• Log in with Facebook Log in with Twitter Log In with Google      Sign In    
  • Create Account
  LongeCity
              Advocacy & Research for Unlimited Lifespans


Adverts help to support the work of this non-profit organisation. To go ad-free join as a Member.


Photo
* * * * - 6 votes

Greatest philosopher of all time


  • Please log in to reply
159 replies to this topic

Poll: Who is the greatest Philosopher? (82 member(s) have cast votes)

Who is the greatest Philosopher?

  1. Aristotle (16 votes [21.62%])

    Percentage of vote: 21.62%

  2. Rene Descartes (1 votes [1.35%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.35%

  3. Epicurus (2 votes [2.70%])

    Percentage of vote: 2.70%

  4. Martin Heidegger (1 votes [1.35%])

    Percentage of vote: 1.35%

  5. Immanuel Kant (4 votes [5.41%])

    Percentage of vote: 5.41%

  6. Karl Marx (9 votes [12.16%])

    Percentage of vote: 12.16%

  7. John Stuart Mill (4 votes [5.41%])

    Percentage of vote: 5.41%

  8. Friedrich Nietzsche (15 votes [20.27%])

    Percentage of vote: 20.27%

  9. Karl Popper (2 votes [2.70%])

    Percentage of vote: 2.70%

  10. Other (below) (20 votes [27.03%])

    Percentage of vote: 27.03%

Vote Guests cannot vote

#121 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 14 April 2010 - 02:35 AM

Alex,

That post had absolutely nothing to do with economics. Actors in a capitalist system or any other system can be compassionate or uncompassionate. Charities being the main example of compassionate behavior in the market.

Most of the world isn't thinking about economics 24/7. You would do well to keep that in mind.



Humbug! Human beings are material creatures - everything we do is based in economics, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

And your "I am you, you are me" nonsense is the perfect pathology of the socialist mental illness toward complete rejection of individuality, free will, and eventually all thought. If only you'd limit your self-destructive madness to just yourselves...

Edited by Alex Libman, 14 April 2010 - 02:37 AM.

  • dislike x 1

#122 medicineman

  • Guest
  • 750 posts
  • 125
  • Location:Kuwait

Posted 14 April 2010 - 03:32 AM

Alex,

That post had absolutely nothing to do with economics. Actors in a capitalist system or any other system can be compassionate or uncompassionate. Charities being the main example of compassionate behavior in the market.

Most of the world isn't thinking about economics 24/7. You would do well to keep that in mind.


Libertarians do ;) Like Muslims and Allah, Christians and Christ, you have libertarians and the market.....

#123 medicineman

  • Guest
  • 750 posts
  • 125
  • Location:Kuwait

Posted 14 April 2010 - 03:38 AM

Alex,

That post had absolutely nothing to do with economics. Actors in a capitalist system or any other system can be compassionate or uncompassionate. Charities being the main example of compassionate behavior in the market.

Most of the world isn't thinking about economics 24/7. You would do well to keep that in mind.



Humbug! Human beings are material creatures - everything we do is based in economics, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

And your "I am you, you are me" nonsense is the perfect pathology of the socialist mental illness toward complete rejection of individuality, free will, and eventually all thought. If only you'd limit your self-destructive madness to just yourselves...


Alex, all you have been doing is throwing insulting jabs, and propagating some messianic idea which makes you think you know better..... you would be better off stating numbers and facts instead. But hey, you gotta earn yours and the tax moochers money, I forgot. Your exempt from facts so ;) you have the green light to resort to libertarian polemic and rhetoric, and we will believe what you say is sacred.

lol this discussion has turned into a joke.... Im out.

sponsored ad

  • Advert

#124 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 14 April 2010 - 04:24 AM

But hey, you gotta earn yours and the tax moochers money, I forgot. Your exempt from facts so ;)


Do I really have to embed government failure death tolls, economic freedom statistics, and a whole pile of Austrian Economics textbooks into every post? The facts are very well documented in my favor, what's missing is your ability to reason and let go of your emotional attachments to socialism. That's why rhetoric is more valuable at this point.


Libertarians do :) Like Muslims and Allah, Christians and Christ, you have libertarians and the market.....


