Armitage

I did not say I am a leftist, or any kind of ist. Hallucination much? At least don't practice message board nudism (naked assertions).

I did not say that all. I said "when Stefan talks about the market, he has all the definitions of freedom etc. so narrowed down, that they effectively boil down to fascism, to dictatorship of market forces" And what I meant was market forces (which can initiate violence against humans as they see fit, in order to make "market corrections" I said nothing about 'control' of market forces. Market forces can be only totally replaced and annihilated by designing a whole different environment, such as The Venus Project. We can not outlaw or control anything successfully, we can only make it obsolete. The market forces have an important function and this function must not be suppressed or ignored, it must be replaced. You're having hallucinations on what other people write.

I remember the arguing of adjectives, but it was weeks ago. What minute was it, please? I should address that passage specifically. IIRC, Peter's adjectives are more than that, they were definitions. And definitions are philosophically extremely important and tricky. Stefan's definitions are very narrowed and distorted when capitalism is involved. When it comes to capitalism, it becomes for a moment a single bottleneck of all Stefan's thought. I can't form counter-arguments, because there is too much wrong about the debate. Almost all things that Stefan says are... Logically correct, but in such a narrowed-down context that they are inevitably logically correct as stand-alone axioms, but mostly without relation to social and physical reality. (thus wrong for all practical purposes) Peter is solely concerned with broader context and with relations which Stefan is completely missing. And Peter refuses to believe that someone would do that without even noticing. Stefan jumps to correct some Peter's errors of vagueness in speech, but he does not notice that Peter holds the moral high ground the whole time. I believe I have to frame the debate as a terrible neurological blindness (deeply set ignorance to context) on Stefan's side, of which both spokesmen are unaware and each seeks their own explanations. I regret to say, when Stefan talks about the market, he has all the definitions of freedom etc. so narrowed down, that they effectively boil down to fascism, to dictatorship of market forces (which can initiate violence against humans as they see fit, in order to make "market corrections"). At these moments he sees nothing but market forces, missing everything else. If I paraphrase Mussolini, all within the market, nothing outside the market, nothing against the market. For example, Stefan is usually very good at considering a broader context and social consequences of actions - such as the effect of childhood spanking on crime rates and domestic violence in adults. That is a connection most people can't make and I applaud him for that. But if Stefan is unable to make a connection between a lifetime of economy-related stress, compensatory consumerism and its effect on families, then something is very wrong. He can make the connection in case A (spanking, war veterans), but he just can't in the case B (everything else). And if the conversation is about anything, it's about context and connections! There is a reason why Peter Joseph does not oppose Stefan on the spanking question. He agrees! They both see that childhood violence has far-reaching consequences into life and society as a whole. Why can't Stefan see that with economic violence (poverty), environmental violence (against Earth and those who live on it), structural violence (economic stress), intellectual violence (boredom, mindless suggested preferences) and so on? I must ask Stefan some day what does he think about sociology. One of classical topics in sociology is the effect of capitalism on society. Perhaps it can be remedied by study such as of Modern social theories, perhaps only a deep personal crisis can shake him out of it, perhaps nothing can.

