Mister Mister

That's interesting, but it won't convince people who benefit from taxation that taxation is theft

labmath, can I ask more about how you feel about the topic? the science all seems to make sense to me, but I would be incredibly anxious to talk about a black person in real life, especially those I've had friendships with. What is your relation to race in general? I certainly understand why this would cause anxiety for you, and appreciate your willingness to engage on the topic. but if you are the exception, which I assume is the case, why should you feel bad about it? does Yao Ming feel bad that Chinese people are on average shorter? to me, part of the issue is that blacks in America and other places have developed such a strong group identity, which of course was necessary when fighting against Jim Crowe, but now has outlived its usefulness and become problematic in many ways.

It's not a question of being narrow minded, or realistic, but that you are just begging the question. "uncomfortable", "unhealthy", "limited", and "becomes a problem" are not philosophical terms that can be objectively defined. They are more aesthetic preferences, which, like any other economic problem, have to be weighed against conflicting preferences according to particular costs and benefits. These are problems that can only be solved by free people acting peacefully. A Central Planner can never answer these questions, or solve these problems. To attempt to do so would be to initiate force against billions of people, which is immoral, and would also provoke unintended consequences, as people never obey laws exactly as lawmakers intend, but rather they adapt to policies - for example the large number of abortions of female fetuses in China as a response to the One Child Policy, and the response of the government to outlaw prenatal sex screening, and what has now become a huge demographic problem of an abundance of young men with no one to marry. These things tend to escalate and get worse. I hope you really think deeply about why it is you wish to control billions of other human beings, and recognize that it will never work the way you want it to.

I was referring to Mises' Economic Calculation Problem, wherein he argues that Central Planning always fails because it is impossible to answer basic questions of economic allocation without letting free people play things out for themselves. But you are making a pretty remarkable claim...How many people is enough, or too much? If you have some way of answering this question, please don't withhold it from us? Is this an absolute fixed number? Does it depend on what kind of people? Will it change with future changes in technology? I hope you are beginning to see some of the challenges of your position As an aside - One of the big challenges in philosophy is the tendency for intellectual people to focus on the most abstract, farthest away issues on which they have the least control. This is because pontificating on these issues won't compel you to make any dramatic changes in your life, and aren't likely to bring conflict into any of your relationships - in other words, they are safe. You have no capacity to personally regulate the population of the total planet, and if you did desire this power, I would assume you are a highly disturbed and dangerous person, and would wonder what you are even doing in this corner of the internet. So I'd have to ask, why is this important to you as far as philosophy and ethics go?

I wonder how much immigration is responsible/correlated

I agree with Will. Also there is the calculation problem: how many children should people have? who should have them? what is the right number for total population? these are unanswerable questions.

This is a common argument, even among Leftist Statists. It's this idea that we can only have a free market once all the wrongs of the past have been righted. Basically this means we will never have a free market. Because the crimes of history are too numerous to make up for, and those who perceive themselves as victims will never be satisfied. Liberty is about you being free to live your life on your own terms. It's not about envy of others, and trying to remake the world in your own perfect image. In the event that we dismantle the State, which is unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, people would figure this kind of thing out, public property might be sold off to pay certain debts, State criminals might be prosecuted, stolen property reconfiscated and so on. I go with Murray Rothbard on this one, if someone has a better claim to property, they can make the case. But if the claim is simply that another person's ownership is unfair, you don't just get to steal it...and give it to whom? Anyway, this is all at least 100 years in the future so it's really towards the bottom of the list of liberty related issues anyway, and not worth very much of our time I don't think.

