing government, many people will interpret this as equivalent to these kinds of policies.

it's an interesting idea, but all assumes the legitimacy of democracy (by Harris and Haidt, not you). my understanding of how this all evolved, is that originally, the State was owned by the King, who passed it on to his son. Then, the nobles rebelled, i.e. the Magna Carta, in England, and the State was owned by the landowners, who in turn owned the peasants. This model was adapted in the US and other Republics, in a more free market model, where any man could own land if they were willing to work it. So the idea of a Commonwealth Republic, was that property owners, who paid most of the taxes, in a sense collectively owned the government, and voted on how their tax money was spent on basic things like roads, security, fire protection, and so on, similar to board members of a corporation. Sounds reasonable enough, but of course the real losers in this system were A) slaves, and B) lower class male citizens who were still subject to the draft despite not being able to vote on going to war. Property restrictions were lifted around 1850, at a time of growing tensions in America. It was generally considered that voting was one of several male privileges, that also went along with several responsibilities unique to men, specifically the draft. When women got the right to vote in the 1920s, of course they were not subject to the draft. It's also important to note that women's suffrage came only 70 years after universal male suffrage - despite the idea that we've always had 1000s of years of patriarchy where all men rule women!!! Since the 1960s and the Great Society programs, you have an increasing number of people who take more out of the system than they pay in. On top of that, since the Federal Reserve System came into place in 1913, and we came off the gold standard in the 1970s, the government has financed its operations through more and more debt. This is all important to understanding what's wrong with modern democracy, because statists often describe it in theory, as similar to how it was in 1776: "we all pay into the system, and then vote on how that money is spent, so it's not theft", but of course this is not even close to being true. The truth is that large numbers of people are voting to keep money flowing into themselves, and a huge burden falls on future generations who either can't vote yet, or aren't even born. Theoretically, democracy could be more functional if A) governments couldn't borrow money, and B) only those actually paying into the system could vote. Theoretically... So is your suggestion that only families should be able to vote? I don't quite understand. I mean, I agree that the family is the basic institution of society, the most important, and the one which conditions all others, but if you are talking about organizing a political system around the family I'm not sure what this would look like.

Yes, the police were already removing the person. If someone shows up at my house, and won't leave when I ask, so I call the police, the police show up and remove them from my house, and while I am leaving they call me an asshole, then I punch them in the face, that is assault.

Sorry but I find it very different to understand any of your questions.

Yes, I believe that 20-25% of the gay community votes Republican, but obviously many of these voices are afraid to speak up. What has been your experience with advocating for more conservative/libertarian ideas in the gay community? I remember Stef had a great call-in with a gay gentleman (maybe it was you?) that was uneasy about the Indiana religious freedom act, where he made the point that gays have done enormously well for themselves in the last half century, from the Stonewall riots to today, where gay marriage is supported by most people, one state after another is ratifying it, openly gay people occupy many important positions in public life, for example the CEO of Apple, and many gay characters are positively portrayed in media, including a married couple with an adopted child on Modern Family. All of this was done without the government's help, really, so it's so strange that now all of a sudden they should latch on to the power of the State, to punish bakeries in Indiana for not baking a cake with two men on top of it. Probably also the association of conservatives with Christian fundamentalists has something to do with it. What is your take on this? Do you think the promiscuity that is common in gay culture is a problem, or just a natural result of male sexuality unrestrained by the risk of pregnancy? Do you think gay marriage is really an issue? Is it a bad idea for children to be raised by same-sex couples? Any way, it's a shame that conservatism in America has come to be so closely associated with Evangelism and all kinds of weird ideas. Politics makes strange bedfellows as they say.

Care to elaborate? I don't really see it as a problem, it's just a biological reality, that children are to some extent unwilling prisoners of their caregivers. The problem is letting this power corrupt a person, because society doesn't generally apply rational standards to parenting. Stef has made the argument that parents ought to act as if their children COULD choose otherwise, and also that of course when the children are grown, they have no obligation to have any contact with their parents.

That's not the case in many "progressive" areas, like where I live, where they are trying to pass a mandate eliminating genders from bathrooms altogether.

yes but where will women gossip about their dates outside the earshot of men?

I can't tell if this is satire or not. Most of it is just vague sentence fragments like "I swear to you", or "vote for me". The only thing that has anything of substance is "shutdown of Muslims coming into this country" and "complete extermination of the Jewish race". If you can't differentiate between the two I don't even know what to say.