Technically not all libertarians are capitalists, so I avoid the l-word in favor of more descriptive ones. And "like scientists and science" is a better analogy, because we use economics to recognize specific aspects of objective reality. Then we take off our lab coats, go home, and spend all our money on hookers and blow. :)

#125 Forever21

  • Guest
  • 1,919 posts
  • 122

Posted 17 April 2010 - 05:16 AM

5 for Marx? WTF?

Anyway, my greatest philospher of all time is the icon of modern contemporary philosophy.

He once said :

"New pussy always clears your mind" - Chris Rock

Edited by Forever21, 18 April 2010 - 10:38 AM.


#126 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 18 April 2010 - 12:03 AM

I guess I would go with Mill, and Nietzshe the second best, as to me they seem to fit best with transhumanism when combined, but I think this list is somehow flawed, because all of this guys were in some way important, they just thought about totally different things, you cannot compare for example Epicurus and Marx on any possible ground, besides a couple of them don't really go hand in hand with any kind of progresivism, be it left wing, libertarian, or whatever else.

When you think about Aristotle in terms of theory of politics and society, then he would just have to love places run like antebellum South States, or Frankist Spain, Descartes on the other hand can be blamed for the transition of thought concernig animals, which during about two centuries in medieval Europe took the somewhat wacky shape of actually bringing to court and putting to trail for ex a pig accused of murder, but it was nevertheles in my opinion, a drunken one, but a step forward, whereas for Descartes animals were emotionless, painless and disposable and he never really solved the problem that was central to his whole enquiry - how does a non - corporeal soul govern the human body, he just stated that it happens in the pineal gland and that was all.

I think that in some way Karl Marx was the greatest one, but there is a lot of caveats in here, since this always brings up a fight, and I'm just to wasted right now

#127 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 02:52 AM

Marx? Transhumanism?! Have you ever actually read Marx?! He is the very personification of human savagery updated for the 19th century, Attila and Mohammad rolled into one!
  • dislike x 1

#128 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 18 April 2010 - 01:39 PM

Marx? Transhumanism?! Have you ever actually read Marx?! He is the very personification of human savagery updated for the 19th century, Attila and Mohammad rolled into one!


Atilla and Mohammad rolled into one ? dude, this guy was a philosopher, not Ted Bundy

#129 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 06:07 PM

No, I'm sure that Karlusha (a diminutive by which we've called him in the Soviet Union when the ears of the state weren't around) was a lot closer to Ted Bundy than to a philosopher, and especially one that could be compared to his relative contemporaries like Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Frédéric Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, or of course Friedrich Nietzsche. Marx's so-called "philosophy" is nothing but gods (mindless abstractions like the "working class") in the name of which he justified revolutions and a total enslavement of the human race!

#130 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 18 April 2010 - 07:16 PM

No, I'm sure that Karlusha (a diminutive by which we've called him in the Soviet Union when the ears of the state weren't around) was a lot closer to Ted Bundy than to a philosopher, and especially one that could be compared to his relative contemporaries like Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Frédéric Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, or of course Friedrich Nietzsche. Marx's so-called "philosophy" is nothing but gods (mindless abstractions like the "working class") in the name of which he justified revolutions and a total enslavement of the human race!


To me you're just going with this the same route as "Nietzsche was a proto - nazi" type of argumention. If you can state that to Marx the working class was kind of a god, then we can just throw the whole dictionary out the window, because no words have valid meanings anymore. Was "overman" a god to Nietzsche ? Was capitalism a god to Ayn Rand ? I too am of post - socialist country background ( altough I understand that the level of opression was much more severe in USSR ), and at the same time am able not to use philosophers that I might not like as voodoo dolls for my own ideological purposes.

Edited by chris w, 18 April 2010 - 07:22 PM.

  • like x 1

#131 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 08:03 PM

Nietzsche has absolutely nothing to do with National Socialism (Nazism) - one can't be responsible for how one's works are twisted and downright raped outside your control by others! I do consider Nietzsche to be a very flawed philosopher as well as person, but definitely a greater one than Marx; and Nietzsche's best ideas were nonetheless very influential on the better philosophers of the 20th century, inclduing Ayn Rand, who was also flawed and was improved upon by others.