In the 2nd and 3rd one I deal with the notion, that trade is peaceful (nope) and voluntary (nope) and that it raises humankind out of poverty (not necessarily). And that people like you explain Economy 101 much more than necessary, missing the real point.Claiming to raise people out of dirt-dwelling poverty is like my current politicians claiming to protect us from the past Communistic regime. Being marginally better is not enough. They steal about 10 % of state budget and squander the rest, but their most pathetic argument is, "at least we're better than Communists!" Being better than nothing or marginally better is not good enough. But that's exactly what trade needs - an offer needs to be just better than circumstances, better than death, in order to be accepted. And if someone controls the circumstances, it's all a cheat. We today do control almost any circumstances on Earth, short of geo-engineering. What do you think? Are we still these brave trailblazers with forests full of wolves just behind the tarpaulin? In reality, nature is this thin shell of biosphere on the surface, in constant danger of industry. Usable goods is the most relative and misused of market talk we see today. As long as people think they're usable, they are usable to move money around, that's the market delusion. As I said in #1, market is based on the idea, that we can first take from Earth for free and then sell to our fellow men. This is a common human practice, we need the motivation of ownership to work. That used to be all right. But today, in light of Resource-Based Economy, it becomes painfully obvious that nature is so easy to steal from wholesale, so easy to destroy, that we can't treat it as a part of the economy. We have to treat it as a real trade partner with full rights and trade partner deserves his value back plus interest or profit, in a way which nature can use. People can add to nature. Nature or environment is not our enemy or property, but an euphemism for "the things that keep us alive". Our goals are one and our origins as well, the matter of our bodies is made of natural resources. That is a fact. Ownership is a legal fiction. If it wasn't, nature would own us all. No, it's not SM, it's some random unfortunate guy, threatened by circumstances, the environment, or by structural violence. Sometimes it's not people who threaten us, yet somehow, in Stefan's incomplete philosophy, only people count as threats that the system has to deal with, the environment within and without is ignored. If you were a sociologist, you'd know that the individualism (and interest in capitalism) of Max Weber was outweighed by collective effort of people like Durkheim, Elias and Marx. In other words, ancap is sociologically and technologically almost illiterate. It's better than the current system, but that is never enough! Another point here is, actually solving the problem means destroying the market. The most profitable behavior is to sell the most superficial of solutions at the highest of prices. Then anyone who come next can offer just marginally cheaper solution and call it "market competition". If nobody else comes or cartel negotiations are successful, the price stays high and the trade remains a ransom. But we are CONSTANTLY threatened by coercive violence! Time, nature, our bodies, we are in their thrall and we have to do as they demand. People can pay really high prices when under coercion from their own body (i.e. hungry). A trade is always "good", meaning it is always "better than nothing". But that can be still quite a worsening to previous situation, as the drowning guy shows. "Better than nothing" is not good, not voluntary. There is no such thing as a voluntary market. All market is involuntary, the only voluntary actions are taking and giving. Not exchanging. Exchanging has an element of giving up and regretting loses. This isn't obvious, but it plays a role in always striving to get the better end of the deal. If trade was voluntary, first thing we'd try to do, would be to give our customer the best service possible for least money possible. Without the threat of competition, best service is the last thing that market subjects want to do. If it wasn't, people would provide quality service even in Communism. (which they didn't) Market has the right to deny people what they need, under the pretext that they don't have money. This is the "algorithm" of the market. This used to make sense, when people and money were involved in production, instead of automation and resources. The market system gives us products, but it takes away our time. We pay ransom for our own time! We can have a part of our time dead, or have it all dead. How is that different from taxes? And what makes the resources so scarce? Isn't it making hundreds of different cell phone models? They all need rare earth metals, silicon and stuff. It is cheaper on resources to make everything in top quality (all can be easily downgraded with software, if wished), than to have a cell phone industry for making hundreds of various models. In TVP, scientists deal with the shortage by researching a substitute material. Only they do it right away. If 100 million people really want a cell phone, we will ask them and we will know beforehand what we need to prevent theft and envy. Either way, people are not forced to go to work if they want a cell phone. They get to keep their free time to spend in any way they want. The cell phone is only something extra on top of free time, not something we sacrificed our workdays for. That certainly makes the demand a lower and the waiting easier. It's not perfect, just better than the current system and better than ancap.

I took my liberty to point out what ideas do I get during my plentiful listenings to Stefan's radio show. I think Stefan's great with psychological and philosophical themes, but when it comes to the economic system itself, I can see there's a work for me. I can't improve what is perfect, but I can show a mirror to what I think is flawed - but fun! I did my best to keep the comic strips tasteful and intelligent and maybe even funny. However, be sure I'll post them on many occasions when I need to illustrate a point, literally. I'll add more when I get any other ideas. 10 in the first day is good enough. Please mods, if you like the topic, make it sticky To all the offended parties I profusely apologize.

My understanding is, Peter knows very well that under the current system two plus two equals four. However, he says the equation does not actually say that. It says 3+3 - 8 = -2 which makes Stefan's description of the left side of equation "too narrow". Peter says, that we can use other signs, such as * multiplication, to achieve a "sustainable non-growth system" (COP 1), vaguely said, as he is wont to. And if we increase the base just a little and use the awesome technology of exponential ^, we can achieve really high results You may think Occam's razor is useful, but here we are dealing with social world. Social world is studied by sociology and other social sciences. The social sciences have multiple paradigms. I'm not sure if Occam's razor is even applicable here. For study purposes yes, if you seek to study a minor phenomenon. But to be a sociologist, you need what C. W. Mills calls "sociological imagination". You need to see the whole complex society in your head and all the relationships as a fractal model and see the rich interactions in the eye of history and the present. That's why not anybody can be a sociologist. Sociology is not like economy. Economists need sociology, but sociologists are not good at explaining that to economists. (because economists aren't trying to make economy obsolete!) You can't put the society into your pocket by reading Ludwig von Mises' Human Action, just like you lose at multiple sciences if you take Bible seriously.