I drink tea - mostly green tea and Taiwanese high mountain Oolong which is some of the best stuff in the world. Caffeine in tea is actually a different chemical than caffeine in coffee, and making tea properly from whole leaves is a wonderful ritual and produces a delicious drink and health elixir that I strongly recommend over coffee, which I only drink when I really need to hustle and get shit done

That claim by Sam sounds highly speculative. But even if we accept that, I don't see why cars have to be banned. People use cars because they benefit from them. Even those who don't personally drive a car, probably use products which are transported by automobiles. So this is less a moral issue and more of an economic one: a balance needs to be struck between limiting pollution, and life in a modern technological world. It's similar to a call-in show recently where someone asked about safety regulations, and Stef said we could eliminate most traffic accidents by making a universal speed limit of 15 miles an hour. But that would of course come with costs... The only time pollution becomes a moral issue is when it is done in a way that will bring harm to others, that they are unaware of. For example a company dumps some harmful chemicals into water that kids swim in, or that people drink, rather than disposing of it properly. The fact that they try to hide it shows that they know it is wrong. I think Murray Rothbard had some interesting things to say on this issue if you want to have a look at that.

Also, one of my favorites, John 20:29 "Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed."

I think the mainstream in FDR is not left-wing or right-wing, but philosophical principles: Reason, empiricism, self-knowledge, and UPB. What you call left-wing libertarianism is incompatible with these. I've said this before but I'll say it again. When I first really started digging in to all these ideas, I thought I could find some compatibility with left-libertarians. I really wanted to connect it all together, so to speak. Like you perhaps, I figured, "hey these people are against the State too, what little differences they have can easily be cleared up", but experience with talking to leftists like yourself has taught me otherwise: the differences are significant, and essentially amount to a difference in methodology for determining truth and virtue. I never talked to a left libertarian who could simply distill for me, down to principles, what it is they are actually arguing for. My belief is that, at it's core, left-libertarianism is not about principles, but is really just a set of preferences as to how they want society to look, and these preferences may change from individual. Where the free market produces results which deviate from those preferences, they then believe it has "failed" in some way and argue for some kind of reform. So in many ways they are still Central Planners like Statist Leftists, and are willing to engage in verbal manipulation and pander to the vanity, greed, and envy of the masses, which in my mind makes them dangerous. I hope you will consider this.

Interesting topic. To me the big issue is that, in many places we now have a kind of forced integration rather than forced segregation. My personal experience with this has recently become more clear to me ----- I went to high school in a mostly white, upper middle class suburb, but our school was 40-50% black, and most of those kids were essentially "shipped" from outside the district, probably for funding reasons. There was a great deal of racial tension in the school, between smarter and more motivated white and Asian kids, who felt guilty or afraid of race issues, and black kids who felt resentment. Classes were split between Honors or AP classes, which were mostly white and Asian, with maybe two or three black kids on average, and CP or "College Prep" classes, which were mostly black but with some white kids as well - white kids who typically had the same kinds of problems as most of the blacks. Many of the AP classes were probably among the most advanced in terms of curriculum, I studied Calculus, high level physics, very detailed history (though mostly Statist propaganda), and so on. Many of the CP classes resembled the dysfunction of your average inner city school. The lunch room was very self-segregated, the room was basically "L" shaped, with one wing mostly white and Asian, the other mostly black. The black "wing" of the lunch room was fairly intimidating for a lot of us white kids, except the whites who were compatible with that culture -- I remember seeing fights regularly, and some of the black kids were really scary. Of course the reverse was not true; the black kids who were good students but also good athletes, for example, could walk in both worlds. There was also significant bullying that really only went one way: I was called "white-boy" and "cracker" and subject to intimidation from black kids more times than I can count. So basically it was as if there were two schools, with very different populations from different backgrounds, with different needs, that were just crammed together in the name of "diversity". It was a problem everyone recognized, but I never totally understood it until recently.