The "working class", the "collective will", or the "will of history" are abstractions that don't exist in of themselves, like Neptune or Zeus don't exist except as constructs created through the belief that they exist. On the other hand the individual does exist (or at least I do, and I can prove it), and the individual wants to exist (or else why is he still alive?), and the individual exists in a universe that can be studied empirically, and that logically leads to a system of epistemology upon which the philosophy of free market capitalism is based.

And:


Edited by Alex Libman, 18 April 2010 - 08:06 PM.


#132 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 18 April 2010 - 08:21 PM

You're right, Nietzsche has absolutely nothing to do with National Socialism, except being used post mortem as an element of opressive state's ideology, so does Marx. You make it sound almost like Karl Marx was there in person, leading charge on the Winter Palace, and later signing death sentences. The difference is that nazis and Hitler himself weren't much into Nietzsche afterall ( Hitler actually preferred to read Shopenhauer, does that make him quilty of taking part in nazism ? ), and his writing style made it a lot harder to addopt him to fit a totalitarian ideology, whereas Soviet leaders read Marx much more thoroughly, and made more exstensive usage of him.

Besides, when you state that your particular views on economy stem from the fact that "individual exists in a universe that can be studied empirically" then you seem like holding your intellectual opponents hostage with a gun in their eyes, because if they disagree with you in that the free market is the best system ever invented, you make them look like a bunch of lunatics claiming that the Earth was flat.

I know anti - leftists eagerly jump on that national - SOCIALISM wagon, but the fact is, that the Third Reich was just as socialist as Jerry Falwell is. The root tenet of nazism was an extreme form of essentialism , and that ideology was definitely not anti - religious, was just anti - christian. Virtually every single social issue that you could think of, in national socialism was dealt with as fanatical conservatives would - they wanted to force each individual to fit a strictly curved matrix and physically get rid of all those "unfittable" in there "by nature". Doesn't really look like San Francisco to me. The obvious fact that the state owned all means of productions like in a socialist one, was simply coming from the logic of a totalitarian regime, that couldn't let itself NOT control the economy, and not because it was anyhow "left - wing".

Edited by chris w, 18 April 2010 - 08:46 PM.


#133 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 09:08 PM

[...] You make it sound almost like Karl Marx was there in person, leading charge on the Winter Palace, and later signing death sentences. [...]


See the above video - I edited it in before I saw your reply. I just don't see how anyone can take Marx seriously and not end up killing millions of people! (And diminishing the quality of life and thus life expectancy for billions more...)

Sure, you can have a peaceful "commune" existing on private property (as opposed to stolen property), where all adults are there by choice and all children are free to be emancipated from there if they so choose, but that idea predates Marx by thousands of years (and it never worked very well). Marx's philosophy is distinguished by one thing - legitimization of aggression / revolution!

I'm not saying that reading Karl Marx should be banned (promoting mass theft and murder is still protected by the Freedom of Speech, just as saying "I'm totally gonna assassinate Obama tomorrow" should be), but when people attempt to actually go through with Marx's ideas then they do inevitably violate the Rights of others (ex. private property) and should thus be resisted, as violently as is necessary to end their aggression. Your Right to be a communist ends where my Right to be a capitalist begins!


Besides, when you state that your particular views on economy stem from the fact that "individual exists in a universe that can be studied empirically" then you seem like holding your intellectual opponents hostage with a gun in their eyes, because if they disagree with you in that free market is the best system ever invented, you make them look like a bunch of lunatics stating that the Earth was flat.


Objective reality does exist, but no capitalist philosopher (not even Ayn Rand on one of her bad days, teehee) has ever claimed that values are universal! Objectivism naturally leads to individualism, because that's how human consciousness exists - in individual brains that can communicate with each-other but are nonetheless integral and capable of individual thoughts, individual actions, and experiencing individual consequences of one's actions. Trying to super-glue a bunch of brains together against their will results in an abomination that is much less than the sum of its parts. Science works better when people have an unlimited freedom to experiment and interpret their results, and that applies to markets, social institutions, and individual "pursuit of happiness" as well.

Just as profit is one's just reward for being right about something, the just punishment for being wrong is to own the negative consequences of your actions (ex. financial loss, bad reputation, etc), just as long as your actions don't affect others against their will. If it makes you happy to believe and proselytize that the earth is flat - fine, it's your Right to do so, just as long as you don't initiate aggression against anyone else to force them to agree or even listen to you, and just as long as you understand that most people will probably want to stay away from you because they'll think you're an idiot.