I believe a person can become agnostic through a strong mystical or otherwise unusual experience. However, language fails us here. For example, I do not believe in belief, either something is, or isn't, and my belief doesn't change anything about it. But if I have a mystical experience, I still can't believe, because I don't know if it's real or not. It's real enough for me, but experiences usually don't leave evidence. (A)gnosticism answers the question of knowledge (which is IMO silly to ask, nobody can really claim to know God) (A)theism answers the question of belief (however, as Dawkins says, there is no good reason to believe in God. I say, making a goal out of faith for the sake of faith is silly. Faith is a good motivator, but not goal.) Now, what answers the question of experience? Maybe if one is spiritual or non-spiritual

Yes, that's what I claim. You have to take it as a hypothesis, because if you didn't already see it, you're not likely to see it easily. Consider it just as a possibility. I'm not an expert in neurology, but I've debated many people on various topics for about 7 years... Nobody is a perfect thinker. I believe people specialize in order to become better thinkers. And I believe the way right-wing and left-wing people specialize, makes them exclude certain shared context of reality. Which is bad, because all our communication and understanding is based on shared context, most words (especially in direct verbal speech) have multiple meanings. Whenever shared context is missing, the people interpret the words automatically in their own way, without even noticing. Why do I talk of a blind spot? Because the market, money and capitalism are things that are for capitalists practically impossible to think about from more than one point of view. Even if they could see everything else from all point of view, that set of ideas is a fixed point in their worldview around which everything is rotating. I probably also have some fixed ideas, but they may not even be from economy at all, I don't know. Maybe they're about women So I try another approach, visual. Please look at this post of mine and tell me if the cartoons do get the idea across

Well, I love complexity and I don't like restricting it... But when you look at it, Resource-Based economy is very simple and we live in it every day. Here's a cartoon I haven't used yet, I hope you like it

"Debunking" debunked Conflating FM with the state: A problem of a current system, not a fair argument against ancap. Face it, the govt with monopoly on violence is the best investment a capitalist can have, only he ceases to be a capitalist (or worse, continues to be) and becomes a fascist. However, if we only have ancap, no state, I must wonder if we ever end up in a dystopian cyberpunk future of nation-corporation-franchises fighting each other for vital digital information and control over human livestock. Of course, ancap says corporations will have no special protection besides the individuals involved. Well then, I wonder how big industrial concentrations of wealth, responsibility (and thus power) can possibly be managed in order to produce the hi-tech we see today. Except through large-scale automation. Unless of course Stefan is even more right than he thought... Creating resources through claiming previously unclaimed goods: I consider this practice historically obsolete and dishonest, compared to the idea of automated global resource sharing through Resource-Based Economy. Earth has rights too (Bolivia says) and we are basically thieves and parasites on Earth. We steal from Earth and once technology makes that easy, it also becomes obvious. Nothing wrong with that, but we might as well be honest thieves and share the resources, not claiming we "create" anything. "Objectively verifiable borders?" Ha ha ha! That's a government oxymoron. read the history of America. Invaders (colonists) stole the land and then made laws saying, "don't steal". The "voluntary" trade of I value A more than B... (where A can be, beside a chocolate bar, my staying alive a little longer) Answer is perhaps this The magical allocation algorithm hoax The planned obsolescence critique I believe the planned obsolescence is an example of evolution. People used to make high quality things, but tried to lower the production costs, so they made them a bit less quality, and people didn't stop buying them even if they didn't last so long... And after a few decades most things were cheap and didn't last long and now there's not much to choose from at any reasonable price. Military and cosmic engineering still keeps making things top quality, because unlike people, cosmic bodies aren't falling for a cheap crap. The top quality production of goods in TVP is not there for people's preferences, it is there for Earth's preference. If something can last longer, it must last longer, so it stays around and saves energy for recycling. If things are designed easy to dismantle by machines and recycle, then resources are never lost. The infinite resources and scarcity argument I am getting irritated by such a unwise question. We only talk of scarcity, because we use physical resources as a market fetish to move money around and money are the ultimate goal. We do not set any actual goals. Our preference is culturally manipulated to prefer money and you can never have enough money apparently, so the logical need is to move around infinite amount of resources. According to Ingacio Ramonet, the editor of Le Monde, world economies generate annually 73 times money of all GDP of national economies of the world. According to Zeitgeist, only 5 % of money supply today serves to buy and sell goods and services. So someone here is missing the big picture. Our current system of goal-setting is completely insane and does not permit us to achieve the infinity, which nobody would even want in real world. Real goals have a real cost, the most expensive goal of all is the infinity. The problem is even more complex. TVP does not use personal preferences to assess human benefit, it uses the Capability approach of Manfred Max-Neef and Amartya Sen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtEK1-zjdME As for the infinite human needs dogma...

