Hobbes (Thomas)

[gwho]

I've recently run into people who follow the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. I hadn't heard of him, but they are like, the ultra statists, who have a particular penchant for demonizing libertarians/anarchists.The level of misunderstanding they have of the evidence, history, and track record of governments, along with their starkly diametrically opposed approach to things that I have is just so bewildering and astonishing. I had a lot of hope of how clarifying and sobering, and just logically comfortable the way Stefan approaches things, but once I ran into these Hobbesians, I became so discouraged. Like, as strong as we believe in logic and peace, there are those who so strongly believe in the state as a "place for people to come together" and the only method for protecting against criminals, and just the delusional, delusional track record of the government, and just... so much misattribution, and so muchdelusional fact-twisting. It made me think that people stick to waht they want, for all the emotional reasons Stefan mentions in his podcasts. You do go for the redeemable ones, and use your time effectively. I suppose it might help me if i looked at it with true statistics, just as I told the Hobbesians to look at a holistic view of the fruits of government.Anyway, this is partially my reflections of my encounter with Hobbesians, and my open invitation for discussing the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes as far as the an-caps are concerned. I'm not about to devote a ton of time reading books on Hobbes, but if someone is familiar already, I'd really appreciate distilled points that come down to the most fundamental level as possible (for example, NAP, empiricism vs mysticism, etc), and i'm sure it will be beneficial for the rest of us an-caps when we encounter, what seems to me as the absolutely possibly most opposite camp... possible. 

[Zimobog]

Hobbes is the source for several anti-libertarian ideas still circulated among statists today. Social contract and the natural state of mankind being violence and chaos are two. Grab up some cliff notes for Leviathan to get the gist of it.

[ribuck]

... as strong as we believe in logic and peace, there are those who so strongly believe in the state as a "place for people to come together" and the only method for protecting against criminals ... 

 

Don't be discouraged.

 

Deep down, there's not such a big gap between Voluntaryists and Hobbesians. They both want a better life for themselves and their friends and families. It's just that the Hobbesians haven't yet worked out that their ideas entail more disadvantages and contradictions than those of the Voluntaryists.

 

Just as communism had its decades in the sun and failed, so will socialism, and so in turn will the ideas of Hobbes.

[LovePrevails]

Beautiful writer, terrible views!

 

Hobbes was traumatized by the English Civil War which happened during his life time and projected his fears onto the world, believing an all powerful ruler was the best way of preventing England (or any country) from falling into "anarchy" again.

[gwho]

All of my attempts to explain that the facts and views they held about the effects and fruits of government were dismissed.

All explanations and walkthroughs of incentives for each player's incentives and allusion to game theory were ignored.

I find facts to be king, and logic as the guiding light. Game theory / incentives is just so huge in explaining actions, but I'm not sure most people understand, appreciate, or put as much stock into game theory and incentives. I can see the incnetives in just about every disastrous social phenomenon, and how to balance/adjust them in order to bring about a systematic, stable equilibrium, keeping feedback dynamics in mind. I don't know if it's difficult for most people to think this way, or something else.

i got through the first two pages of the sparknotes summary and i've found so many incorrect, and dangerous bad premises. It's quite scary.


http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/leviathan/terms.html

First Principles  -  The fundamental and irreducible facts of nature that are established by philosophical definition and upon which philosophical arguments may be built. According to Hobbes, first principles are not discovered by observation or experiment but are decided by philosophical debate and social consent.


holy fk. how do you talk to someone who believes that? well, i suppose you do it by showing observation contradicting an idea, and making them choose between observation vs social consent/debate. But this is so fundamentally blatantly wrong, that it blows my mind how people can just accept that. I really wonder if they accept it out of post-ex-facto justification of the conclusions of Hobbes...


"The state of nature is the "war of every man against every man," in which people constantly seek to destroy one another."

Cherry picking fallacy, obviously. people cooperate for mutual benefit, even in primal, low tech environments, still want love, still want to be happy and have good times with friends and family.