Of course if someone disagrees that I have a (negative) Right to my life, liberty, and property (as well as contractual rights, parents' rights, etc), and acts to take those things from me, then a gun would indeed be an appropriate instrument to use in that situation.

And the free market wasn't "invented" any more than multiplication or division were "invented". It was discovered.

Edited by Alex Libman, 18 April 2010 - 09:10 PM.


#134 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 09:33 PM

You're still stuck in the false paradigm / dichotomy of left socialism ("liberalism") vs right socialism ("conservativism"). In reality the two are just vague classifications of different flavors of collectivism, and libertarian capitalism rejects them both ideologically (though pragmatic capitalism might find one side more profitable than the other from time to time).


[...] Virtually every single social issue that you could think of, in national socialism was dealt with as fanatical conservatives would [...]


The same could be said of Stalinism, Maoism, etc - a lot of the policies in a collectivist dictatorship are dictated by the pragmatic realities of keeping the state (1) under control and (2) able to compete with other states through manufacturing and warfare. The state religion ("Gott Mit Uns") is needed to accomplish both, unify the masses as well as brainwash the soldiers to march into likely death. Even Stalin quickly saw the benefits of ye olde religion, with heaven 'n all, and re-opened the churches during WW2. Another policy that's often identified as "conservative", the discouragement of homosexuality and other alternative lifestyles, comes from the need to boost the fertility rates - in part for industrial and cannon fodder, and in part because a younger society is inherently easier to brainwash.

#135 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 18 April 2010 - 09:55 PM

[...] You make it sound almost like Karl Marx was there in person, leading charge on the Winter Palace, and later signing death sentences. [...]


See the above video - I edited it in before I saw your reply. I just don't see how anyone can take Marx seriously and not end up killing millions of people! (And diminishing the quality of life and thus life expectancy for billions more...)

Sure, you can have a peaceful "commune" existing on private property (as opposed to stolen property), where all adults are there by choice and all children are free to be emancipated from there if they so choose, but that idea predates Marx by thousands of years (and it never worked very well). Marx's philosophy is distinguished by one thing - legitimization of aggression / revolution!

I'm not saying that reading Karl Marx should be banned (promoting mass theft and murder is still protected by the Freedom of Speech, just as saying "I'm totally gonna assassinate Obama tomorrow" should be), but when people attempt to actually go through with Marx's ideas then they do inevitably violate the Rights of others (ex. private property) and should thus be resisted, as violently as is necessary to end their aggression. Your Right to be a communist ends where my Right to be a capitalist begins!


Besides, when you state that your particular views on economy stem from the fact that "individual exists in a universe that can be studied empirically" then you seem like holding your intellectual opponents hostage with a gun in their eyes, because if they disagree with you in that free market is the best system ever invented, you make them look like a bunch of lunatics stating that the Earth was flat.


Objective reality does exist, but no capitalist philosopher (not even Ayn Rand on one of her bad days, teehee) has ever claimed that values are universal! Objectivism naturally leads to individualism, because that's how human consciousness exists - in individual brains that can communicate with each-other but are nonetheless integral and capable of individual thoughts, individual actions, and experiencing individual consequences of one's actions. Trying to super-glue a bunch of brains together against their will results in an abomination that is much less than the sum of its parts. Science works better when people have an unlimited freedom to experiment and interpret their results, and that applies to markets, social institutions, and individual "pursuit of happiness" as well.

Just as profit is one's just reward for being right about something, the just punishment for being wrong is to own the negative consequences of your actions (ex. financial loss, bad reputation, etc), just as long as your actions don't affect others against their will. If it makes you happy to believe and proselytize that the earth is flat - fine, it's your Right to do so, just as long as you don't initiate aggression against anyone else to force them to agree or even listen to you, and just as long as you understand that most people will probably want to stay away from you because they'll think you're an idiot.

Of course if someone disagrees that I have a (negative) Right to my life, liberty, and property (as well as contractual rights, parents' rights, etc), and acts to take those things from me, then a gun would indeed be an appropriate instrument to use in that situation.

And the free market wasn't "invented" any more than multiplication or division were "invented". It was discovered.


