81 replies to this topic

[chris w]

Ancient monuments weren't built by free entrepreneurs either last time I checked, quite the opposite even.

Well, monuments generally are not very useful. They're created to glorify someone or something, generally a priest or a king. Civilizations tend to be judged by their monuments, because they last a long time, not because they were useful at all in any way.

True, by themselves they were mostly useless in practice ( though used as observatories in some places ), however their science didn't have much other breeding ground than on such monumental projects devoted to kings/religious purposes, so generally ill purposes. For example the very first piramids were pretty laughable when compared to the last stages of this art, they could only learn that by doing. Babilonian astronomy wouldn't be what it was without the religious lunacy centered on the role of stars and planets.

And even the more useful things like irigatory systems were made and kept going the statist way, because that's just how things worked back then, however wrong that may look today to anti - statists. And pyramids weren't even that blood thirsty to build, don't believe absolutely everything the Bible tells you

Compare Egyptians to Nubians south of them as a more statist ancient culture to a less statist one - whose achievements do we learn of today in schools ?

Edited by chris w, 14 October 2010 - 05:35 PM.

[JLL]

We also learn of the achievements of the Nazis today in schools.

[medicineman]

We also learn of the achievements of the Nazis today in schools.

It would be nice if you actually said something of value rather then throw little rim shots and bricks whenever you find a bit of space. I considered (and still see) your old comments, links, and ideas as an addition to our discussions and a privilege to read, regardless whether we agreed or disagreed. Unfortunately, you have descended to ridiculous one liners and hi five posts with any libertarian who spouts any bit of fashionable nonsense. You have become righteousreason.

Chris, don't bother.. Save your calories for something worthwhile.

Edited by medicineman, 15 October 2010 - 08:59 AM.

[JLL]

Read between the lines, you know you're smart enough to do so.

Compare Egyptians to Nubians south of them as a more statist ancient culture to a less statist one - whose achievements do we learn of today in schools ?

The implication here, quite clearly, is that statist cultures produce more fantastic things than less statist ones and as a result, we learn in schools about statist cultures. My "ridiculous one liner" was meant to show that not all of the things that statist cultures produce are positive, and just because we learn of some things in schools doesn't make them good. We learn a lot about bad things as well, and statist cultures are exceptionally good in producing bad things.

I don't consider the pyramids a good thing, for example. Sure, they make for great photographs, but they were built through the use of force. Similarly, the Nazis undoubtedly made a lot of "achievements", and we learn about them, but they are still shitty achievements.

All the truly fantastic things invented by man are a result of individual creativity. To grant the bureaucrat even a tiny crumb of the respect these individuals deserve is ridiculous. Yes, he can speed progress in certain areas, but *only* through theft and violence, which necessarily means that progress in other areas is hindered. And the end does not justify the means in my mind.

And as for libertarian "nonsense"... it's hardly fashionable, is it?

[medicineman]

Your line wasn't ambiguous, but by saying something such as that, you are implying that, with no evidence, that a state always leads to Nazism. I understand that you do believe some thing resembling such, but it would be appropriate to expand rather then end it at that.

Libertarianism,,,. when has it ever been this cool to be a libertarian?

[niner]

All the truly fantastic things invented by man are a result of individual creativity. To grant the bureaucrat even a tiny crumb of the respect these individuals deserve is ridiculous. Yes, he can speed progress in certain areas, but *only* through theft and violence, which necessarily means that progress in other areas is hindered.

But that individual creativity didn't happen in a vacuum; it wasn't a lone guy in the wilderness, it was a person living in a society. There was a society in which he obtained education and obtains the sustenance needed in order to create. Without the "bureaucrat", the creative guy would be out scavenging for food instead of creating.

[maxwatt]

No 'statist' societies before the Treaty of Westphalia? What was China then? Chopped liver?

Its Western counterpart was ancient Rome. The "Pax Romana" meant a higher living standard for the ten percent of the urban population that weren't slaves, I suppose. The first thing Rome did when they conquered a territory was to build aqueducts to bring potable water to urban centers, which in turn reduced disease. (They would also introduce fiat currency into a territory, and at any sign of rebellion, devalue it: your brass token would no longer buy an ounce of gold, it would be just a brass disk, and the captive city-state's economy would collapse. What's a dollar worth?)

As the central government eventually collapsed what arose was feudalism, and I expect much the same thing would happen now. A case can be made it's already happening, with huge corporations acting the part played by the robber-barons of Europe who later became the German nobility.