"People are irrational so we need a government"..."Well if people are irrational how can we expect them to vote rationally?"..."Look it's not perfect, but at least people get a say"

Well you're hitting upon the fundamental challenge of the show, which I think is what made it different right from the start. There are many great resources out there, educating people towards libertarianism, atheism, rational/critical thinking, and so on, which is great, but propaganda seems so much more effective. From the very early shows, Stef and others at FDR started looking at the real psychological barriers to people processing the arguments and information, and what makes those of us different who had enough curiosity and integrity to follow the reason and evidence to startling, heretical conclusions. The Death of Reason, Bomb in the Brain, and early call-in shows are all recommended for exploring this topic more. I would just caution you against a kind of determinist, hysterical catastrophic approach, when you say things like "Is humanity doomed to live under the mass theft of coercive States forever?". No one knows what the future holds. And we are not just spectators, we are participants in this great global human drama. But I really appreciate you bringing up the topic, and I sympathize with your anxiety. Probably I'll have more to say later, but I wanted to start with this

My instinct would be to stir fry it, thinly sliced, with some bok choi and garlic

Sure, I agree, and to really parse this out you'd have to get into the source data which I don't really care to do. I did find it interesting that a mainstream source was making the connection between parenting and politics, though.

What do you guys think? I feel like the questions are kind of skewed, though I don't think obedience is a virtue, respectful vs. independent, well-behaved or considerate, well-mannered vs. curious are not mutually exclusive.

don't feed the troll

(I started writing this before Mellomama and others beat me to the punch and spoke with more knowledge and confidence, but here's my two cents anyway) not an exact answer to the OP, but there is a strong argument that most women should not give birth in hospitals. modern medicine is good with emergencies and catastrophes and trauma, but childbirth is a normal experience and should not be treated like an emergency, the way it is in a hospital, except in extreme situations of course. as a result, childbirth ends up being way more traumatic than it needs to be, at the cost of the mother-child bond. I'm totally speculating, but I would guess that Cesareans may be necessary in extreme circumstances, but are way over-prescribed due to the litigious nature of American medicine, and the rent-seeking monopolies that tend to hide costs. I don't know much about the subject, I'm basically just repeating an argument that I've heard, but just wanted to mention that. Here's more on the subject if you're interested.

Lol, the Kochs, really? Last I checked, they were around #50 on the list of political contributors - most of the top 10 are public sector unions btw. It's totally hilarious and predictable that everyone focuses on the Kochs, who are sort of libertarians, and not Democrat or Republican establishment people, as the poster children of lobbying and corruption; as opposed to the Teacher's Union or the AFL-CIO or Lockheed Martin. But again, this just proves my point. The Kochs are really not as powerful or influential as everyone says they are: they advocate for less taxes and regulation, legalizing drugs, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, none of which is happening. They were influential in the Tea Party's big win in the 2010 election, but in a recent interview, Charles Koch said "I'm not really sure what we won", referring to the betrayal of small government principles by the Congressmen that the Kochs supported. I found this interesting and really sad, almost as if the ghost of Murray Rothbard, who was once their friend, but whom they betrayed to try to compromise with the Establishment, was standing behind him saying "I told you so. But the Kochs are the exception: Soros, Buffet, Gates, Rothschilds, all dyed-in-the-wool Statists. So when you said "literally ALL super rich people (the actual real beneficiaries of the stealing) are highly in favor of abolishing government", you were wrong...right?