You seem to be forgetting that somewhere along the way things shift from micro to macro scale. In XI century Iceland competition between the yarls might have been beneficial to the Icelanders in general, but the Icelanders didn't have a CEO type economy with milions of virtual dollars going back and forth and numberless interconnections, and the greed of one certain yarl could only ruin his reputation and he would be expelled off the island, but right now it happens so, that actions of particular individuals affect the situation of other individuals, not unoften infringing on their respective rights to pursue happines, by making them for example not being able to live off what they' have been cultivating in their lands for thousands of years, because in a remote area of the world a bold entrepenuer established a venture, that happened to be interested in this exact land and he has the socio - economical tools at his disposal to work in that direction. In libertarian fantasy world one's actions only affect the actor, and grant him reward or punishment, but when you wake up, you realize that certain people happen to become elevated by their personal traits, wheter inherited or gained, or just sheer luck, above the initial condition, where their individual responsibilty becomes irrelevant, as those affected by their actions cannot execute that responsibilty on them. Imagine a person fighting with both his arms and legs and the other person just with legs.
  • like x 1

#136 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 18 April 2010 - 10:59 PM

I don't see medieval Iceland as a good example of Anarcho-Capitalism, which I see as a 21st century idea empowered by an educated populice with rapid access to information, which brings transaction costs way down, in many cases virtually to zero.

Furthermore, Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't mean total absence of anything resembling a government, it means absence of involuntary government - all individuals must have the right to free exit, regional secession, private property secession, privatization of government resources, freedom to homestead the seas and space, etc. Individuals can still choose to form voluntary communes, homeowners' associations, charter cities (Singapore won't have to change much), and so on.
  • dislike x 1

#137 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 19 April 2010 - 12:50 AM

I don't see medieval Iceland as a good example of Anarcho-Capitalism, which I see as a 21st century idea empowered by an educated populice with rapid access to information, which brings transaction costs way down, in many cases virtually to zero.

Furthermore, Anarcho-Capitalism doesn't mean total absence of anything resembling a government, it means absence of involuntary government - all individuals must have the right to free exit, regional secession, private property secession, privatization of government resources, freedom to homestead the seas and space, etc. Individuals can still choose to form voluntary communes, homeowners' associations, charter cities (Singapore won't have to change much), and so on.


Yeah, so basically Anarcho - Capitalism doesn't mean total absence of some kind of government, as long as all possible governments remain loyal to Anarcho - Capitalist credo, so that both are rowing in the same direction, whatever that direction might be. After a while, there is no single way out of the game, if you were not endowded with abilities to play. Sure, individuals may form voluntary "communes of loosers", only that they may be forced to move more and more west like the Indians, untill the land finally runs out of their feet. So I guess they build a rocket out of wood and "homestead the space".

You seem not to have a major problem with a situation resembling NY Nicks picking some random village in The Third World, and chalenging their school basketball team, only that if Nicks win, the kids don't get to eat for a month, whereas if they loose, they just come back to New York a bit ashamed. This is the basic problem I have with libertarianism, that at the end it foresees a world where accidental features like IQ or strenght or the quality of neuron connections become each one's unavoidable destiny.
  • like x 1

#138 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 19 April 2010 - 01:16 AM

You misunderstood completely. The "all possible governments remain loyal to Anarcho-Capitalist credo" line is particularly funny. Anarcho-Capitalism isn't a political system, it is a state of society that emerges naturally when the negative Rights of human beings are recognized in full. You don't need to read a page of Murray Rothbard to live in an Anarcho-Capitalist world, just reject the "divine right" of any government to initiate aggression against you without your consent. "No taxation without representation", that is in logical analysis of that slogan - you can't represent someone's interests against their individual will!

If Monaco and Vatican City can be "sovereign" countries, then why not an equal area of adjacent properties of a bunch of people who all want to secede from their city, state, and country? If the tiny island of Nauru can be "sovereign", then why not an equally populous alliance of seasteaders? You get the idea. The freedom to secede from all other governments (including the "world government" that is gradually being imposed) is all that is necessary - no "libertarian revolution" required. Intergovernmental competition for brains and capital will naturally put a limit on the amount of socialism each government can get away with, and the most successful "Galt's Gulch" societies will have a government so tiny it becomes a mere meaningless formality, so the difference between a government and a homeowners' association will disappear entirely.