I've seem game-theory simulations that lead me to believe a stateless society of individuals mutually enforcing the common good fails when the population exceeds about 400 individuals. If a "bad actor" gathers henchmen and uses force, the remaining citizens can put him down. But in a larger domain a strongman can organize sufficient forces before the outraged freemen are able to match him, and they are overwhelmed. I would have thought it was the other way around, enough individuals could overwhelm the "bad apple" but size prevents a rapid mobilization response once the "robber baron" has organized his army. So "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is only a science-fiction dystopia, after all.

[medicineman]

No 'statist' societies before the Treaty of Westphalia? What was China then? Chopped liver?

Its Western counterpart was ancient Rome. The "Pax Romana" meant a higher living standard for the ten percent of the urban population that weren't slaves, I suppose. The first thing Rome did when they conquered a territory was to build aqueducts to bring potable water to urban centers, which in turn reduced disease. (They would also introduce fiat currency into a territory, and at any sign of rebellion, devalue it: your brass token would no longer buy an ounce of gold, it would be just a brass disk, and the captive city-state's economy would collapse. What's a dollar worth?)

As the central government eventually collapsed what arose was feudalism, and I expect much the same thing would happen now. A case can be made it's already happening, with huge corporations acting the part played by the robber-barons of Europe who later became the German nobility.

I've seem game-theory simulations that lead me to believe a stateless society of individuals mutually enforcing the common good fails when the population exceeds about 400 individuals. If a "bad actor" gathers henchmen and uses force, the remaining citizens can put him down. But in a larger domain a strongman can organize sufficient forces before the outraged freemen are able to match him, and they are overwhelmed. I would have thought it was the other way around, enough individuals could overwhelm the "bad apple" but size prevents a rapid mobilization response once the "robber baron" has organized his army. So "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" is only a science-fiction dystopia, after all.

Reading your posts have been quite a pleasure. I have learned a lot from you and a few other lads in here.

Very interesting.....

[maxwatt]

[JLL]

All the truly fantastic things invented by man are a result of individual creativity. To grant the bureaucrat even a tiny crumb of the respect these individuals deserve is ridiculous. Yes, he can speed progress in certain areas, but *only* through theft and violence, which necessarily means that progress in other areas is hindered.

But that individual creativity didn't happen in a vacuum; it wasn't a lone guy in the wilderness, it was a person living in a society. There was a society in which he obtained education and obtains the sustenance needed in order to create. Without the "bureaucrat", the creative guy would be out scavenging for food instead of creating.

Nonsense. Societies can and have existed without a government; a government does not create a society. A government is simply a coercive monopoly over certain services of a society.

What you really want to say is that without a society, the creative guy would be out scavenging for foor instead of creating -- which is true.

[JLL]

Your line wasn't ambiguous, but by saying something such as that, you are implying that, with no evidence, that a state always leads to Nazism. I understand that you do believe some thing resembling such, but it would be appropriate to expand rather then end it at that.

Libertarianism,,,. when has it ever been this cool to be a libertarian?

Well I'll admit I don't know what the zeitgeist is in Kuwait, but I can tell you it's not cool to be a libertarian in Finland. In fact, it's very anti-cool.

But it was probably coolest being a libertarian when the United States came into being.

[chris w]

Read between the lines, you know you're smart enough to do so.

Compare Egyptians to Nubians south of them as a more statist ancient culture to a less statist one - whose achievements do we learn of today in schools ?

The implication here, quite clearly, is that statist cultures produce more fantastic things than less statist ones and as a result, we learn in schools about statist cultures. My "ridiculous one liner" was meant to show that not all of the things that statist cultures produce are positive, and just because we learn of some things in schools doesn't make them good. We learn a lot about bad things as well, and statist cultures are exceptionally good in producing bad things.

I don't consider the pyramids a good thing, for example. Sure, they make for great photographs, but they were built through the use of force. Similarly, the Nazis undoubtedly made a lot of "achievements", and we learn about them, but they are still shitty achievements.

No, what I was trying to show is that it's not as simple as libertarians like to portrait - you switch personal freedom "on" = progress, you switch it "off" = nothing good can ever happen, and that this works always in the same way, because there are some supposed natural Rights akin to 2+2 gives 4, governing this.

You cannot, when considering the ancient times, underestimate the role of state directed projects in civilizational development, that's all, I didn't mean that every statist culture at every time in history produces fantastic things, but simply something like "science" was born in the womb of despotic kingdoms, not for example hunter gatherer tribes, that I assume you would consider more free than the former ( even though they're sort of egalitarian pre-commies, they just don't need to make laws about it).