The implications are that children should respect their parents. Why? What have you done to earn their respect? Fed and sheltered them? Well even a dog or a sparrow is capable of that, it's not exactly honorable behavior, just selfish animalistic protection of your genes. Furthermore, are there anything parents can do to lose their children's respect? Would you treat anyone else in your life this way? i.e. "I bought my wife a necklace a year ago, but now I've taken it back because she's not showing me respect!!!". Would we accept that kind of behavior in any other kind of circumstance (taxation and eminent domain maybe?) ??? Respect and love have to be earned through reciprocity, integrity, honesty, and so on. When a person behaves like this, just because they have power over others, just because they can, it is to me a sign of massive insecurity and self doubt. This is really at the core of the issue, in my opinion. It's the confusion of virtue with mere obedience to power. Kids who do what they are told are "good", otherwise they're bad It's not the same at all. A tenant can leave a landlord, a child cannot leave their parents. This is why people can get away with such nasty behavior in these kind of situations.

well he seemed to imply that it was unfair that someone raises their middle finger, a guy elbows him, and only the guy who threw the elbow is legally punished...

Yes the Hitler comparison is so ridiculous and overblown. I say this as someone who made the Obama/Hitler comparison in 2008 and recognize this was a little hysterical and reactionary. But these claims are mostly being made by people with no conception of history. I have another comparison. Trump to me is more like a modern Churchill. He is trying to warn of an enemy in our midst - political correctness, radical Islam, illegal immigration, national debt, and so on, and that we can either deal with this enemy now and have a little bloodshed, or deal with it later and have a lot. UK didn't listen to Churchill until it was too late to do it the easy way. As a libertarian this makes me uncomfortable, as from a purely principled point of view, there is a lot to dislike about someone like Churchill or Trump, and I really don't want to give anyone that power regardless of what virtues they may have. But still I have to concede, that when you are approaching a crisis, it is too late for philosophy to do anything, except teach us a lesson so as we don't repeat history. But in a war, maybe you need to have a strong decisive leader who actually has the people's general interests at heart. I hate those words as they come out of my mouth, but part of me feels like it is maybe true. Anyone have any thoughts?

Obviously I'm not on the side of the protesters or the media, but isn't he, in these clips, endorsing violence against people you disagree with?

That's very interesting. I don't quite know enough about this kind of formal mathematical symbolic logic to support or refute your proof. And I don't mean to dismiss your efforts, but you have to understand that for the majority of people, it is easier to understand these things in common language, applied to real social situations, rather than abstract mathematical reasoning. Very few people would understand things the way you have framed them. But when you point out that parents hit their kids and yell at their kids, but also teach them not to hit and yell at people, or that States claim to uphold and defend property rights and laws, while violating property and breaking their own laws, people get it. Many of them lash out with petty nastiness rather than admit there seems to be a contradiction in generally accepted morals and practices, but still at a deep level, they get it, I believe. Philosophy has been swept up in meaningless abstractions for too long in my opinion, and UPB cuts right to the heart of some essential problems in most people's thinking.

Dsayers and BD pretty much got the main points I think. Sin as a concept in and of itself is not exactly "immoral", it is how it's applied that is important. It is typically taught to children as some sort of absolute truth, which says why they are bad no matter what they do. It is an attempt to inflict guilt, as a way to control their behavior with verbal emotional manipulation. Religion tends to associate "sin" with urges and desires which are completely natural and universal: self-interest, impulsiveness, sexual desire, and so on. This guarantees that everyone will fall under the category "sinner" and thus believe they require the church's "services" to cure them of this imaginary disease. It also bears mentioning that this idea also has secular versions, which are in many ways worse: radical environmentalism, gender and race privilege, 1st world/capitalism privilege, and so on. Human guilt is a very profitable resource from an amoral perspective. I also wanted to add that to me, obviously Original Sin as a concept is not true - The idea that human nature can be "good" or "bad", doesn't fundamentally make any sense. Something can only be morally good or bad insofar that they have understanding and choice. Would we say an octopus or a mosquito or a great white shark is "good" or "bad" by nature?!?! Such a claim would be nonsense. An animal's nature is in a sense deterministic, it is the . A human being's nature is to have two hands, two feet, an inquisitive mind, to desire survival and reproductive success, and all that comes with those things. We have choice over our thoughts and actions, but not our basic desires, any more than we have choice over our anatomy. Morality is a function of choice, not of nature. I'm still working on this concept so I hope that makes some sense. A lot of people criticize libertarians for having an idealistic view of human nature, which is nonsense. Libertarians have the most realistic view of human nature: that human beings are capable of both good and evil. This podcast on the Tom Woods show delved into this and I would recommend it. http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-544-where-do-liberal-and-conservative-skepticism-of-liberty-come-from/