The other day, a Hobbesian alluded to the fact that we have internet, but people use it for porn and twitter... implying that people are irresponsible, immature, and unrelaible to take care of things, and that the state was necessary. SO many things wrong with that. First, it's a cherry picking fallacy. People use it for business, improve efficiency, and it allows hard working small entrepreneurs like 17 year old high schoolers to become millionaires. Twitter is also a means for marketing, so it serve as a capital and consumer good/platform, which addresses the implied notion that its not productive or hedonistic. And even if what this guy said about human nature was true, who the fk is to say that the benevolent, wise people will be in charge of the state? game theory shows that sociopaths and the ones willing to use violence, and the ones that can't provide others value are the ones that go to the state. The honest side of me wants to believe they simply haven't been exposed to such lines of thought and concepts of game theory, the strength of incentives in determining overall behavior outcomes over a distribution... but the other side of me is thinking,.... i've just presented you with evidence and theory that are consistent with each other, accurately reflects reality, is useful for predicting the future in such scenarios... and how the hell can you just accept a shoddy, loosely developed fiat statements out of nowhere? Of course this is compounded even further by the emotional and pride ties. I've been trying to keep back my stings, and it can be hard. Sometimes, my honest reaction is just "that is incredibly stupid, and willfully ignorant" which of course comes off as abrasive.

oh boy, I don't think i need to quote any more from hobbes cliffnotes.

[National Acrobat]

You should just read Leviathan. It's one of the classics of political theory and will only make you more well read. 

 

Ironically enough Hobbes' argument is one of the first game theoretic type arguments ever made in modern PT (with such recognizable concepts as backward induction, non-credible threat and information asymmetries) and is praised for, if nothing else, its logical consistency. Your criticisms come off as someone ignorant of the actual argument Hobbes made. 

[gwho]

You should just read Leviathan. It's one of the classics of political theory and will only make you more well read. 

 

yea, but spending time studying coding will make me a better coder. spending time learning cooking will make me a better cook. opportunity cost.

 

Ironically enough Hobbes' argument is one of the first game theoretic type arguments ever made in modern PT (with such recognizable concepts as backward induction, non-credible threat and information asymmetries) and is praised for, if nothing else, its logical consistency. Your criticisms come off as someone ignorant of the actual argument Hobbes made. 

I fully admitted I'm not familiar with his work. That's why i inquired about them. I'm going by the arguments of what Hobbesians have explained, and the cliffnotes of Leviathan now. And I may be entirely missing what Hobbes himself actually is saying by doing that. But i'm not about to invest a shit ton of time on something I don't perceive to get me closer to the truth. I still see huge glaring leaps of logic and empirical falsehoods in the first few pages. It would be easy for you to capitalize on my admission of ignorance on this point and just be like "yeah, see, so go read it, and don't talk until you do", rather htan summarizing any of the points here yourself, and correcting my strawman if i am strawmaning (you certainly think I am, so you should have a specific example in mind). I'd really appreciate if you did post here, specifically. You sound like a proponent. I'd love to hear some of the points... instead of just calling me ignorant for what I already fully admitted, I don't appreciate it, and to be honest, the rest of your post seems quite empty of any solid argument, and smells rather.... not emotionally honest. Again, I may be wrong. But I'm not getting a constructive vibe from you, based on the reasoning i've laid out here, of your comments.That being said, If he claims something as grand as "the natural state of mankind is war", but that proposition is has a fallacy or falsehood in its argumentation, then it really doesn't matter whether his work is the first logically rigorous examination, or how much it's praised, does it? There is no sacred cow with logic. What's incorrect is incorrect,no matter the success rate, reputation, track record, or praise, or prevalence, or acclaim of its champion or completely different points that happen to exist in the same book by the same author.I'm welcome to discussing them. If you have a certain point in mind, i'd actually love to hear. The best would be a certain point and syllogism of Hobbes you're familiar with, that you think is tight, and contradicts some of the things I said I think Hobbes is wrong about. Some topics would be the natural state of man being war, or that government has reduced violence, is an overall benefit to society than not existing, or that government is the the best thing we have so far (this last one may be the opinion of a general Hobbesian follower, rather than Thomas Hobbes himself.) 

When I understand something, or have an objection to a point someone raised, I can usually verbalize and specify somewhat succinctly what and why i find it problematic. sometimes I can't do it right away. Sometimes my mind is blown rather far that I haven't understood it. Sometimes i'll get a feeling that something is awry, but can't put my finger on it. But really, if you understand it to a level enough to be pretty confident in something to claim you know it, or that it has truth value, then you should be able to verbalize it.I may be projecting, but I think not being able to do so is just lazy on the part of that person..