Government aggression can put a stop to this, obviously, but no matter how many nuclear warheads they have governments are still constrained by public opinion to some degree, and killing people just for wanting to emigrate is a very difficult thing to rationalize. "The camera is the new gun" - and thanks to the Internet any piece of video streamed live from a $50 camera can be spread to thousands of servers all over the world in seconds!

Why "build a rocket out of wood" yourself when it costs less to buy a ticket -- basic division of labor -- as the price of orbital access will continue to decline, and access to credit will continue to increase. Of course spacesteading is still a couple of generations away, though a plane ride to outside of a tyrannical jurisdiction already costs little enough that all but the poorest 2 billion can save that much in a year. Moving from a tyrannical country to freedom is the best investment one can make, and banks will eventually pick up on this and help finance the migration of people that will become a powerful market force to eliminate all tyranny world-wide!

Edited by Alex Libman, 19 April 2010 - 01:36 AM.

  • dislike x 1

#139 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 19 April 2010 - 01:12 PM

Alex, you seem to be very one - eye blind in this. I can acknowledge all the atrocities ever inflicted by the state throughout history, and at the same time point that, whenever an opportunity presents itself, The Big Corp is by no means better, it only happens sometimes that it still lacks the neccesary tools, but once they are there, the unwashed masses are on their way to being screwed.

JP Morgan's aborted coup d'etat using Smedley Butler in 1930's.
1953 Iran and Central America - CIA basically becoming a thug boy for tycoons fretting about their oil/bananas.
Who was behind the ridicoulous as well as morbid "Three strikes and you're out" in California ? Private prison industry.

And what is going on as we speak in the Niger delta ? Illiterate indigenous people in country whose government is a joke, breathing in toxic air, because they had the "misfortune" of living on a big pile of modern day gold. Sure, they may put on some masks and keep kidnapping minor workers from the platforms, but it's not like they can drive away the Big Oil, can they ? Right now it doesn's matter for the oilers if some of their people are being kidnapped, but only because it doesn't yet paralize the drill, but when it starts - the next Black Water is gonna be there in a matter of week, guarding not only Shell or Texaco, but guarding in fact the oil flow in whole US. The companies will leave only when there isn't anything left to drill out, moving someplace else, like they always do, but the people will be there to stay, looking at dead birds and fish on the shore, asking "What happened?", and the question will fall in void.

I try not to psychologize my oponents, when discussing politics, but sometimes I just cannot help thinking that the libertarian ideology is just a sophisticated justification of the every little boy's dream of riding your private tank in your big, private ranch, that is yours and only yours, and no one will take away the toys. A well thought out veil over the simple, primeval "Because I want to". Of course then you can say, that my statism is just looking for a powerfull father like figure, who will take care of all of us, and we end up fighting over who didn't get enough hugs when young.

As for today, I can see the state as more of a neccessary evil, maybe in a couple of hundred years we will not need it, and maybe not. But even that only after a time of, yes my friend, the world government, which is comming sooner or later, but unlike you, I don't forsee a horror. You are apocaliptic in your philosophy - it's either an omnipotent Moloch, sending the freedom lovin', gun tottin' mavericks to gas chambers, or an objectivist utopia. And you still didn't answer my question - are contingent traits to decide if you starve or not ? To me the one, single reason why not to inflict pain on somebody is that he can feel it, and that also strechtes not to let conciouss beings suffer, if they don't have to. It is a gut feeling, so I will not try to defend it with reason, that would be probably futile if we don't feel the same. And we don't I guess.

Edited by chris w, 19 April 2010 - 01:21 PM.

  • like x 1

#140 Inkstersco

  • Guest
  • 42 posts
  • 5

Posted 19 April 2010 - 03:03 PM

http://www.bbc.co.uk...opher_why.shtml

I have had to cut the shortlist from 20 to 9, please complain if I made the wrong choices.


Why no Billy Connolly?

--Iain

#141 medicineman

  • Guest
  • 750 posts
  • 125
  • Location:Kuwait

Posted 19 April 2010 - 06:03 PM

I have to admire your patience in explaining things, Alex. Let's hope it bears fruit.


I have to admire your patience in explaining things, Chris. Let's hope it bears fruit.

