Greetings to you all!

[DaedalusDan]

Greetings to you all, I am DaedalusDan, an Austro-Libertarian engineering student at Purdue, and I'm glad to be here. I've seen some of Stefan's videos on YouTube, and generally agree with what he has said. I'm a  member of YAL, and, I admit, I'm really a Minarchist. Don't beat me up too much for that.

 

In terms of religion I was raised Jewish, but I grew to realize that it didn't seem to work with reality. As such, I abandoned conventional religion. I'm not an Atheist, I'm afraid, I'm an Agnosto-Deist.

 

I'm here because I'd like to find out more. To be perfectly honest, people with my views are rare to find in my life, and as such I don't tend to talk about them very much except for with YAL members and my parents and brother, who are also Libertarians.

 

I know that our education system is fundamentally flawed, but the fact of the matter is that I am very passionate about the (intensely technical) field that I'm studying (Biological Engineering) and I am willing to continue my tenure at my university to learn more and become equipped with the knowledge I need to become an expert. It is a field that I believe I can use to help the entire world, and if there's anyone I want to emulate in this respect it is Norman Borlaug. Oh, and don't worry about me being saddled with student debt, I don't have any student loans.

 

Anyway, if you have any questions or comments, go ahead!

[Guest NateC]

Hello, DaedalusDan.

 

Why are you a minarchist?  Why are you an agnosto-deist?

[Wesley]

I've seen some of Stefan's videos on YouTube, and generally agree with what he has said. I'm a  member of YAL, and, I admit, I'm really a Minarchist. Don't beat me up too much for that.

 

In terms of religion I was raised Jewish, but I grew to realize that it didn't seem to work with reality. As such, I abandoned conventional religion. I'm not an Atheist, I'm afraid, I'm an Agnosto-Deist.

You better watch your back around here. I know that they talk a good game about rational ideas, but these people really like to beat up people who have different opinions. Asking questions or disagreeing of any kind is strongly discouraged behavior. Beating you up is not the first stage. It starts with veiled threats, but watch your back! <- (Thats the Agnosto-Deist Devil which may have existed at creation, but it is unknown whether it still exists)

 

After all, the doctrine is true and there is no room for questioning the shiny forehead.

 

 

Now being serious, you don't need to worry about having different idea. The goal is not for you to accept the conclusions. Rather, the idea is to accept reason, logic, and evidence. If everyone is being honest and asking questions and using rational standards of measure, then there is no problem. Being a minarchist or an agnoto-deist only invites questions, counter-evidence, discussion, and logic.

 

You should not be ashamed of propositions, but rather sharing them so we can find out what is true. If I am mistaken, I would very much enjoy and appreciate the correction. I look forward to your response to Nate's questions and the start of some interesting discussion.

[DaedalusDan]

Hello, DaedalusDan.

 

Why are you a minarchist?  Why are you an agnosto-deist?

 

I don't particularly want to get involved in a debate at this time, but I will state the reasons for my position.

 

For the first, the fundamental question is why I am not an anarcho-captialist. This is a fair question. I share Mises' perspective for the most part, and my views' relation to anarchism can best be summed up by this portion of an interview with Hans Herman Hoppe about Mises' perspective, from mises.org:

 

"AEN: Was Mises better than the classical liberals on the question of the state? 

HOPPE: Mises thought it was necessary to have an institution that suppresses those people who cannot behave appropriately in society, people who are a danger because they steal and murder. He calls this institution government. 

But he has a unique idea of how government should work. To check its power, every group and every individual, if possible, must have the right to secede from the territory of the state. He called this the right of self determination, not of nations as the League of Nations said, but of villages, districts, and groups of any size. In Liberalism and Nation, State, and Economy, he elevates secession to a central principle of classical liberalism. If it were possible to grant this right of self-determination to every individual person, he says, it would have to be done. Thus the democratic state becomes, for Mises, a voluntary organization. 

AEN: Yet you have been a strong critic of democracy. 

HOPPE: Yes, as that term is usually understood. But under Mises's unique definition of democracy, the term means self rule or self government in its most literal sense. All organizations in society, including government, should be the result of voluntary interactions. 

In a sense you can say that Mises was a near anarchist. If he stopped short of affirming the right of individual secession, it was only because of what he regarded as technical grounds. In modern democracy, we exalt the method of majority rule as the means of electing the rulers of a compulsory monopoly of taxation. 

Mises frequently made an analogy between voting and the marketplace. But he was quite aware that voting in the marketplace means voting with your own property. The weight of your vote is in accord with your value productivity. In the political arena, you do not vote with your property; you vote concerning the property of everyone, including your own. People do not have votes according to their value productivity. 

AEN: Yet Mises attacks anarchism in no uncertain terms. 

HOPPE: His targets here are left-utopians. He attacks their theory that man is good enough not to need an organized defense against the enemies of civilization. But this is not what the private-property anarchist believes. Of course, murderers and thieves exist. There needs to be an institution that keeps these people at bay. Mises calls this institution government, while people who want no state at all point out that all essential defensive services can be better performed by firms in the market. We can call these firms government if we want to. "

 

As for agnosto-deism, though, it is simply that I do not believe that we currently possess the knowledge to indicate with certainty whether or not there is some sort of deity. However, if one does exist, it is my perspective that, as deism would ascribe, it is not an interventionist being, for much the same reason that people don't take an active role in the everyday affairs of dust mites... unless they're allergic, in which case they wish to destroy them. This sort of point of view, thus, is often referred to as Apathetic Agnosticism.

 

I believe that this quote from Thomas Henry Huxley clearly gets across the reason I am an agnostic:

 

"When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure they had attained a certain "gnosis," — had, more or less successfully, solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble."

 

I hope that answers your questions, Nate.

 

And I apologize, there is no TL;DR version.

[Guest NateC]

Your post was not too long, and thanks for indulging my questions.

 

I have thoughts to share, but since this may be considered your thread and you don't yet wish to debate...I'll end with, Welcome to the forum

[Duderio]

goodbye