Transmisandry! That's very interesting Cali. It does seem like it's easier maybe for a trans man not to stick out. Going through puberty as a man develops the square jaw, wide shoulders, and deep voice that is hard to reverse. On the other hand, a woman can develop these things with testosterone therapy and get pretty close. Though I hear the cosmetic penises are still highly problematic That lower picture though is quite remarkable! I think it also highlights how, slightly effeminate men are sexy these days, whereas manly women are not so much. So many trans men might just seem like male-model type girly men, which is hot, but many trans women come off as kind of awkward, tall, wide-shouldered, square-jawed women, which is more difficult I think. What do you think is a solution to the bathroom laws? I think it's kind of blown out of proportion. How many sexual assaults actually happen in bathrooms anyways? You see dads bring their very young daughters into men's rooms from time to time, and nobody freaks out. If your kid is that young and vulnerable, don't send them into a bathroom alone! Just seems like another false issue that the market and communities would deal with, but is being made into a political issue to play identity politics and legally harass traditional conservatives.

Economics is descriptive. Ethics is normative. Economics doesn't prescribe how one should act. Ethics doesn't predict the dynamics of human actions and interactions. For example, Mises and Rothbard both accepted the same basic methodology in economics, but were very different in ethics/politics -- Mises was a utilitarian/minarchist, Rothbard was a natural rights anarchist.

seems like a waste of crabs

Yes I think there is something more to it. Because most leftist anarchists, if you make this argument, respond with some conspiracy theory or disaster scenario about how corporations will own all the land and become a State, or the capitalist societies will ruin the environment for the socialist societies and so on. I've said this before, but I feel that at the heart of this, is that these people still have the mindset of a utopian central planner. The free market produces results that they don't like: inequality, consumerism, and so on, and so they want to change the rules to try to get the results they want. It's very similar to wording a question to get the answer you want, trying to manage another person's reaction, which is manipulative. At least these people won't concede the desire to use the massive force of the State to make the world as they see it, but it's the same impulse in my opinion.

all very interesting. I'm not sure I get "considerate" vs. "well-behaved" however...I don't see how these are at all opposed, and both seem to have very subjective definitions.

Not an argument, just poisoning the well. Because SJWs complain about some things as "traumatic" which may be hysterical and exaggerated, then nothing is traumatic, or everyone who talks about trauma is being equally hysterical...Giving someone a barbie is not a violation of the NAP. Cutting off their foreskin or labia or clitoris or ear or pinky toe IS. Convenient is not an argument, it's an implication that your opponent is being manipulative. Source? Also, have you ever watched a video of a circumcision? Just curious. I myself couldn't get through it. If you were satisfied there was no permanent psychological harm to baby rape (as was and still is believed by many people in the world throughout history), would you be okay with it? This is perhaps the most substantial or interesting thing you've said, worth breaking down. To some extent, I get where you are coming from. It is true that morality is an evolving science, and the less knowledge about morality a person has, the harder it is to hold them accountable. Is someone who inherited slaves in the 1600s an immoral person? It's hard to say. Like you pointed out, we wouldn't consider a doctor who used leeches, when it was commonly accepted, as bad as a doctor who uses them now (though I think there are still some legitimate uses of leeches...). However, it's not that simple. First of all, we have a tradition in Law of "Ignorance of the Law is no excuse for illegal behavior". The obvious reason for this, is that if we did allow this excuse, it would be very easy for many people to claim ignorance as a defense, and nearly impossible to prove. But in this case, we can disprove that ignorance. Most of the Western World does not practice circumcision. Also, people instruct children based on principles like "keep your hands to yourself", and chant political slogans like "my body, my choice", implying that they do understand this basic principle from which they exempt baby boys. It is this fundamental moral hypocrisy that is so frustrating and contemptible. I hope that makes some sense to you. Yet very few intact adult males opt to get circumcised except in cases of medical emergency, where they might otherwise lose the whole penis. So actually this case is compelling to most men. As opposed to something like vaccines, or brushing your teeth, which babies and children don't like, but many adults choose to do. Either way it's not your decision to make, that's the point.