Hello. The way you speak of is apparently much traveled nowadays, because 99 % of your words sum up my life experience to this day. I'll mark you in my mind for being a kindred soul, another pilgrim. The main problem of this way is, everyone travels it alone and isolated, only the internet brings us together. If I use a story format too, after this phase there may come a light and a fire. A burning ground, so to speak. A fire is ever a symbol of a mind burning with curiosity. This is another kind of danger. I hope our minds are always balanced with feelings.

Here I will introduce my Blind Spot hypothesis. I think it's a good one, because it says none of the people involved are assholes or manipulators. It keeps Stefan's policy to keep the conversation open as long as there is will and legality. I love this attitude on his, never give up on people. I gave the discussions lots of hours of listening, but I did not see any assholes, only well-meaning people, a worthy topic but a basic problem that they failed to recognize. The great question of resource-based economy vs. anarcho-capitalism has not been properly dealt with. Why? Because of a very subtle, deep and critical problem in communication. Stefan is a great thinker and as great thinkers go, they are more determined by their vices than by virtues. Proposal: Stefan has a blind spot about how the world works. (One is reminded of Alan Greenspan's confession before a committee) This blind spot is a fixed idea which he is not able to analyze with such speed and ability as all other areas. Stefan often deals with people damaged by spanking, beating, physical abuse... He said once in his show, this kind of abuse damages brain and so we are less likely to realize that spanking is bad, if our brain is damaged in that area. These words of Stefan's showed me what's wrong. Stefan has a blind spot in his system of thinking, where he is unable to apply his power of uncovering and debunking bullshit that he is used to having in all other areas. Suddenly he goes from a moral and enlightened thinker to a conformist fascist demagogue and back, if the topic is changed. And he does not notice it!!! Neither does half of the bystanders! I believe this is probably the last vestige and holdout of blindness that Stefan has. Peter Joseph and some commenters on Youtube noticed this transformation from doctor Jekyll to mr Hyde. But Peter Joseph did not, could not believe his eyes and ears. Suddenly this intelligent commenter has half of the IQ he had and uses extremely primitive and fallacious cherry-picked arguments that he himself believes are adequate. I was flabberghasted. Peter Joseph is another big thinker and he sure has a big ego. But that's not the problem, the problem is, he did not recognize that Stefan suddenly had hit the blind spot and lost half of his IQ and that they can not have the conversation on the same level as usual. The shared context on which PJ relies so much (vague talk) was gone and they had to go to a much deeper, basic level and explain some very fundamental details of how the world, market and society works. I share context with PJ and I can follow his vague talk, but those who have the anarcho-capitalist blind spot, they can't. Peter Joseph did not believe this was not an intentional tactics of trolling the conversation and he was unable to descend to that basic level, to follow Stefan on Stefan's own terms. Instead, he took it personally as an insult and demagogy on Stefan's side. But if my estimation is correct, this was not an insult. Stefan made his observations about Peter Joseph while in the blind spot. Stefan did not notice that at the time, at this particular topic, when he was in the blind spot, every single thing Stefan said at the time sounded like a brain fart of a flatulent sauerkraut-eating market Nazi. Thus, Joseph's (and my) frustration was to him a mystery, which he later tried to interpret with his usual compassionate social thinking routine, that PJ has this or that personal problem from childhood. (which he does not have) So this is my BLIND SPOT HYPOTHESIS on why Peter Joseph and Stefan Molyneux could not communicate and why are we unable to reconcile the paradigms of anarcho-capitalism and RBE. Please, this is not a slander, this is the best explanation I have come to after months of listening to all topics on Stefan's podcasts. I do not believe that this moral guy with sense of humor and great father is what he appears to be when confronted with that one particular topic. I believe I have found Stefan's Achilles heel. We all have it, somewhere. I also spent even more months studying resource-based economy and I believe once we overcome the blind spot, the common ground will show itself. But this is tricky, because right now the conversation requires to go fluidly from most abstract, advanced philosophical concepts to basics of kindergarten morality and not everyone can do that, certainly not most of proponents of RBE. I've seen some of them fail in conversation with Stefan, Stefan (and anarcho-capitalism) is mostly right and thus not easy to defeat in discussion, if I use such a word. Proponents of RBE are too used to float in lofty heights of post-scarcity social mechanics and resent going down to the impersonal meat grinder of market economy. The same blind spot can be found in most anarcho-capitalists and I believe this is fundamentally the way how do some well-educated thinkers choose their ideology - where their last blind spot lies. I'm not sure, but I think my blind spot lies in the area of everyday dealing with people, as far as I know, my intellectual worldview is... *insert Stefan's fast voice* "...the best thing in the world and totally flawless." Seeing through a blind spot is extremely difficult, we don't see through ours and we project its opposite on others. Which means I get the thankless job of getting accused that I have a blind spot. I'm not sure how to deal with this problem, but I'm going to try some visual means.