#142 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 20 April 2010 - 02:59 AM

The Big Corp is by no means better [...]


If it initiates aggression, then it is a government and needs to be resisted.


JP Morgan's aborted coup d'etat using Smedley Butler in 1930's.


I have mixed feelings about that coup...


1953 Iran and Central America - CIA basically becoming a thug boy for tycoons fretting about their oil/bananas.


I have mixed feelings about those operations as well - the Soviet influence in the third world was far more sinister and destructive than CIA's...


Who was behind the ridicoulous as well as morbid "Three strikes and you're out" in California ? Private prison industry.


Once again - if it touches government, then it's not really private. What difference does it make whether the government establishes an institution itself or if it outsources this job to independent experts? It's still a government operation, because it is enacted through illegitimate force (i.e. taxes, laws not grounded in Natural Law, etc). An Anarcho-Capitalist justice system would have to be based on victims' Right to Restitution (balanced by the defendant's Right to Emancipation).


And what is going on as we speak in the Niger delta?


Government-enabled violation of individual Property Rights?


I try not to psychologize my oponents, when discussing politics, but sometimes I just cannot help thinking that the libertarian ideology is just a sophisticated justification of the every little boy's dream of riding your private tank in your big, private ranch, that is yours and only yours, and no one will take away the toys.


Those tanks, as well as a private ranch big enough where those tanks can be played with without your neighbors suing you for property endangerment, will cost a lot of money in a capitalist society. Boys with such dreams would have them fulfilled much easier by allying themselves with a government - then you can buy tanks with stolen money and ride them on ranches the size of Czechoslovakia or Afghanistan with near-total impunity! It is socialists who psychologically project their megalomania and control freak delusions of grandeur onto "governments", with devastating results!


A well thought out veil over the simple, primeval "Because I want to".


My Right to do what I want (on my own property, without violating the Rights of others) is worth fighting for - not just for my own sake, and not just for the sake of everyone else's Right to do what they want, but because individual liberty is the essential life-blood of civilization! It is the Right of rational economic actors to fulfill their needs and desires that makes an advanced economy tick, pushes science and technology forward, and keeps the balance of power in check! Take individual liberty away, and the human civilization will be steered by an elite class of professional liars, who in reality will put their grip on power ahead of all other concerns, even if they must revert humanity back to the stone age to do it!


As for today, I can see the state as more of a neccessary evil, maybe in a couple of hundred years we will not need it, and maybe not. But even that only after a time of, yes my friend, the world government, which is comming sooner or later, but unlike you, I don't forsee a horror.


The only reason why totalitarianism failed throughout history was because we didn't have a world government. The American Revolution, for example, was only possible because the colonists could play the English and the French Empires against each-other, and the same could be said about all historical shifts in the direction of liberty. The totalitarian governments of the 20th century failed because they couldn't hide from the fact that freer parts of the world were experiencing better economic and technological growth. Allow free intergovernmental competition, and libertarianism is the natural evolutionary result! Thus they had to put their plans on hold until totalitarianism 2.0 could be implemented - manufacture an "enabling event" (ex. the "global warming" hoax, artificial economic depressions, artificial shortages of natural resources, al-CIAda, etc) and use it as an excuse to impose a world-wide government monopoly from which there can be no escape! And then it will be too late.


And you still didn't answer my question - are contingent traits to decide if you starve or not ?


Perhaps I couldn't answer because you didn't phrase your question coherently enough, but it seems to imply that someone is more likely to "starve" under a capitalist system than a socialist one - a laughable absurdity given the lessons of history that you repeatedly choose to ignore!

#143 chris w

  • Guest
  • 740 posts
  • 261
  • Location:Cracow, Poland

Posted 20 April 2010 - 02:08 PM

The first part of your post is truly spectacular. If a state acts violently, than it proves to you the malicious nature of the state in general, but when a corporation does the same, it magically becomes just another kind of government, so your act is always clean no matter what happens anywhere in the world, as there can be only good corporations, because the bad ones are in fact governments.

It' also nice to know that you have "mixed feelings" about trying to overthrow legally elected government in midst of The Great Depression.

When it comes to economy, I think that "stomachs" are more relevant than "civilizations" needing liberty as " essential life - blood", because economy is about survival and not the ellegance and supposed accordance to "human nature" of a particular theory, that may or may not suit one's philosophical views, be it objectivism or something else.