I don't get it, if something is useful today, how is it a shitty achievement because the discovery's circumstances were not righteous ? If I remember, Nazi doctors were actually the first to consistently uphold a link between smoking and cancer, is that knowledge somehow morally stained because they were Nazi doctors ?
Or was the post war development of rocket science shitty, because it was them who had particular achievements in that earlier and Verner von Braun got "paperclipped" by US ? You say that you don't think that ends justify the means, but you seem to argue OTOH that there needs to be a relation of righteousness between the "source" of an achievement and itself, otherwise it's somehow illegit.



PS On issue of libertarian coolness - If you ever get tired, hop over Baltic to live here, guarantee you will never feel the odd one. I have a feeling that libertarianism is the dish of the day for A LOT of young people with any kind of political views in Poland, some post comunist backlash I guess.
I'm grateful they're not that crazy about voting

Edited by chris w, 16 October 2010 - 07:01 PM.

[chris w]

Anyway guys, we should have some Obama content now and then to keep the appearences of the thread.

You cannot say he's not trying, look what's happenening to the guy, no one told him it's going to be THAT hard and now it's like a snow blitzkrieg up there !






OR ... He's just faking it to seem more mature and noble, that cunning neo marxist fox Hussein.

[niner]

All the truly fantastic things invented by man are a result of individual creativity. To grant the bureaucrat even a tiny crumb of the respect these individuals deserve is ridiculous. Yes, he can speed progress in certain areas, but *only* through theft and violence, which necessarily means that progress in other areas is hindered.

But that individual creativity didn't happen in a vacuum; it wasn't a lone guy in the wilderness, it was a person living in a society. There was a society in which he obtained education and obtains the sustenance needed in order to create. Without the "bureaucrat", the creative guy would be out scavenging for food instead of creating.

Nonsense. Societies can and have existed without a government; a government does not create a society. A government is simply a coercive monopoly over certain services of a society.

What you really want to say is that without a society, the creative guy would be out scavenging for foor instead of creating -- which is true.

Ok, this is making some sense. But when does it stop being a "government" and start being just a society? How does the society deal with shared problems, and how do they keep individuals from harming others? How do investments with distant payoffs, like biomedical research, education, and high-risk R&D get done? I'm not claiming these things would be impossible in a stateless society, I'm just wondering how it would work.

[JLL]

Ok, this is making some sense. But when does it stop being a "government" and start being just a society?

I would say that once there are no taxes and no forced monopoly over any business (not even law and security services), it stops being a government. Obviously, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where the government just keeps cutting off its own tendrils until nothing is left. Rather, my guess is that (permanent or temporary) stateless societies could come into being today in the form of seasteading or gatherings of people in places like the Burning Man festival.

How does the society deal with shared problems, and how do they keep individuals from harming others? How do investments with distant payoffs, like biomedical research, education, and high-risk R&D get done? I'm not claiming these things would be impossible in a stateless society, I'm just wondering how it would work.

A lot of questions there... each of them deserves a full essay. There's some relevant answers at Free-Market Alternatives to the State (or at least they should provoke new questions).

[JLL]

Anyway guys, we should have some Obama content now and then to keep the appearences of the thread.

You cannot say he's not trying, look what's happenening to the guy, no one told him it's going to be THAT hard and now it's like a snow blitzkrieg up there !

OR ... He's just faking it to seem more mature and noble, that cunning neo marxist fox Hussein.

It's all that corporate whoring and sleepless nights spent wallowing in the depths of a guilty conscience!

[JLL]

No, what I was trying to show is that it's not as simple as libertarians like to portrait - you switch personal freedom "on" = progress, you switch it "off" = nothing good can ever happen, and that this works always in the same way, because there are some supposed natural Rights akin to 2+2 gives 4, governing this.

You're right, but that's not what I'm saying. It's not an on/off switch. But what I claim is that progress is a function where one variable is government regulation, and that variable negatively affects progress. And given any other variables that are affected positively by regulations, the end result is still that we're worse off when government tries to "fix" things.

All regulations have negative consequences, if not in the short term, then in the long term. Printing money, minimum wage laws, child labor laws, socialized medicine, everything.

You cannot, when considering the ancient times, underestimate the role of state directed projects in civilizational development, that's all, I didn't mean that every statist culture at every time in history produces fantastic things, but simply something like "science" was born in the womb of despotic kingdoms, not for example hunter gatherer tribes, that I assume you would consider more free than the former ( even though they're sort of egalitarian pre-commies, they just don't need to make laws about it).