yes my understanding of Mises' contribution to the subject is that, prices can confuse us and lead us to believe that there is a comparative, objective value, between two objects. For example you might think that a $1000 guitar is twice as valuable as a $500 gold ring. But as Shirgall said, valuable, is incredibly personal, most people would prefer to save their $1000 dollars, or spend it on something else. Mises correctly identified, that the only way we can define value, is as a personal preference, at a given moment. The only way we can measure value, is by peoples actions, not words. Specifically, the test for the value of anything is, what is someone willing to give up for it? If you had a liter of water, you might drink it. But if you had 2 liters, you might drink one, and cook with the other. You might use a third to water your plants, and save a fourth for tomorrow. So you can define a hierarchy of values for that person, in that moment 1. drinking 2. cooking 3. gardening, and so on, but there is no way to say that you value drinking 2.5 times as cooking or anything like that. Thus, value is subjective and subject to change over time. If value is fixed and absolute, on the other hand, then every transaction is potentially exploitative. This is at the core of most socialist theories I think, and is implied when people say things like "underpaid" or "overpriced". The problem is, that there is absolutely no objective or empirical test to determine what the "fair price" of anything should be. This is usually just a way of manipulating people. As Nietzsche first pointed out, and Stef describes very well, most ethics are just a way of getting resources from people. This kind of thinking is also incredibly condescending in the way that it avoids assigning responsibility to anyone who isn't doing well, or who makes choices you might disagree with. Contempt for free market successes like Wal-Mart or Apple, is contempt for the common man disguised as populist virtue. I compliment your integrity for recognizing the validity of certain aspects of free market and Austrian economics. When you say "How might you alter socialist theory to incorporate truisms from other schools of thought?" I wonder why should we even try to do this? My guess is that you have some emotional affinity for certain sentiments of socialism, though maybe you recognize that much of it is not logical or practical. I sympathize, because at one time I wanted to reconcile Left Libertarianism with Ancapism, though I was probably not as strongly attached. But I found that their arguments were always ultimately manipulative - you could never get them to simplify their language down to principle. What it mostly comes down to, I think, is that the free market leads to results that they don't like, particularly inequality, as people possess a VAST difference in ability, intelligence, work ethic, personal values, and to some degree, luck. So leftists want to work the system to produce a more favorable outcome more in line with their personal preferences. Left libertarians may even agree that the free market is a good idea in theory, but their arguments against it always come down to utilitarianism, and a utopian vision of how things can be. Even though they say they are anti-authoritarian, they still think like Central Planners to some degree. I'm just curious what aspects of socialist theory do you have a hard time letting go of, and why?

Wow that's fascinating Hubot, I'll have to mull that over. The sci-fi seemed so far-fetched, especially how at the end he breaks the rules of space and time to reach out to his daughter that he abandoned, I had a feeling this was less about science and more about a delusional, dissociative, avoidance of the pain of neglect and abandonment. Just wanted to add, did anyone else think it strange how the daughter seems to be so much more important to him than the son?

Sorry Thomasio, I'm a little annoyed, you seemed to skip over a criticism I had of something you said that I think is quite significant. You said that "literally all the super rich are pushing for the abolition of government". I asked for proof. But as I said, even if that is true, how do you explain the fact that all governments around the world are generally increasing in power? Or do you disagree even with that?) So either what you said isn't true, or the rich are not as powerful as you seem to be indicating...unless you think current trends are heading for an anarchist society in the near future. I think you ought to prove or recant that statement. If the opposite is true, as it seems, that most high-profile wealthy people are Statists of one form or another (usually globalist eco-fascists like Bill Gates), then does that affect your views at all?

Because I'm not advocating for, or trying to "abolish" anything. You frame it that way because you think like a central planner, not a philosopher. The only way is to spread rationality and peace and win-win negotiation, and build the voluntary networks and institutions that will eventually replace the coercive ones whose days are numbered. This is nothing at all like a Civil War in Africa. It is more like the Renaissance or Enlightment or Scientific Revolution, a change in culture, a change in ideas, so that ways of thinking and doing things in the past, which was assumed to be the way it is, are no longer socially possible. But I can just as easily flip it on you, and ask, what makes you think that another attempt to turn the coercive, violent, hierarchical power of the State towards "serving the people" won't end in more bloodshed and enslavement and imprisonment and impoverishment and misery and debt? "What conslusion do you draw out of the fact that literally ALL super rich people (the actual real beneficiaries of the stealing) are highly in favor of abolishing government?" Can you point to proof of this? Just going through my head, the Rothschilds, the Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, even the Kochs, all big-time Statists. But if this is true, it suggest that these super rich people actually have way less power than you think they do, because governments around the world are increasing in power. I'm not sure what reality you're living in.

It's easy to see war as one country attacking another country, but you have to realize that first, the country has to terrorize and propagandize and steal from it's OWN citizens, in order to fund the military, and fill it with obedient young men who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for a peace of dyed cloth. Do these people argue that offensive wars are necessary for self-defense? A defensive force would look way different and be way cheaper than modern State militaries.