The region where Medicineman is writing from is a flaming example of extreme laisezz faire at its most beautiful. The Gulf emirates with ground level taxes, total freedom of bussiness and two - class societies divided by light years of distance in well being under any criterion, and it's not like the underdogs are moving up the ladder very, very slowly, because there isn't a freakin' ladder in the first place.

Anyway, I'm off for a week, some parts of it have been an interesting discussion, but believe you me, Alex, no fruits will be bore on either side, take care.

Edited by chris w, 20 April 2010 - 02:25 PM.


#144 Alex Libman

  • Guest
  • 566 posts
  • 0
  • Location:New Jersey, USA

Posted 21 April 2010 - 10:46 PM

The first part of your post is truly spectacular. If a state acts violently, than it proves to you the malicious nature of the state in general, but when a corporation does the same, it magically becomes just another kind of government, so your act is always clean no matter what happens anywhere in the world, as there can be only good corporations, because the bad ones are in fact governments.


Yes, you have to understand the logical definition of "government". Is WalMart a "government"? Is a church? A book club? A family? This forum? Force (institutionalized initiation of aggression) is the deciding factor in identifying whether something is or in not a "government", and force is bad.


It' also nice to know that you have "mixed feelings" about trying to overthrow legally elected government in midst of The Great Depression.


That government created and prolonged the "Great Depression", it clearly wasn't even trying to be consistent with its own religious rituals (i.e. The Constitution), and there was every reason to believe that the alternative government would have been less destructive.

Your concept of a "legal election" is a religious ritual that I don't participate or believe in. You need to understand the anthropological phenomenon of ritualization, which is almost as old as humanity itself. A tribal society might generally recognize that rape is a bad thing, but if the rapist is able to obtain a "magical" chicken feather from the witchdoctor and perform a special "magical" dance in front of his victim then rape becomes a-OK. Voting works exactly the same way. How would you feel if some religious zealot did his "magical" dance and then felt entitled to initiate aggression against you?


When it comes to economy, I think that "stomachs" are more relevant than "civilizations" [...]


Don't you see how the two are related?

#145 Rational Madman

  • Guest
  • 1,295 posts
  • 490
  • Location:District of Columbia

Posted 24 September 2010 - 07:56 AM

After intentionally distancing myself from seeking solace in philosophy, which is a decision that I made years ago after realizing the serious and under-appreciated problem of this endeavor, I surrendered to the impulse of re-reading selected passages of Nietzsche tonight. And much to my surprise, because overlooked flaws and fallacies that overwhelm the merits often make it difficult for philosophy to have any significant resonance, I had one of those affecting moments that others have the fortune of experiencing more frequently. This moment was provoked by his discussion of the concept of "inner law," which certainly isn't an unfamiliar concept, but Nietzsche's prose, insights, and structure of argumentation was able to transcend my layers of armor. So, although I don't like to elevate historical and present day figures above myself---which is a sentiment not stemming from pretentiousness, but maybe better understood by re-reading Nietzsche---I think he is deserving of the status of the most enjoyable philosopher.

Edited by Rol82, 25 September 2010 - 08:42 AM.


#146 Brafarality

  • Guest
  • 684 posts
  • 42
  • Location:New Jersey

Posted 25 September 2010 - 08:50 AM

Immanuel Kant is the highest. Doubtless.
Well, doubt in philosophy?

#147 Ark

  • Guest
  • 1,729 posts
  • 383
  • Location:Beijing China

Posted 12 October 2010 - 02:47 AM

The greatest philosopher of all time is Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.

#148 ChromodynamicGirl

  • Guest
  • 134 posts
  • -87
  • Location:Lake Oswego, Oregon

Posted 12 October 2010 - 05:05 AM

1. Aristotle
2. Wittgenstein
3. Jaakko Hintikka

#149 the thing

  • Guest
  • 20 posts
  • 8
  • Location:Finland

Posted 01 November 2010 - 08:44 PM

1. Wittgenstein
2. Who cares?

#150 EmbraceUnity

  • Guest
  • 1,018 posts
  • 99
  • Location:USA

Posted 01 November 2010 - 11:50 PM

In addition to my other picks, I would include John Dewey




1 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users