I don't underestimate them, but like I said, we don't really have a comparison. So we can't say that "without kings and queens in Eqypt, there would have been no progress". All we see are the pyramids, which indeed would probably have been impossible without the state. You don't often hear what taxation did to the Egyptians, for example.

I don't get it, if something is useful today, how is it a shitty achievement because the discovery's circumstances were not righteous ? If I remember, Nazi doctors were actually the first to consistently uphold a link between smoking and cancer, is that knowledge somehow morally stained because they were Nazi doctors ?

No, the knowledge already gained is not in the realm of morality. But the fact that you can learn something about human anatomy by stabbing someone does not make it right.

PS On issue of libertarian coolness - If you ever get tired, hop over Baltic to live here, guarantee you will never feel the odd one. I have a feeling that libertarianism is the dish of the day for A LOT of young people with any kind of political views in Poland, some post comunist backlash I guess.
I'm grateful they're not that crazy about voting

Interesting, thanks for sharing. Have you read the Sovereign Man blog? He has a few posts on Poland and he seems to agree with you.

[EmbraceUnity]

Ok, this is making some sense. But when does it stop being a "government" and start being just a society? How does the society deal with shared problems, and how do they keep individuals from harming others? How do investments with distant payoffs, like biomedical research, education, and high-risk R&D get done? I'm not claiming these things would be impossible in a stateless society, I'm just wondering how it would work.

In truth, the answer is "slowly" or "not at all" and that is an acceptable trade-off for those with an ideological sympathy with egoism or a fixation on libertarian deontological ethics like the NAP.

I will say non-governmental and non-corporate organizational models are gaining traction since decentralized communication is easier. This will make a lot of these debates moot in an increasingly large portion of society. Though the process will take many decades.... as usual the effects will be overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term.

As far as biomedical stuff goes, I do recommend you check out this as a model for how it could function.

http://www.kickstart...h-the-community

These guys used completely crowd-sourced funding and will become a member-owned community biotech lab with an emphasis on open source tools and data. In fact, they invented a couple of the first open source biotech tools, like the OpenPCR.

[Elus]

All the truly fantastic things invented by man are a result of individual creativity.

You've really mastered the art of making sweeping generalizations. Bravo, good sir.

Making statements like these makes it easy for others to poke holes in what you've said. For instance, education programs lead by the government, which required children to go to school, lead to the creativity and remarkable innovations we see in the world today. To say that government had no role in mankind's technology and scientific achievements is simply untrue. The are hundreds of examples of government programs and bureaucracy that helped create the FDA (Safe to eat food, anyone?), and other organizations which make everyday life run smoothly for everyone, including those brilliant individuals and scientists who help to advance our civilization.

Sure, government and bureaucracy have their negative sides, but this issue is far more complex and nuanced than you are willing to admit, as shown by my above examples. Government will forever be loved and hated for the limitations and benefits it provides its citizens. Regardless, government has shaped our society in both positive and negative ways, and rather than outright denouncing government, you could try to help shape it into something that's less flawed than the system we have at the moment.

[Rational Madman]

Personally, I'm nostalgic for our days as a confederacy, a golden era of economic tumult, human misery, pervasive social instability, an impotent federal government, and when we were at the mercy of great powers. Let freedom reign.

Edited by Rol82, 19 October 2010 - 01:24 PM.

[maxwatt]

Personally, I'm nostalgic for our days as a confederacy, a golden era of economic tumult, human misery, state supremacy, pervasive social instability, an impotent federal government, and when we at the mercy of great powers. Let freedom reign.

Ding dong. Yes, government is evil. Hobbes in The Leviathan famously described the life of man in the libertarian ideal of a stateless society as: "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Bring it, baby.

[Solarclimax]

I can't tell if this is a joke, or if you're fishing for people on here to disagree with what you've so eloquently written. It's truly sickening that anyone can even think this way. All this time I thought is was just the inbred bible thumpers who were supposed to be the ones with Stockholm syndrome. Get over it man, Obama is a failure in every regard. Americans don't need a lollipop and a pat on the head, they need radical reform.

You're wasting your time, these dummies aren't going to listen to anything that doesn't come from fox news or some other brainwashing media channel.

If 1958 predictions isn't evidence enough that you clowns are being led like lambs to the slaughter then good look to you.


BTW 9/11 was CLEARLY not carried out the way your great presidents of both today and yesterday told you.
As can clearly be seen here.

Edited by Solarclimax, 20 October 2010 - 08:56 AM.